Jordan Times
Tuesday, May 3, 2005
King Inaugurates Campus
of Key University
By Mahmoud Al Abed
MAAN — His Majesty King Abdullah on Monday
inaugurated the first phase of the permanent campus of the state-run Al Hussein
Ben Talal University, which play a key role in developing this underprivileged
southern district.
At a ceremony, King Abdullah toured the six-year-old university, which was built
on 4,000 dunums, six kilometres to the north of Maan city.
The JD23 million first phase includes nine constructions and infrastructure
built on 67,000 square metres.
Al Hussein Ben Talal University's third and final phase is expected to be
completed at a cost of JD60 million in 2008, when it will be equipped to take up
to 11,000 students.
To prepare its teaching staff, the educational institution dispatched 150
Jordanian scholars to 35 international universities to obtain higher degrees.
University President Rateb Oran told The Jordan Times that around 40 per cent of
the 150 were from the southern region.
Officials expected that the university become “the centre of an expanding modern
area.” The academic programmes, meanwhile, are designed to meet the needs of the
local labour market.
Some 40,000 trees were planted around the campus to improve the environment in
the semi-desert area. The number of trees is expected to increase to 100,000.
Oran, meanwhile, said the university is building up a database on Maan
Governorate to support development plans for the area, where 38.2 per cent of
its residents live under the poverty line, which was estimated last year by a
Planning Ministry study at 14 per cent.
A survey conducted by the university itself estimated unemployment in Maan at
31.2 per cent, while the national average stands at 15.3 per cent. Maan also
suffers health and illiteracy problems.
To promote public awareness in Maan, the university launched the first FM radio
station: Maan's New Voice from Al Hussein Ben Talal University. The station
seeks to “establish development-friendly attitudes in the community.”
A 2003 report by the Centre for Strategic Studies (CSS) at the University of
Jordan described Al Hussein Ben Talal University as “an example of how a social
education project can come close to achieving a number of positive aims in the
short span of its existence.”
The CSS report studied the situation in Maan in the aftermath of a series of
violence outbursts in the town. The report cited the university as the type of
project needed for the area and welcomed by the local community.
It noted that the university carried out a training and rehabilitation programme
that benefited around 600 people between the years 1999 and 2002, while 338
people from the governorate were hired by the educational institution.
“In addition, the university purchases the majority of its needs from the local
shops in the town [and] investment in construction has risen in order to provide
halls of residence for the students and housing for the teaching staff,” the
report said.