Challenges and Reforms in Gulf Higher Education: Confronting the COVID-19 Pandemic and Assessing Future Implications (Educational Policy and Leadership in the Middle East and North Africa)

This edited volume explores the educational reforms and challenges in higher education in the Gulf countries during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Featuring a truly global spread of contributors and perspectives from countries such as Bahrain, India, Georgia, Malaysia, Oman, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, the book navigates experience-based and practice-linked research spectrum of the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic on higher education. It targets key challenges such as the move to online and distance learning, the impact of job-related stress, and the preparedness of institutional risk management. Using qualitative research, autoethnographic accounts, and case study findings, the book makes recommendations for reform implementation within higher education as well as discusses the wider socio-cultural and political landscape left by the pandemic in the Gulf region.

Highlighting current trends and challenges based on empirical works of the authors, the book will be of interest to scholars, researchers, and academics in the field of higher education, international and comparative education, and leadership strategy more specifically. Those involved with educational technology, education policy, and middle-eastern studies will also find the book of value.

Reynaldo Gacho Segumpan is Professor and Dean, City Graduate School, City University Malaysia and Fellow, Higher Education Academy, UK.

John McAlaney is Chartered Psychologist and Professor in Psychology, Bournemouth University, UK.