Q Life Magazine Q Magazine (US) December 2015 | Page 20

| Issue 1 All these international students, professors, and researchers have brought a culturally rich and diverse community to Qatar and augmented ties to the West, especially the United States. Qatar Foundation, which created Education City, sees it as another step in the country’s transition to a knowledge-based economy in the coming decades. An Emphasis on Education One of the striking features of Qatar is the focus on education. “It’s not your traditional college experience, that’s for sure,” says Haddad. She came to Doha at age 17, when her family moved to Qatar from Portland, Oregon, for her father’s work. After graduating from high school in Doha she wanted to go back to Oregon for college, but her parents convinced her to try Qatar for a year. She liked it, and ended up staying for all four years of her program. The country has spent the last two decades pressing ahead with a number of bold initiatives to improve schooling at all levels, and has made enormous strides. Primary education is now almost universal and literacy rates are well above the regional average for both genders. “There are lots of opportunities to do things you wouldn’t be able to do otherwise,” Haddad says. “Qatar is a stable country with a good economy, and there’s a real diversity of opportunity.” She helped organize TEDx events on campus, and two events at the Cop18 Doha Climate Change Conference in 2012. She also went on study trips to both Indonesia and South Africa. A report by the British newspaper The Independent concluded that Qatar was the best country in the world for women to pursue an education. This is particularly true at the tertiary level, where there are six women students for every man; even in engineering, a field often dominated by men, there were three times more female than male graduates in 2014. “Doha is a very dynamic place, ” Haddad says. “It’s very different, and very rewarding.” 20 Qatar’s success in education is helped by the fact that Qatar offers many scholarships to help its citizens further their education. Foreign nationals—many young students from neighboring Gulf or other Middle Eastern countries—also receive a lot of financial aid, both from Qatar Foundation and the universities themselves.