Big Data and Sustainability of Higher Education

Introduction

This study aims at clarifying the importance of Big data, the role played by these data in achieving sustainable development, clarifying the challenges facing the sustainability of higher education in the Arab world, presenting a proposal for the development of higher education in universities and finally clarifying the role of Big data in the sustainability of accounting education.

The importance of the study is of the importance of big data and the extent to which the analysis of these data contributes to solving many of the problems facing societies such as poverty, hunger, pollution, gender inequality, education, etc. In our societies, education does not meet the requirements of sustainable development, and unable to achieve its developmental role in the rehabilitation of human capital according to market needs, especially with the emergence of big data and its analysis, Hence, this study discusses how to use big data and analyzes in improving and developing education in order to meet the needs of the labor market, and local and international work, which in turn reflects on sustainable development.

Big data is one of the most important achievements of the age in information and communications technology, and Big data represents one of the most important modern concepts in the field of scientific research and shows the importance of big data in various sectors such as health care, education, scientific research, banking, and industry. (Gartner Inc., 2018), has recognized IT as “large, fast-moving and highly diversified information assets that require cost-effective and innovative processing methods to develop insight, decision-making and process automation”, But these data face great challenges as traditional tools and techniques cannot deal with this type of data, and lack of competencies and skills capable of dealing with those data, for example, unstructured data does not fit traditional databases, traditional storage methods cannot store this huge amount of data, conventional analysis methods cannot handle data that moves very quickly. The data volume is increasing exponentially, and the data is becoming more diverse and complex, from data produced by humans such as data provided by organizations, institutions, and social networking sites, to data produced by machines such as sensors. Therefore, the extraction of information has become very necessary and difficult. Thus, the term appeared “big data analysis”, which contributes through in-depth learning to promote the development and innovation of the government in various sectors (World Bank Group, 2017), so we need a higher education leads to the diversity and differentiation of the human element and increased skills in receiving information and good use in thinking, expression, and production and build relationships and decision-making.

Higher education plays a key role in the development of any country, state. The likelihood of economic growth in each state is as good as the pool on their talents. No economic development plan can succeed without talent, as economic development depends heavily on the quality of resources they have. Higher education is the source of economic progress, social progress, and knowledge, which is the way to reach the highest humanitarian goals of any society. Higher education institutions and scientific research contribute to solving the problems of water, agriculture, energy and so on. State. Therefore, the primary objective of education in the Arab world is to face the current and future global challenges and to create more sustainable and adaptable societies. Accordingly, sustainable development requires good quality education and learning at all levels and in all social settings (fsmbfoundation.org, 2019).

Education for sustainability has been defined as “an educational vision that seeks to strike a balance between human and economic prosperity, cultural traditions and the sustainability of natural and environmental resources, for a better life for the individual and society in the present and future”. And Sustainable education or education for sustainability is a trans-formative learning paradigm that prepares learners and provides them with knowledge, ethical awareness, skills, values, and attitudes to achieve sustainable goals. The quality of education is measured by student progress, Education, curricula and teachers, Big data and Big data analysis will become a turning point in the quality of education, contributing to sustainable development (Balow, 2017).