A new media outlet dedicated to championing the voice of Higher Education professionals in the Middle East has launched. Despite a slight setback when a launch event was cancelled due to concerns about academic freedom in the UAE, Al Fanar is now live and providing a new regional perspective for international education issues.
Headed up by David Wheeler, a former Managing Editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education, Al Fanar is founded by The Alexandria Trust, a UK-based charity that was set up by successful Egyptian businessman, Salah Khalil – who has also worked with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy.
The media outlet, online and with a planned move into a print publication too, has received a two-year grant from the Ford Foundation. It is delivered in English and Arabic.
Wheeler explained that he considered Al Fanar to be entering new territory by focusing on HE in the Middle East. “I’m enjoying taking my experience about education journalism and applying it in a place that doesn’t have that much education journalism,” he told The PIE News. “To a certain degree, Al Fanar hopes to create its own competition by getting other journalists who live in the region writing more about university life.”
Wheeler is joined on the staff by Rasha Faek, Senior Editor, a Syrian journalist based in Amman, Jordan.
Khalil (left) and Wheeler, part of the team behind the ambitious new project
The aim is to create a forum for regional dialogue and professional exchange. Wheeler will work on creating content to enable “Arab academics to do their jobs better, whether that is teaching, running a university, or running a ministry of education”.
The launch event was cancelled following the denial of a visa to a visiting academic from LSE by UAE authorities. The situation is documented on the Al Fanar website by Khaled Fahmy of the American University in Cairo, who himself had planned to speak about the need for a liberal arts approach to education provision and defining university standards in the Gulf region.
The Alexandria Trust has a number of high profile trustees also overseeing the charity’s work, including UK political and education figure Rt Hon Charles Clarke; Frances Guy – representative for UN Women in Iraq; academic Professor Heba Ezzat based in Egypt; businessman Hassan Abdou and UK lawyer Emma Playfair.
