Abstract:

In developing countries, higher education is –nowadays- facing a lot of challenges. These can be classified into local and international challenges. At the local level, the major challenge may be the massive number of students asking for higher education, which has put a burden on the infrastructure which is mainly designed for a much smaller number of students. On the International level, the major challenge is globalization that resulted in enormous movement of international students and lecturers. In addition, requirement for quality assurance in higher education is instantly required. To face the local and international challenges, higher education in developing countries should take a lot of improvement steps. The most urgent may be the development of university lecturers who are the backbone of higher education system.
It is believed that the majority of the university lecturers in developing countries especially the new ones, need some kind of educational skills (teaching methods, evaluation techniques, class management methods, or the use of educational and information technology).
University lecturers' educational development programs have been –for years- based upon selection and training processes. Though theses programs have helped a large number of university lecturers acquire many educational skills that helped them carry out their academic work, they have not very much taken into consideration the environment (social, political, physical, facilities, etc,,,) where these lecturers carry out their jobs. Therefore, it is time to think about an alternative that will not consider the lecturer only, but also the environment at large where the academic work is carried out.
The aim of this paper is to discuss the traditional educational training methods (selection and training) and to present a more comprehensive method (an alternative) that will efficiently train university lecturers to be able to do their job and accordingly to develop higher education system in developing countries.

Keywords:

higher education, university lecturers, training, developing countries.