Education in the Arab Countries – Part Five

Education in the Arab Countries Part Five

Hasan A. Yahya , a writer from Palestine

This article describes evaluation and achievements. Arab countries have made great strides in education, particularly since the middle of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, educational achievement in the Arab countries as a whole, judged even by traditional criteria, is still modest when compared to elsewhere in the world, even in developing countries.

In an age of knowledge intensity, poor knowledge acquisition, let alone its production, is a serious shortfall. A telling indicator of the poor level of educational attainment in the Arab countries is the persistence of illiteracy rates that are higher, and educational enrollment rates that are lower, than those of dynamic less developed countries in East Asia and Latin America.

While education has made headway among the younger generations, illiteracy has proved difficult to eradicate. Therefore, the overall educational achievement among adults in Arab countries remains low on average. Arab countries have nevertheless made tangible progress in improving literacy: the estimated rate of illiteracy among adults dropped from approximately 60 per cent in 1980 to around 43 per cent in the mid-1990s. However, illiteracy rates in the Arab world are still higher than the international average and are even higher than the average in developing countries. Moreover, the number of illiterate people is still increasing, to the extent that Arab countries embark upon the twenty-first century burdened by over 60 million illiterate adults, the majority of whom are women.

The mid-1990s witnessed higher total enrollment rates for the secondary and tertiary levels in the Arab countries (54 per cent and 13 per cent, respectively) compared to developing countries (49 per cent and 9 per cent, respectively). However, these percentages are lower by far than those prevailing in the industrialized countries for that period (106 percent and 60 percent, respectively). Arab countries are not expected to catch up with the industrialized countries' mid-1990s enrollment levels for all three levels of education before 2030.

There are indications that rising expenditure on education in the Arab world began to taper off after 1985. Education spending increased, in current prices, from $18 billion in 1980 to $28 billion in 1995. However, the rate of increase since 1985 has been much slower than that during the period 1980-1985, unlike the situation in both developed and developing countries. On the basis of the rather defective indicator often used in international comparisonseducation expenditure as a percentage of GNP [Gross National Product]Arab countries do better than developing and developed countries alike and the percentage was on the rise between 1980 and 1985. However, the percentage was lower in 1995 than in 1985.

A better indicator for the purpose of this analysis is per capita expenditure on education. At current prices, this indicator rose over the years from 1980 to 1985. However, this rise was followed by a deterioration during the latter half of the 1980s. While Arab countries continued to spend more on education per capita than developing countries as a group, their relative edge has been eroding since the mid-1980s. In addition, per capita expenditure on education in Arab countries dropped from 20 per cent of that in industrialized countries in 1980 to 10 per cent in the mid-1990s.

Unfortunately, private tuition has become indispensable in order to obtain high grades on public qualifying examinations for enrollment in higher education, especially with respect to the disciplines considered most likely to lead to better professional and career prospects. The result is that these disciplines are becoming almost exclusively the preserve of financially privileged groups. Thus, education has begun to lose its significant role as a means of achieving social advancement in Arab countries, turning instead into a means of perpetuating social stratification and poverty. (620 words) www.askdryahya.com

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