Abdulwahab F. Alahmari*,
Arabs and Muslims have been the most advanced in science and medicine for many years, but today most Arab universities have huge issues that cause them not to invent science and contribute to the progress of humanity. Today, most Arab universities have no academic reputation due to academic issues that nobody pays attention to. Some Arab universities pay for scientists to increase their citations and impact factor. Some universities give scholarships to increase their ranks and make admissions abilities lower in order to have a good ranking. But these cosmetic measures will not solve the issues that these universities face and here is a list of what is missing in order to be successful. In American universities, they base their teaching methods on training; in British universities, they base their education on research; and in Arab universities, they base everything on memorization and exams. No Arab student knows how to format their homework. There are different styles of formatting, for example, MLA for humanities colleges, APA for psychology and business colleges, Vancouver style for medical colleges, etc. Why is formatting important? Because the student learns how to format, when it is time to submit research or a scientific paper to a peer-reviewed journal, the student will not face any issues and will be able to publish easily. But if the student is not even aware that this formatting exists, then there will be no scientific contribution in peer-reviewed journals by Arab university students. Libraries in Arab universities do not have "books," but they have "textbooks,” and this will lead to a huge issue. The libraries are misunderstood by Arab universities; these libraries must contain books for research, not textbooks. Textbooks are supposed to be bought by the students and libraries have only books as research resources. The books are outdated and damaged due to bad storage on the shelves. The student should spend time in the libraries preparing papers for their professors as homework, whether it is small research or major research like a thesis. Arab students have two midterm exams and one final exam in each subject. When will the student have time to spend it at the library? The student should be examined by preparing papers and allowed to correct these papers until they learn the task, which is doing research and knowing how to look for information. Everyone can memorize. You can buy a computer with 1 terabyte of memory that can save all the information that you need to know. Memorization and knowing are not enough. You have to contribute to science by publishing papers, making posters, and presenting your ideas in a presentation, which will require soft skills like SWAT technique in fast reading, presentation skills (only by training to be able to make professional presentations), academic writing, formatting, and searching the library for available titles of books and papers. Arab universities do not have an indexed system online of their theses and dissertations. No academic workshops on MATLAB, SPSS, C++, free surfer, python, etc. No training on how to make a professional resume, a job interview, or other important long-term workshops for the students. The student graduates memorizing, but with no skills in research or in science. They spend all their times memorizing things. There is an issue in standardization of the education. For example, in one university you find this program is 5 years and in another university, you find the same program, but it is 5 and half years. One university uses the 5 GPA scale, while others use the 4 GPA scale or 100% scale. Each university makes up their minds and makes personal decisions without having a specific rule. The MD program in the United States is 4 years long and every university follows this rule. Arab universities publish less books, papers, and patents. As well, in Arab universities, there is no accountability for professors. Some professors can fail all students and make threats toward the students. The students face discrimination and intimidation. Some professors in the Arab universities have crap mentality and they want to set their students up for failure, which could be a part of the Arab culture mentality that needs to be fixed. In the west, professors are accountable and their exams can be appealed and reviewed. They can’t fail students because they want to do so. Having a mentality to make the students a successful generation is missing in Arab universities. Most Arab universities use subjective exams, like writing an essay, where the best system is the objective system of MCQ, where there is only one answer. That’s why the MCQ is used by all the American medical boards. Funding for research is required to support the Arab students research. Prohibitions against studying anything should be eliminated. All students must be pushed to publish their papers to avoid being thrown in some shelves or drawers to collect the dust. They should be published in journals and indexed on an online website in English (the language of science). Arab students, when they do research, most of them do questionnaires for the public and benefit of such method has no impact since it has been used a lot and it has no effect on the Arab society. The studies made by students must make a huge difference and look for real issues to fix or provide an approach to deal with a certain scenario. The professors must be forced to publish more papers and books. When a professor has a bad review from the students for three semesters, the professor's service must be terminated. Laws of nepotism must be applied in Arab universities to stop families/tribes’ control. The private sector must be involved in these studies funding in order to find solutions to real issues on the ground. Majority of Arab students in Arab universities, do not know even simple tasks like searching inside a book using the index and keywords to find what topic they are looking for within a book. Such academic weakness results in scientific backwardness caused mainly by these universities and the staff working in them. Not having critical thinking, problem-solving, time management, using scientific methods in analysis, and focusing on research. Research is underestimated in Arab culture. They copy research methods without inventing new ways or new protocols. They copy existing papers and they are being prohibited from thinking outside the box. No one will bring anything new. Existing in such a toxic, unscientific culture will result in having clones of each other and following a certain copy. Not having soft skills, not knowing academic skills, not understanding the scientific method, having a toxic environment for science, etc. All the previous examples result in avoiding science, which is mainly the faculty's staff mistake. Bureaucracy is common in Arab universities. Medical programs are made without training; for example, in Egypt, they have an M.Sc. in radiology and a Ph.D., which has no clinical training for radiologists. These are academic programs with theses, but no clinical practice is involved. As well, some universities in Egypt have graduated students with D, D+, C, and C+ averages without following the minimal requirement of B+ and above for post-graduate programs. You can find someone who graduated from the M.Sc. or the Ph.D. with a passing score of 60%, which is not used in any education system in the world for post-graduate level. In some universities, it might be 50% of the passing level, which is a very low standard, which many will think is because the student is not good, but to the contrary, it is the “university or staff policy,” which means they enjoy when they make the students lives miserable. This is part of the harsh Arabic culture. To explain the previous example, in Japan there is a culture known as "Karoshi,” where people commit suicide due to overwork and do not reach the satisfactory stage for the manager's orders to improve the company. They work from morning to night and they do not take over-time. They are supposed to work early in the morning the next day and continue the same harsh system. Karoshi is practiced in Arab universities for no purpose, just to make the students hate studying. Research is seen as a luxury that has no purpose. Most Arab universities underestimate research and on many occusions, these universities do not teach their students the scientific method or the process of doing a research. Arab universities depend on foreigners to publish for them and these foreigners do not understand the issues that need to be fixed in Arab societies. The board of each department in the university can decide students to be thrown out of the program when a student make a complaint to the unversity administration about any issues. Arab universities do not have any academic freedom. Arab universities change the tuition fees without informing studnets. Arab universities, in a single word, are "chaotic." That’s why Arab universities do not contribute to scientific achievements.
