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This study explores Arab university faculty's views on fully AI-generated assignments and research papers submitted by students, what reasons they give for their stance and how they react in this case. Surveys with a sample of 45 Arab instructors revealed that 98% do not accept AI-generated assignments and research papers from students at all. They gave numerous reasons for their position. If students submit AI-generated assignments or research papers, they would ask them to re-write them. The study recommends raising students' awareness of university policies regarding AI-generated content and introducing faculty and students to AI plagiarism detection tools. Faculty views and recommendations are reported in detail.

Egypt currently holds the record for the most retractions in the continent of Africa according to the Retraction Watch database, and the 2nd highest of countries in the Middle East. The purpose of this study was to analyse the retracted medical publications from Egyptian affiliations, in order to delineate specific problems and solutions. We examined databases including Pubmed, Google Scholar and others, for all retracted medical publications that were conducted in an Egyptian institution, up to the date of August 31st 2022. We observed for the reason(s) for retraction, number of citations of the retracted work, the length of time between publication and retraction, and where the work was published (journal, publisher and impact factor). 68 retractions were identified. Most retractions were from the speciality of Obstetrics and Gynecology (n = 22), followed by Anesthesia (n = 7). The top 3 reasons for retraction were unreliable results, FFP level misconduct, and duplicate publication. The number of retractions significantly increased over the years, especially in 2022. When taking into account the number of medical publications per institution, the institute with the highest rate of retractions was Mansoura University, while the lowest rate was Cairo University. The number of retracted medical Egyptian publications continues to increase over time, although they represent a small portion of the overall body of Egyptian medical research. Future studies on retracted articles should employ a methodology that considers the institutions where the studies were conducted. This could allow a better understanding of specific problems in certain countries or regions.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in the Arab World are still in their infancy. Many Arab countries are now starting to launch their MOOC platforms; however, there are only a few who have actually implemented such systems. This paper will explore online learning, in particular the rise of MOOCs around the world and their impact on the Arab World. The purpose of this paper is to give a true picture of the development of the first MOOC platforms in the Arab World. It will analyse in detail the concept, definitions, background, and types of MOOCs (xMOOCs and cMOOCs), as well as the main MOOCs platform in the Western and Arab worlds, and a timeline of the development of MOOCs. It will then observe the status of MOOCs in the developed world, opportunities in the Middle East, and the influence of Western MOOCs on the Arab world, from many perspectives, e.g. educational, religious, cultural and social.

In the context of online education, which has been growing as a common approach, this paper examines the impact of working while studying on university students' academic performance, namely Cumulative GPA (CGPA), as a rising trend in Egypt, especially after the pandemic and the shift into online learning. The research followed an exploratory survey method, namely a quantitative approach, with a sample of 361 students randomly selected using the convenience sampling method from a total of 3326 students, both working and non-working, from years 2 to 4 across the four schools at Nile University -- Cairo, Egypt. The study examines a cause-and-effect relationship between working students and their CGPA. Literature points out that with online education becoming a conventional mode, there has been an increase in "working while studying" in Egypt, which requires further investigation. Thus, this paper bridges this empirical gap as the first study of its kind by studying the case of Nile University working students and the effect of working while studying on their academic performance and their ability to strike a work-life balance. The study revealed a slightly negative relationship between working while studying and students' CGPA compared to non-working, as well as a negative effect on their work-life balance. The findings imply that a new mindset in the pedagogical system is needed, combining new assessment methods and modes of delivery to accommodate the rising trend. The study hasits own limitations, focusing on Egypt and specifically Nile University students.

Creativity and design thinking skills are considered pillars in arts practice in general. Traditional arts education, in particular, involves a tension between pure technical skill and the ability to design creatively regardless of craft limitations. The present study focuses on eliminating the boundaries between craft and art and bridging the gap between technical skills and creativity in practicing traditional textile printing arts. The paper presents a teaching procedure that is based on exploring traditional textile printing within a new dimension and achieving a balance between both the technical and creative sides. The study proposes a survey model to investigate the impact of the applied procedures and understand students' perceptions of the full range of the traditional printing creative process in action. The conclusions of this study will aid in the development of traditional arts education and practice in general and their re-exploration as flexible, expressive, and creative forms of art.

