Euro-Mediterranean studies

Set up in 1994, the Comparative Education Programme in Euro-Mediterranean Studies (CEPems) is pursuing its mission of developing South-South and North-South dialogue in education.

Its portfolio of activities include the management of a network of over 250 education scholars across the region, the publication of the biannual Mediterranean Journal of Educational Studies, the organisation of seminars and workshops, and the carrying out of empirical research that increases our understanding of the challenges facing educational development in the region. Over the past year, CEPems has continued registering other achievements in furthering its goals. Its director, Professor Ronald G. Sultana, has published an edited volume entitled Challenge and Change in the Euro-Mediterranean Region: Case Studies in Educational Innovation as well as another collection of papers that look at the educational relationship between the North and the South in a volume entitled Politiques et Stratégies Éducatives: Termes de l'Échange et Nouveaux Enjeux Nord-Sud. A third volume, edited by Sultana and entitled Teacher Education in the Euro-Mediterranean Region, is being printed.

Papers presented at the European University Institute of Florence in a workshop directed by CEPems will appear in a special issue of the International Journal of Contemporary Sociology, edited by Professors R. Sultana and M. Sabour. Two special issues of the Mediterranean Journal of Educational Studies were published by CEPems last year, one focusing on multilingualism and education in the Mediterranean, the other on special and inclusive education.

Several organisations and international bodies have recognised the contribution that CEPems is making to furthering dialogue in the Euro-Mediteranean region.

Professor Sultana was invited by the Council of Europe's Committee on Culture, Science and Education to address a meeting organised at the behest of the Moroccan Parliament on the topic: "Meeting Points in Culture: Cultural co-operation between Europe and South Mediterranean countries". The meeting was held in Rabat in the House of Parliament last April, and Professor Sultana spoke about the formation of a Mediterranean community of scholars which would pool its resources to address the pressing educational challenges in the region.

Professor Sultana was also invited to address a workshop organised by the Lebanese Centre for Policy Studies in Beirut last month, where the theme was "Globalisation and societal change in the Mediterranean Region". He reported on his research on higher education systems in the region, in a paper entitled "The Mediterranean and its Universities: the challenge of Globalisation".

Professor Sultana was also a guest speaker at the University of Cyprus, were he addressed the issue of comparative education studies in the Mediterranean at the University of Oporto, where he led a workshop on the sociology of choice in the context of globalisation and at the University of Edinburgh, where he spoke about regional networking as a strategy to confront globalisation.

In addition, UN agencies are drawing on CEPems resources and networks to carry out empirical research linked to educational innovation in the Middle East and North African region with a volume being commissioned and due to appear later this year.

In this volume, Professor Sultana documents projects of educational innovation in Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, Morocco and Yemen. One of the studies reports his research in the besieged city of Hebron, where he documented the Palestinian education authority's ingenious use of distance education strategies to deliver the curriculum to primary level students who were home-bound due to curfew conditions following the second intifada.

Last year, CEPems was awarded the UNESCO Chair of Mediterranean Education Studies, and on the strength of that and other achievements, the Programme is currently negotiating a collaborative venture with European universities to offer higher degrees in educational development to better service the needs of the region.