Middle Eastern universities must own up to their problems and have “frank conversations” if they are going to become global challengers, leaders have said.

Concerns over academic integrity and corruption have caused some to distrust higher education in the region, according to Mohammad Al-Zakari, president of the Arab Open University.

“We have to admit our reality,” he told delegates at ����Vlog’s Arab Universities Summit 2025. “We do have a lot of problems, a lot of people and a lot of communities in the Arab region say they have a lot of questions about the function of Arabic universities in terms of quality, academic independence, teaching and research.”

Al-Zakari described how he was teaching at a university in the region when the dean called him up and said “there is a student [in your class]...Can you give her an A+?”.

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“This is happening at a lot of Arab universities,” he alleged. “If we [want] to go into the future, we have to admit our reality, and our reality is not that good. Governments and society do not respect universities, and universities do not have a real route to knowledge transfer.”

Al-Zakari told the event being held at the University of Jordan and the Al-Ahliyya Amman University that the Arab world needed to “honour” its history – noting the world’s first recorded university was established in the region.

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“We need an educational model that strengthens our Arab and Islamic identity, respects our language, values and traditions, while simultaneously keeping pace with the demands of the digital revolution, artificial intelligence, and the knowledge economy,” he said.

But Al-Zakari added that reclaiming universities’ societal role will “not be achieved by dwelling on the past, but drawing upon it as a foundation for building a modern, authentic, and globally competitive future”.

Fabio Piano, interim vice-chancellor at New York University Abu Dhabi, argued that the Middle East had historically “connected different parts of the globe” because of the region’s history.

Part of the region’s strength, Piano – who is himself Italian – argued, is that “people hold multiple identities”, noting that students at NYU Abu Dhabi typically speak on average four languages. “Pluralism actually is part of the Arab world,” he said.

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Piano said, in 100 years, he believed people will look back on this period as a time of “transformation in higher education”. While the US has dominated global higher education, “the reality is it’s moving eastwards”. 

“We jokingly call our New York campus NYU Abu Dhabi West,” he said. “In many ways, I think the world is really centred here.”

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com