Judith Cochran

By Judith Cochran

The unrest in the Middle East has created vacuums where authoritarian and democratic powers are in conflict. Education in all countries is at the heart of the challenges to leadership. In most Middle Eastern countries, graduates from middle school upward have been guaranteed employment in the government. Failure to meet this promise has left thousands of youth who are educated but unemployed. Further fueled by the overwhelming number of refugees, leaders in Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel are threatened by the unemployed and refugees’ access to technology and their democratic demands. Authoritarian countries such as Iran and Turkey are emphasizing religious education in order to increase the control of their people. Research, on-site visits and media reports provide the basis for this study which identifies three forces of the educational conflict: religious education, informal education, and access to technology. The possible solutions for future educational directions provide a roadmap for the future.

Part of the book: Public Management and Administration

By Judith A. Cochran

For the past 20 years, the endowment of philanthropist E. Desmond Lee has supported a collaborative of youth agencies, universities, and school district programs for disadvantaged urban youth. Called the Regional Institute of Tutorial Education (RITE), its focus has been to build community support to counteract the influence of poverty, low tax funding bases, crime, and poorly resourced schools for the children that can’t achieve academically and socially because of these conditions. RITE has addressed these deficits by hiring community members and university students to tutor and mentor the students enrolled in provisionally or unaccredited school districts and their after-school programs sometimes conducted in community agencies. The institute located at the University of Missouri-St. Louis has trained, placed, and supervised tutors in mostly academic areas of math and reading to support students in K-12 classrooms. The results of these programs have been successful when there has been consistent student attendance. In the 2017–2018 school year, RITE provided writing tutoring targeting 150 urban youth attending under-resourced middle and high schools. Lessons from these university and community collaborative programs are provided to aid others working with urban youth.

Part of the book: The Essence of Academic Performance

By Judith Cochran and Hugh V. Murray

Saudi Arabia’s Global Goals stated in Vision 2030 are faltering under its current socialistic system. The military, the civil servants, and 35,000 royals with income assured, they have little incentive to want to work or to obtain education. However, in order to employ their citizens, the Saudi government is forcing businesses to hire 70% Saudi citizens to replace the expats who are being expelled under a mandated quota system. Their education system, which has prepared citizens to be loyal to the monarchy and Islam, has neglected secular, market place skills. Citizens continue to want to be paid in the socialistic manner of the past. Now technology skilled citizens and problems solvers are needed, as the monarchy builds two technology-based cities: NOME and Economic City to meet some of its 2030 Vision goals. Another Vision 2030 global goal is to advance Saudi Arabia as the Islamic and Arab Cultural leader of the world. To accomplish this ambition, Saudi Arabia must educate a workforce that wants to work and can help solve its problems and achieve its goals. As the number of citizens increases in order to obtain greater family stipends, the monarchy is moving its religious and mostly socialistic economy toward techno-economy. The prognosis for religious, socialistic country against a techno-economic future will be problematic.

Part of the book: Education, Human Rights and Peace in Sustainable Development