His Majesty King Abdullah on Monday inaugurated the first phase of the permanent campus of the state-run Al Hussein Ben Talal University, which play a key role in developing the southern governorate of Maan.

At a ceremony, King Abdullah toured the six-year-old university, which was built on 4,000 dunums, six kilometres to the north of Maan city.

The JD23 million first phase includes nine constructions and infrastructure built on 67,000 square metres.

Al Hussein Ben Talal University's third and final phase is expected to be completed at a cost of JD60 million in 2008, when it will be equipped to take up to 11,000 students.

To prepare its teaching staff, the educational institution dispatched 150 Jordanian scholars to 35 international universities to obtain higher degrees. University President Rateb Oran told The Jordan Times that around 40 per cent of the 150 were from the southern region.

Officials expected that the university become “the centre of an expanding modern area.” The academic programmes, meanwhile, are designed to meet the needs of the local labour market.

Some 40,000 trees were planted around the campus to improve the environment in the semi-desert area. The number of trees is expected to increase to 100,000.

Oran, meanwhile, said the university is building up a database on Maan governorate to support development plans for the area, where 38.2 per cent of its residents live under the poverty line, which was estimated last year by a Planning Ministry study at 14 per cent.

To promote public awareness in Maan, the university launched the first FM radio station: Maan's New Voice from Al Hussein Ben Talal University. The station seeks to “establish development-friendly attitudes in the community.”

A 2003 report by the Centre for Strategic Studies (CSS) at the University of Jordan described Al Hussein Ben Talal University as “an example of how a social education project can come close to achieving a number of positive aims in the short span of its existence.”