

Why is Qatar investing so much in education? - tokenadult
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18151511

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diminish
An Arab friend once told; all those pseudo-oil-kingdoms-with-small-populations
(from Brunei till Qatar) are created by colonial powers of 20th century around
the oil fields to save the oil revenues from a larger population benefiting
and controlling them. Those sultanates usually play the happy-sultan-
cherishes-its-people-wow! game recently. But if you look around them, they are
cut-off from poorer countries with larger populations.

I am skeptical of those oasis of happiness in the middle of a desert full of
desperadoes.

~~~
netcan
In a sense this their continued existence is a testament to the post UN
conquest-is-illegal world order. It's not as clean as that (the US has a
substantial military presence in Bahrain, for example), but still.It would be
hard to imagine such weak, rich, independent patches of land remaining that
way for long in any other period.

For now though they seem to be comfortably clustered. Out of all these mini
states though, only Kuwait borders a poorer more powerful state (it was
invaded in the 90s and was repelled by the US/UN).

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siculars
Hate to bring hateraid to the party but I hope that education includes
tolerance of others like women, foreigners, those with other religions
beliefs, etc.

Start with augmentiing the culture to include women in positions of power.

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why-el
Education will _lead_ to those things, certainly. And given its relatively
short history (Independence in 71), I think Qatar is doing a remarkable job. A
Moroccan friend of mine went to a WISE conference to present her education
project (Something like TeachforAmerica) and got a lot of help. Things like
this were unimaginable just a decade ago. The urge to change is genuine.

~~~
diminish
I wonder, if they genuinely teach evolution & science or critical thinking, or
the scientific method or omit most part of the modern science and focus on
tech in the name of sultan?

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6ren
Interesting point. "Education" can be propaganda. It can also focus on
specific technical skills (e.g. the three R's). Does it necessarily lead to
tolerance?

I think education that enables people to _create_ new skills - to explore,
test, discover - necessarily encourages a questioning mindset (I wonder why
it's like this... is there a better way?); an appreciation of diverse
perspectives (an outside insight can lead to the solution); humility (noticing
that you don't know). All these may lead to tolerance. Though, it's easy for
even the best of us to lose sight of these.

You can avoid this by teaching only specific technical skills - but this means
you are dependent on others doing the creating. Mind you, this area of the
world (the fertile crescent) was first with the fundamental new skills
underlying civilization.

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zerostar07
Smart way for the west to get back the oil money they 've paid. These
investments are impressive, but like dubai and abu dhabi and other gulf
countries, they are built on rather bizarre premises. The native population,
no matter how educated does not have the strongest work ethics (due to being
rich and having many things for free), and immigrants, who are invariably the
majority of the population, are not exactly welcome to stay there.

It's one thing paying your way to magnificent skyscrapers, but education is
arts and sciences, not buildings and expensive professors.

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capex
The real surprise is the world education rankings of 2011, where students from
Qatar ranked ahead of Finland and others. The reform started in 2004, and the
results have been amazing.

The major change brought about by Qatar is funding and retaining great
teachers (Finland does this too). What would it take for you to leave your
professional career and teach in a primary or secondary school for a few
years?

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yardie
Why? Because currently it's cheap and relatively easy. Qatar is a small, rich
and young (relatively) country. For now it's easy to fund education because
government income is relatively high compared to expenses.

Eventually those new paved highways will need to be refurbished, bridges and
tunnels will need to be rebuilt, the population will get older and require
more medical coverage. And private insurance will do their damnedest to make
sure those old fogies are offloaded to the state. And the oil will run out.
And once that happens the government will run on it's sovereign investment
funds for a while.

I've seen this in my own state, Florida. With 500 people per day moving in the
government was flush with cash earmarked for education. Then the building
permits stopped; class size went up, field trips and extracurricular
activities went down. Now teachers are being given more responsibility (as
pseudoparents) and less pay you get plenty leaving (the young ones) or waiting
it out until the retirement (the older ones). It's been a downward spiral ever
since.

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hexagonal

      The government uses Sunni law as the basis of its criminal and civil 
      regulations. Some religious tolerance is granted. Foreign nationals are free 
      to affiliate with their faiths other than Islam, e.g. Christianity, Hinduism, 
      Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism and Bahai, as long as they are religious in private 
      and do not offend 'public order' or 'morality'.
      
      In March 2008, a Roman Catholic church, Our Lady of the Rosary, was 
      consecrated in Doha. No missionaries were allowed in the community. The church 
      will have no bells, crosses or other Christian symbols on it and its premises.
    

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar#Government_and_politics>

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mindstab
And did you miss the protests NYC and America at large threw when an Islamic
mosque was proposed near WTC? Not exactly the bastion on openness and
religious equality either :/

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mathattack
Sounds like a good attempt at getting around the curse of natural resources.

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Apocryphon
Sounds great, hopefully Qatar is more careful with its wealth than Dubai has
been in recent years.

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ecspike
Answer: Because Qatar is more forward thinking than the US.

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duaneb
Yea, it's not like people flock from all over the world to get a tertiary
education in the US.

But seriously, a tiny country with an absolute monarchy can change much faster
than a country with massive, formalized bureaucracy/checks and balances. This
can be good and bad.

~~~
netcan
An absolute monarchy with near absolute control over the main (and large)
source of income.

This is something you need to really take a second to let sink in. The King
(or prince) can decree, fund and away it goes. Billion dollar universities,
palm shaped islands, pyramids. Just to put it into perspective, the current
King took over the country when his Dad was overseas in the 90s.