This paper explores the impact of COVID-19 on higher education practical design courses in Egypt. Because of inadequate resources and preparedness, Egyptian colleges have struggled to adopt digital teaching methods during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper examines strategies that are the most feasible for teaching practical courses during or after a pandemic through distance learning (on online platforms). An action research project was set up to deliver two studio-based design courses, one on architectural drawing and the other on furniture design via distance learning (online mode). This approach used a suite of technologies and synchronous and asynchronous delivery mechanisms, such as Zoom and Google Classroom. Student perceptions about the impact of these changes were evaluated using questionnaires. A psychological effect of the conditions caused by the pandemic on students has been the loss of interest in academics. The research results partially support the use of online platforms to teach practical courses. However, more needs to be done to improve the delivery of online courses in Egypt. Further, holding competitions was found to boost students' motivation levels. A future strategy for teaching practical courses in applied arts and engineering is proposed in this paper.

Compulsory school-dropout is a serious problem affecting not only the education systems, but also the developmental progress of any country as a whole. Identifying the risk of dropping out, and characterizing its main determinants, could help the decision-makers to draw eradicating policies for this persisting problem and reducing its social and economic negativities over time. Based on a substantially imbalanced Egyptian survey dataset, this paper aims to develop a Logistic classifier capable of early predicting students at-risk of dropping out. Training any classifier with an imbalanced dataset, usually weaken its performance especially when it comes to false negative classification. Due to this fact, an extensive comparative analysis is conducted to investigate a variety of resampling techniques. More specifically, based on eight under-sampling techniques and four over-sampling ones, and their mutually exclusive mixed pairs, forty-five resampling experiments on the dataset are conducted to build the best possible Logistic classifier. The main contribution of this paper is to provide an explicit predictive model for school dropouts in Egypt which could be employed for identifying vulnerable students who are continuously feeding this chronic problem. The key factors of vulnerability the suggested classifier identified are student chronic diseases, co-educational, parents' illiteracy, educational performance, and teacher caring. These factors are matching with those found by many of the research previously conducted in similar countries. Accordingly, educational authorities could confidently monitor these factors and tailor suitable actions for early intervention.

Situated in the education reform launched by the Egyptian Ministry of Education (MOE), which called for a socially-foreign shift away from memorization-based mathematics instruction, this paper explores the role of school-based teacher professional networks in implementing reform. Adopting the Goodson Change Model as a theoretical framework, we map out the power play between external agency (national society), internal agency (teacher professional networks) and the personal agency of individual teachers. Using an embedded case study model and a dataset consisting of the recordings of two full-day focus group discussions with teacher professional networks at two national schools, we contrast the two cases from the perspective of teacher group tensions and power dynamics in relation to the reform implementation. In one case, the teacher professional network (internal agency) was dominantly embracing the change, thus empowering the local teacher (personal agency) and enforcing its dogma on its stationed national society (external agency). In the other case, the teacher as a personal agent was solely attempting to break through both layers of internal and external agency. Our findings cast light on the role of teacher professional networks in curricular reform contexts, particularly within a collective cultural setup such as Egypt. Implications for the role of teacher professional networks in the diffusion of reform initiatives are discussed in light of the findings.

This article offers a global overview of the burgeoning field of micro-credentials and their relationship to lifelong learning, employability and new models of digital education. Although there is no globally accepted definition of micro-credentials, the term indicates smaller units of study, which are usually shorter than traditional forms of accredited learning and courses leading to conventional qualifications such as degrees. The paper aims to provide educators with a helicopter view of the rapidly evolving global micro-credential landscape, with particular relevance to higher education leaders, industry stakeholders and government policy-makers. It addresses five questions: (i) What are micro-credentials? (ii) Why micro-credentials? (iii) Who are the key stakeholders? (iv) What is happening globally? and (v) What are some of the key takeaways? Drawing on a European-wide perspective and recent developments in The Republic of Ireland, the paper concludes that micro-credentials are likely to become a more established and mature feature of the 21st-century credential ecology over the next five years. While the global micro-credential landscape is currently disconnected across national boundaries, more clarity and coherence will emerge as governments around the world increasingly align new credentialing developments with existing national qualification frameworks. The micro-credentialing movement also provides opportunities for governments and higher education institutions in partnership with industry to harness new digital learning models beyond the pandemic.

