DOHA, Feb 2: Here in Qatar, education reform had been on the agenda since well before Sept 11. But it was not until a month after the 2001 attacks that the most dramatic part of the overhaul got underway, when a team of experts arrived from Rand’s California headquarters. The mission was clear: review the entire primary and secondary school system with an eye toward massive change.

“These changes are consistent with the emir’s vision of the country,” said Dominic Brewer, director of Rand’s education unit and lead consultant on the Qatar project. “Changes like more openness in the economy, entrepreneurship and ultimately democracy require a population that’s used to these things. This was the opportunity to really build a model school system, to combine the best elements from around the world.”

Brewer said his team had encountered a “very rigid, very bureaucratic” system, with not enough emphasis on science, English and the Internet and too much stress on memorization and teacher control. They recommended an entirely new system, based on parent choice, that would eliminate the centralized model prevalent in most Arab countries and bypass the tradition-bound Education Ministry.

Last week, the emir took formal steps to adopt the Rand plan, appointing a supreme council on education headed by the crown prince to oversee the reform, and two new independent agencies to carry it out. Rand will remain on board to supervise the implementation.

Even before the system-wide overhaul, educators here have implemented more modest reforms, such as elected student councils in all schools. Starting last year, English instruction is mandatory from first grade on. And to make way for more hours of English, classes in Islamic studies and Arabic were cut back, said Nawal Alshaikh, director of the curriculum and textbook department in the Education Ministry.

Qatari children now have four classes in Islamic studies a week, she said. Two years ago, it was six. Whereas Saudi Arabia has five or six different required religion textbooks, Qatar now has just one.

Such reforms have aroused debate around the Persian Gulf, where they have been widely criticized as US-imposed. A leading Saudi newspaper, al Watan, wrote about the Qatar programme as having originated with the “Jewish foundation,” Rand.

“How can the Americans know what is right for Qatari schoolchildren?” asked a professor at Kuwait University, who asked not to be named. “Reform is something that must come from within, it cannot be bought.”—Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) The Washington Post