Jordan Delegation Visits Kurdistan Region To Boost Academic And Tourism Ties

(MENAFN- Jordan News Agency)

Amman, May 5 (Petra) -- A Jordanian government delegation has begun an official visit to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq aimed at deepening bilateral cooperation in higher education and tourism, according to a statement issued Monday by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research.
The visit, organized in coordination with the Jordanian Consulate General in Erbil, includes representatives from both the Ministry and the Jordan Tourism Board. The delegation is led by Muhannad Al-Khatib, Director of the Unified Admission Coordination Unit and Media Advisor to the Minister of Higher Education, alongside Khaled Al-Kilani, the Tourism Board's representative in Iraq.
Over the course of the visit, the delegation is expected to meet with senior officials from the Kurdish Ministries of Education and Higher Education and Scientific Research. The agenda includes visits to local schools as part of an effort to promote Jordanian universities to prospective students in the region.
On the first day of the mission, the delegation met with Kurdistan's Minister of Education, Alan Hama Saeed Saleh. The meeting, which was attended by Jordan's Consul General in Erbil, Fuad Al-Majali, was followed by technical discussions with officials responsible for credential recognition and scholarship programs in the region.
During the meetings, Al-Khatib presented Jordan's electronic unified admission system, which enables international students to apply to Jordanian universities directly from their home countries without the need for intermediaries. He emphasized ongoing efforts to streamline application procedures and attract more students from the Kurdistan Region.
The discussions also focused on signing an executive program for cooperation in higher education and scientific research, with proposals for student and faculty exchanges, as well as mechanisms for sending Kurdish scholarship students to study in Jordan.
The visit comes in the wake of a formal decision by the Kurdistan Region's Ministry of Higher Education to recognize all accredited Jordanian public and private universities. The decision followed the region's participation in the Jordan-Kurdistan Higher Education Forum, held in Erbil in May 2024.
The forum resulted in multiple cooperation agreements between universities in Jordan and their counterparts in Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, and Duhok, highlighting the growing momentum in academic collaboration between the two sides. The current visit is seen as a continuation of those efforts to solidify institutional ties and expand academic mobility.

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