The Egyptians were known in the ancient world as experts in many applied chemistry fields such as metallurgy, wine and beer making, glass making, paper manufacture, paint pigments, dyes, cosmetics, perfumes, and pharmaceuticals. They made significant developments in the extraction of metals from their ores, especially copper and gold. The Egyptians developed a writing surface from the papyrus plant and used naturally occurring inorganic salts as paint pigments; they also made the first synthetic pigment, Egyptian blue, developed as early as 3000 B.C.E. The Leyden and Stockholm papyri give information on numerous chemical processes, dating to about 300 C.E., but copied from earlier sources. This article describes an overview of the various chemical activities that took place in ancient Egypt from which it can be deduced that the ancient Egyptians were among the first practicing chemists. In fact the word "chemistry" can be traced to the name the ancients used when referring to ancient Egypt. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

This paper, based on the contributions of researchers in maker movement as one of the most important modern educational innovations in the last decade, explained the promising prospects of makerspace for K-12 Education, and identified what key direct drivers of change that should be considered when exploring possible futures of makerspaces as an important basic component of K-12 Education in terms of its three basic pillars. The paper also reinforced the argument that connected learning is the next stage in providing educational services. The "4-quadrant method" was adopted to develop four possible contrasting scenarios for the future of makerspaces in K-12 Education which will help educational policymakers, and educators to better envision the future of makerspace and making activities in K-12 Education.

Purpose: This paper aims to theoretically answer the question: why might business schools in Egypt fail to develop responsible leaders? Design/methodology/approach: The author starts by discussing modernization theory (Lipset, 1959) -- which highlights the idea that the more educated people there are in a given society/nation, the more calls for democracy, social citizenship and social justice will be launched -- to address the strong association between the quality of business learning and the development of responsible leadership norms. Moving forward by focusing on the theory of education (Dewey, 1916) and institutional theory (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983), the author finds the main conditions needed to develop responsible leadership norms among business school students. Findings: The author identified the following three necessary conditions: implementing responsible management education, sustaining management learning and ensuring that a purposive hidden curriculum is well-planned in business schools. The author sees these as the main priorities for developing responsible leadership skills among business school students in Egypt and similar post revolution countries. Originality/value: This paper contributes by filling a gap in responsible leadership, public administration and higher education literature, in which conceptual studies on the role of business schools in post-revolution periods and conflict zones has been limited until now.

While ChatGPT has recently become very popular, AI has a long history and philosophy. This paper intends to explore the promises and pitfalls of the Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) AI and potentially future technologies by adopting a speculative methodology. Speculative future narratives with a specific focus on educational contexts are provided in an attempt to identify emerging themes and discuss their implications for education in the 21st century. Affordances of (using) AI in Education (AIEd) and possible adverse effects are identified and discussed which emerge from the narratives. It is argued that now is the best of times to define human vs AI contribution to education because AI can accomplish more and more educational activities that used to be the prerogative of human educators. Therefore, it is imperative to rethink the respective roles of technology and human educators in education with a future-oriented mindset.

Fair distribution of educational opportunities among people means that individuals' access to education doesn't depend on conditions beyond their control such as social class, religion, gender, place of birth or other parental characteristics. This paper addresses the issue of inequality of educational opportunities for pre-university education in Egypt using Human Opportunity Index, based on the data of the Income, Expenditure and Consumption Survey 2014/2015 implemented by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics. The paper also uses a logistic regression technique to assess the factors that affect children's educational enrolment. The paper presents several results, the most important one is that primary education in Egypt is fair and equal if compared to preparatory and secondary education in terms of providing educational services. The results of the Logistic Regression (LR) model show that there are many significant variables that affect children's school enrolment i.e. the educational level of the household head and the place of residence.

Recent studies on language acquisition and motivation have targeted Japanese language learners in a formal educational context, with less attention paid to learners who study Japanese informally. The current study aims to investigate the impact of Japanese animations in the context of informal third language acquisition. It targets the native speakers of Arabic who are interested in learning Japanese as a third language (L3), and investigates the motivations of Arab teenagers and young adults to learn Japanese. Further, the paper also focuses on examining aspects of Japanese language proficiency among teenagers and young adults, including vocabulary enhancement and grammar competence. The methodology used in the current study is twofold: an online survey questionnaire adopted from Armour and Iida (2016), followed by an engaging experiment in which participants were divided into two groups (reality anime group vs. action anime group) in order to examine the effectiveness of anime selection in boosting proficiency level. The findings of the online survey indicate that Arabic native speakers are highly motivated to learn Japanese, while the experiment results confirm that the type of anime and consistency of exposure do support the acquisition process. Further, the study concluded that consumption of anime series contributes to the learning process and facilitates learners' proficiency in general and vocabulary learning in particular. However, it remains unknown whether or not Arabic native speakers' motivations lead to their enrollment into formal Japanese foreign language education. Avenues for future research and implications are also presented toward the end of the paper.

