$Unique_ID{COW02047} $Pretitle{234} $Title{Jordan Chapter 2E. Education and Health} $Subtitle{} $Author{Irving Kaplan} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{schools students education number percent secondary medical health jordan vocational} $Date{1979} $Log{Operations in Progress*0204702.scf } Country: Jordan Book: Jordan, A Country Study Author: Irving Kaplan Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1979 Chapter 2E. Education and Health The turbulent events of the 1960s and 1970s sorely taxed the government's ability to improve educational and health services. Governmental good intentions in these areas contended with an inherently poor natural endowment; straitened financial circumstances; physical devastation; the loss of a significant portion of productive industrial, agricultural, and other facilities to the Israelis; and another influx of generally destitute Palestinians. In addition, significant price inflation eroded the position of many citizens. Nevertheless significant progress has been made in a number of areas. Progress is especially evident in education, which has been a stated priority of the government for a number of years. Education had become widely available, although some observers have questioned both the quality of the instruction and the appropriateness of the curriculum to the economy's requirements. Recognizing the need to supply training more suited to realistic employment prospects and to improve the level of teacher training, the government continues to strengthen vocational and technical education and to provide in-service training for its teachers. The forces affecting the standard of living and the effects of those forces on the average citizen were more difficult to assess in late 1979. Information was scarce and its reliability open to question. It appeared safe to generalize only that living conditions varied considerably according to region, kind of settlement, social position, and fortune of war. At the high end of the spectrum, well-to-do city dwellers appeared to enjoy comforts of modern life. In cities, however, basic public services, such as water, sewage, and electricity, were insufficient to meet the needs of most residents. Poor rural people generally lived in primitive circumstances. At the bottom were the poorest of the refugees, many living as dependents of international relief services. Diet was generally reported to be adequate to support life and activity, if not good health. No reports of starvation were found, but nutritional deficiencies of various kinds were reportedly not uncommon. The diet reflected the agricultural limitations of the country and therefore was inadequate in a number of nutrients, especially high-quality protein and certain vitamins. Although epidemic diseases appeared to be under a degree of control, neither the state of health of the average citizen nor the availability of medical facilities was satisfactory. Education In 1921 when the Amirate of Transjordan was created, educational facilities consisted of twenty-five religious schools that provided a narrow, tradition-oriented education. By 1977 there were more than 2,400 schools having about 21,500 teachers and an enrollment of nearly 619,000; nearly one-third of the population was involved in education as a teacher or a student at home or abroad. In 1979 nearly 95 percent of the nation's six-to-twelve-year-olds were in the primary cycle, nearly 75 percent of the twelve-to-fifteen-year-olds were in the preparatory cycle, and 35 to 40 percent of the fifteen-to-eighteen-year-olds were in the secondary cycle. Progress in literacy had been and continued to be impressive. By 1979 perhaps as many as 90 percent of the ten-to-fifteen-year-olds were literate, and an estimate of literacy in excess of 60 percent for the adult population seemed reasonable. The educational ladder consists of four parts: primary (grades one through six); preparatory (grades seven through nine); secondary (grades ten through twelve); and postsecondary (all higher education). Promotion from the compulsory cycle to the more specialized secondary schools was controlled by a standardized written examination, as was passage from secondary to the postsecondary programs. The Ministry of Education, which controls almost every aspect of education, administered the examinations. For grades one through twelve over 70 percent of the students attended the free government schools in the late 1970s, about 22 percent attended the UNRWA schools, also free, and about 8 percent attended private schools. In 1977 the Department of Statistics reported that there were 193 UNRWA schools and 289 private schools The primary curriculum stresses basic literacy skills. Subjects taught include reading and writing in Arabic; religion (Islam for Muslims and the appropriate religion for non-Muslims); arithmetic; civics and history, with emphasis on the history of the Arabs and the concept of the Arab nation; geography, with emphasis on the Arab countries; science; music; physical education; and drawing for male students and embroidery for females. In the fifth grade English is added to the official curriculum, although many private schools teach it earlier, and some offer French. Within the primary cycle, promotion from grade to grade is required by law to be essentially automatic. Children may be held back only twice in six years, after which they proceed to higher grades regardless of the quality of their work. In the preparatory cycle work on academic subjects continues, both to improve the skills of terminal students and to prepare those going on to secondary studies. In addition vocational education begins on a limited basis. Each school is required to provide at least one course in a vocational subject for each grade. Boys' schools may offer agricultural, industrial, or commercial studies, and girls' schools offer home economics. In general each school offers only one of the vocational options, and all students must take that subject for three periods a week for three years. To the academic courses offered in the primary grades, the preparatory curriculum adds geometry, algebra, and social studies. On completion of the ninth grade, students may sit for the public preparatory examination for promotion to the secondary level. Secondary education is somewhat selective in enrollment and quite specialized in purpose. Both academic (general) and vocational careers of study exist; the former is designed to prepare students for university-level studies and the latter to train middle-level technical personnel for the work force. Within the academic curriculum, students further specialize in scientific or literary studies. Because of the specialized nature and relatively limited number of secondary facilities, students are not necessarily segregated by sex into separate schools. The number of qualified applicants to secondary vocational institutions routinely exceeds the number of available places, and selection to one of these schools is considered desirable because it virtually guarantees reasonably well-paid employment on graduation. In addition to agricultural schools and to commercial schools offering secretarial, accounting, and bookkeeping courses, the system includes industrial schools offering programs in metalwork, auto mechanics, plumbing and air conditioning, electrical work, and building trades such as carpentry. The program includes both theoretical training and practical experience in a given trade, and teachers are themselves vocational school