To boost science, broaden university education

To boost science, higher education institutions in the Islamic world must give students a broad education and become meritocratic, write Nidhal Guessoum and Athar Osama for Nature.

The 57 countries of the Muslim world – those with a Muslim-majority population, and part of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation or OIC – are home to nearly 25% of the world's people. But as of 2012, they had contributed only 1.6% of the world's patents, 6% of its academic publications, and 2.4% of the global research expenditure. To assess this situation, for the past two years we have led an international non-governmental and non-partisan task force of experts, formed by the Muslim World Science Initiative.

Our work confirmed many widely known problems, but highlights an even more problematic situation. University science programmes are using narrow content and outdated teaching methods. In most OIC countries, students are channelled into science or non-science streams around the age of 14, and their education thereafter is completely binary.
Full report on the Nature site