Through addressing four public universities in Egypt, the author of this paper aims to uncover the main barriers women faculty face when fulfilling their academic roles. The author employed a qualitative research method through conducting semi-structured interviews with 40 female academics. Moreover, he subsequently used thematic analysis to determine the main ideas in the transcripts. The author of the present study has identified the poor representation of women faculty at both professorial levels and in managerial academic positions. The study indicated that heavy teaching loads, lengthy working hours, accusations of low productivity, growth of masculine power distance and limited empowerment opportunities are the main barriers hindering the status and representation of women faculty in the addressed universities. The findings also showed that social realities, which include the implicit relations among humans (male and female faculty in this case) in the workplace and also relations between humans and their surrounding natural world (stakeholders in the surrounding environment in the present case) decide the volume of knowledge and level of power women might attain. This paper contributes by filling a gap in HR management and higher education, in which empirical studies on the status of women faculty and the barriers they face have been limited so far.

The phenomena of disabilities in the Arab world can be viewed from various perspectives, considering historical times, epistemological programmes and theoretical models. This article is a theoretical review and comparative data analysis of the problems regarding the evolution of attitudes and current concept of disability and theoretical assumptions of caring for disabled people in the Arab world. Content of the theoretical part of the paper includes reasons for caring for disabled Arabs, including: analysis of human orientation aspects, social orientation, equality of opportunity and principles of democracy orientation and human development orientation. In the second part of the article the authors discuss empirical comparative data related to disability in the Arab world as: various causes of congenital or acquired disabilities, including culturally bounded causes of disabilities in Arab world, related to marriages in close families and marriages of underage girls. The paper illustrates key aspects of conceptualization of disabilities in the Arab countries and gives comparative analysis of the latest data on the situation of children with disabilities in education sectors and adults in the labor market. This part of comparative analysis broadly refers to the primary data from the Arab countries published as research report in 2018 by the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. The report is entitled "Disability in the Arab Region".

The phenomena of disabilities in the Arab world can be viewed from various perspectives, considering historical times, epistemological programmes and theoretical models. This article is a theoretical review and comparative data analysis of the problems regarding the evolution of attitudes and current concept of disability and theoretical assumptions of caring for disabled people in the Arab world. Content of the theoretical part of the paper includes reasons for caring for disabled Arabs, including: analysis of human orientation aspects, social orientation, equality of opportunity and principles of democracy orientation and human development orientation. In the second part of the article the authors discuss empirical comparative data related to disability in the Arab world as: various causes of congenital or acquired disabilities, including culturally bounded causes of disabilities in Arab world, related to marriages in close families and marriages of underage girls. The paper illustrates key aspects of conceptualization of disabilities in the Arab countries and gives comparative analysis of the latest data on the situation of children with disabilities in education sectors and adults in the labor market. This part of comparative analysis broadly refers to the primary data from the Arab countries published as research report in 2018 by the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. The report is entitled "Disability in the Arab Region".

This paper rests on a survey among students of Arab Open University (AOU) that covered 6,369 students from all branches (in eight countries) and across all four colleges. It endeavours to raise a case for introducing entrepreneurship education in AOU. The Survey results show a surprisingly high level of entrepreneurial intention among the students, and the overwhelming majority of them are demanding introduction of entrepreneurship education. The Paper uses results of the Survey to present how the students of AOU desire their entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurship training programmes to be organised, and to identify the target groups of each of the two programmes. Based on these results and on selected literature review of the concepts of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurship training, an outline of entrepreneurship curricula and of teaching and training methods are suggested. Both curricula and methods advanced could be of relevance beyond the specific case of AOU.

This paper discusses participation in the pre-university education sector by reviewing three stakeholders: Local communities, the Boards of Trustees (BOTs) and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), their contributions to the sector, and their main challenges that prevent them from realizing more significant impacts from the perspectives of international organizations' officials. The paper adopts a qualitative method and builds on data gathered from semi-structured interviews with twelve international organizations' officials. The paper suggests that the lack of community participation has a lot of interactive factors within a very complex, complicated and demotivating context. It concludes with a set of recommendations that may be considered by the government of Egypt and the ministry of education for enhancing participation within the pre-university education sector.

Pre-service teachers (PSTs) often struggle to teach STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) content effectively due to lack of training on how to plan a STEM lesson in meaningful ways as well as which subjects to integrate. This dilemma often results in an avoidance of STEM methodology altogether. This paper describes a productive method for training PSTs to successfully teach STEM lessons by using Social Studies content to integrate with Mathematics and Science and to provide context and connection to real-world applications. Along with providing a STEM lesson, the article demonstrates the critical role Social Studies can play as the "glue" for some integrated lesson plans.