graduates, many of whom have had additional training or experience abroad. The secondary program culminates in the public secondary education examination, which qualifies students for postsecondary study. A variety of institutions of higher learning exist, including universities; nonuniversity institutes of vocational and technical training, such as teachers' colleges, schools of nursing and social work, midwife schools, and commercial training institutes; and advanced vocational institutes. The graduates of these various centers frequently seek a market for their skills abroad, especially in the oil-producing nations of the Arabian Peninsula, where they command generally higher wages than those available at home. In the mid-1970s the UNRWA schools reported that approximately half of their graduates regularly secured employment in peninsular countries. The number of those who regularly remit a portion of their incomes from abroad is so great that it forms a significant element in the country's balance of payments (see Balance of Payments, ch. 3). In 1977 there were nearly 16,000 students in the twenty-four institutions of higher learning. The largest was the University of Jordan in Amman, which had about 5,000 students. Yarmuk University in Irbid accepted its first students in 1976 and by 1979 had about 2,500 students. The plans for Yarmuk call for an eventual enrollment of 20,000 students, whereas the University of Jordan projects a maximum enrollment of 12,000 students. The government estimated in 1978 that about 42,000 citizens were studying abroad. Of these, about 1,700 were in the Soviet Union; 1,400 in Romania; 300 in Czechoslovakia; 150 in Bulgaria; and fifty in Poland. By contrast, about 1,000 were in the United Kingdom and another 1,100 were in the United States. The largest single group-over 12,300-was studying in Egypt. Most of the students in East European countries were identified as studying either in medical science or engineering. Of the 1,400 in Romania, for example, 800 were in engineering schools, and 600 were in medical schools. Some observers suggest that many if not most of the students in the East European schools were Palestinians whose education costs were being provided by the host government. Observers believed that most of the students in Western Europe and the United States were being financed by their families and the rest by the government of Jordan. Perhaps because of these connections, those from the West European and American schools tended to secure the more desirable and prestigious positions on their return home. [See Operations in Progress: Courtesy Jordan Information Bureau, Washington, D.C.] Health Between 1971 and 1977 medical facilities increased significantly, and the number of medical and medical support personnel increased dramatically. The number of physicians, for example, increased by more than 40 percent, the number of pharmacists more than doubled, and the number of bacteriologists almost tripled (see table 2, Appendix A). A continued increase in the number of physicians in the early 1980s was expected as a result of the annual graduation of trained physicians from the medical college in the University of Jordan that was established in 1972. Among the twenty-nine hospitals in 1979, there were general institutions as well as institutions specializing in tuberculosis treatment; maternal and pediatric care; infectious and contagious diseases; leprosy; and eye, ear, and throat ailments. Other specialized medical units included a mental health clinic, public health laboratories, and radiology centers. A special heart disease hospital was scheduled for completion in the early 1980s. Medical care was nonetheless inadequate and was unavailable to large segments of the population. In the late 1970s, for example, over 80 percent of the country's physicians were located in the city of Amman. Most of the others were in the four other major urban centers: Irbid, Ar Ramtha, Az Zarqa, and As Salt. Because these five cities and their immediate surrounding territories contained over 60 percent of the total population, perhaps as many as one-third of the people had either limited or no access to professional medical care. Largely because of World Health Organization projects, the incidence of such insect-borne diseases as typhus, encephalitis, leishmaniasis, and relapsing fever had been significantly reduced by the mid-1970s. An outbreak of cholera in the summer of 1978 was quickly and efficiently brought under control, whereas only a few years earlier it quite probably would have spread rapidly. A number of diseases related to poor sanitation and climatic conditions are common. Enteric diseases such as typhoid, paratyphoid, salmonella, hepatitis, and dysentery, both amoebic and bacillary, are endemic. Intestinal parasites such as roundworm, whipworm, and hookworm are common, as is the pork tapework among Christians, the only pork-eating group. Eye diseases are widespread, especially in desert areas and after windstorms. Conjunctivitis is epidemic in the wake of a windstorm and is widespread at other times as well. Ophthalmia is common among children. The extremely dusty conditions may also be responsible in part for the prevalence of respiratory diseases, of which tuberculosis is one of the more common, and of skin infections. Of other vectorborne diseases, schistosomiasis, which depends on fresh water, has not traditionally been common in Jordan; since the completion of the East Ghor Canal, however, observers have noted an increasing incidence. Bejel, or nonvenereal syphilis, an acute inflammation of the skin and mucous membrane, is reportedly widespread in the southern desert. Observers have suggested that the customary method of eating with the hands from common bowls probably facilitates the spread of this infection. Perhaps of even greater importance to health is a fact that dominates many aspects of life-the severe and chronic water shortage, which the drought of the late 1970s gravely exacerbated. The country has few significant sources of surface water and hence must depend largely on groundwater. As a consequence the water supply is inadequate for sanitation facilities, and per capita consumption of water is among the lowest in the world. Because of the extreme scarcity of wells and streams, people regularly use contaminated water supplies and use streams for a number of conflicting purposes, such as drinking, washing, waste disposal, irrigation, and watering animals. The shortage of moisture is such that in some areas untreated sewage is used for irrigation, even of vegetables for human consumption. The government has targeted the development of increased supplies of water as a major project, but as of late 1979 without appreciable success. * * * Adequate research in and close examination of Transjordanian communities published as of mid-1979 are limited and dated from the 1960s. Two books and a number of articles by Richard T. Antoun deal with a village and its surroundings in the northwest corner of the East Bank. Peter Gubser's Politics and Change in Al-Karak, Jordan: A Study of a Small Arab Town and its District describes a town and its environs in west-central Jordan in which tribal organization was still significant. The late Marshall G. S. Hodgson's three-volume study, The Venture of Islam, provides a comprehensive if provocative and sometimes controversial history and analysis of the development and characteristics of Islam as a religious and social system. (For further information see Bibliography.)