Writing in English with confidence is a matter of great concern for nonnative speakers. Since writing fluently requires a multi-dimensional mastery of language skills, students always regard it as an open question. This paper investigates writing skills which seem to be the least favored and most problematic skills to acquire in foreign language acquisition. The purpose of the study was to investigate the impact of Differentiated Instruction (DI) on the English writing fluency of the students in the first year of secondary education in Al-Azhar Institutes. To answer the study questions, the researcher adopted the quasi-experimental approach using the one-group design. The study subjects were thirty two (32) students who had been randomly chosen from the Secondary education of Al-Azhar Institutes in Sohag governorate, Egypt. The sampling method is probability sampling which means that every individual in the population has a chance of being selected. The researcher used a program based on Differentiated Instruction's theory in teaching the study group in the second term of the year (2018-2019). The program consisted of 12 units. Each unit has four lessons. To measure the effect of the program, the researcher designed and validated a writing fluency test to be used as a pre and post-test. The data of the study were analyzed, using SPSS 19 software, to confirm the test reliability. The researcher used a t-test to spot the statistical differences in students' performance before and after the intervention of the program. The study indicated that there are statistically significant differences at the level of (0.05) in English writing fluency skills of the first-year students in favor of the post-test. This meant that the use of the program had a significant impact on developing the students' writing fluency at Al-Azhar Institutes. Based on those findings, the study recommended implementing the suggested program to bring about better outcomes in students' writing fluency. It also was suggested that further research should be conducted concerning other language domains such as reading and listening.

Purpose: Through addressing non-academic disabled employees in seven public universities in Egypt, the author aims to find out the main struggles facing disabled non-academic employees in their work context pre and post COVID-19. Design/methodology/approach: The author employed a qualitative research method through semi-structured interviews with 28 disabled non-academic employees from seven universities in Egypt. The author subsequently used thematic analysis to determine the main ideas in the transcripts. Findings: The author of the present paper has discovered the main struggles facing disabled non-academic employees in public universities in Egypt before and after the spread of COVID-19 and grouped them into the following three categories: macro-level struggles (government not serious about adopting a quota system, using disability quotas for political reasons, lack of understanding of the needs of disabled employees, poor infrastructure in work contexts), meso-level struggles (unaware of overqualified disabled employees, underrepresentation of disabled employees at senior administrative positions, assigning disabled employees unfair access to university resources) and micro-level struggles (disabled employees' lack of confidence in accepting promotion, inability of disabled employees to join informal networks and disabled employees' exposure to speech-related harassment). Originality/value: This paper contributes by filling a gap in HR management and educational leadership, in which empirical studies on the struggles facing disabled non-academic employees in their work contexts have been limited so far.

Purpose: Higher education institutions (HEIs) should play a fundamental role in achieving the international 2030 sustainable development (SD) agenda. Quality education is the fourth of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), and one of the targets related to this is to ensure that by 2030 all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote SD. Therefore, the SDGs provide a motive for HEIs to integrate SD concepts into their day-to-day practices. This study aims to introduce a framework for HEIs' sustainable development assessment. Such a framework guides HEIs and educational leaders to support their countries' commitments to achieving the SDGs. Design/methodology/approach: This paper presents the results of a case study analysis of the role and successful techniques of HEIs in achieving SD in three countries, namely, Germany, Japan and Egypt. Primary data was collected by semi-structured interviews with three Cairo University officials, while secondary data was collected by reviewing the universities' official websites, reports, publications and related papers. This study introduces a novel framework for HEIs' SD analysis and assessment, which guides HEIs and educational leaders to support SD to fulfill their countries' commitments to achieving the SDGs. This framework is based on the following five categories: strategic direction and institutional working practices, supporting students, supporting university staff competencies, supporting society's stakeholders and networking and sustainable campus. Consideration is given to the potential role of HEIs to support SD in each of these areas. Findings: Cairo University could learn from the novel and pioneer practices of the Leuphana University of Lüneburg, and the University of Tokyo to fill in the gaps it has in different roles. It can also put more effort into adopting the suggested higher education programs of Egypt's Vision 2030. Research limitations/implications: This paper is limited to a case analysis comparing three countries, Germany, Japan and Egypt. Second, this study has not considered school education, which is equally essential in countries' SD. Practical implications: HEIs can use the framework and the findings in this paper to evaluate their current roles in supporting SD, identify the gaps and take actions accordingly to address their weaknesses. Originality/value: The paper compares three universities, one in each of the case study countries. It draws conclusions that identify ways in which the paper's framework and findings can guide SD practice in HEIs internationally, especially those in the developing world.