The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has a well-devised and controlled method of measuring the educational progress — or lack thereof — in any given country or region around the world.
In Dakar, Senegal, 2002, the World Education Forum called on all UN member states to formulate national plans to achieve “Education For All” by 2015.
So that the plan is not merely ink on paper — as is the case regarding many similar initiatives in the past — the forum presented six goals that must be achieved for the overall plan to be realized. Important examples, most pertinent to Arab countries are expanding adult literacy and ensuring gender parity. Since then, UNESCO has been active in both creating awareness of and garnering support for the initiative. It has also been consumed with monitoring the results and whether member states are indeed reaching the hardly ambitious goals set for the year 2015.
It should come as no surprise that quality education is largely a matter of economics: The poorer you get the more consumed you become with other immediate needs; survival for example. Over 12 Arab countries, therefore, are far behind the EFA goals; some are actually regressing.
The 2005 EFA Global Monitoring Report launched in Brazil attests to this fact. Indeed, most of the statistics, including data offered by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and World Bank’s statistics mostly highlight such a realization: Poverty and quality education don’t go well together. Thus Mauritania, the poorest Arab nation, which according to a 2002 tally has a per capita annual income of $334, resides second to last on the Arab literacy rate list, with a 59.8 percent population that cannot read or write.
Sadly, the bottom spot of the literacy rate, according to the EFA report 2003/4 was reserved for no other than Iraq, a country that was once recognized for being a Third World model of development. Along with Cuba, Iraq once offered universal education and health coverage. Now, following 15 years of crippling sanctions, unjustified and bloody war, and a self-consumed and brutal occupation only 39.3 percent of Iraqis can read.
Palestinians in the occupied territories is another interesting case. Strikingly, Palestinians have fully achieved gender parity in education, a major component in the EFA initiative. And despite the fact that 60 percent of the population lives at less than $2 per day — below the universally recognized poverty level — there is an impressive determination to join and stay in school.
However, living under occupation is no easy task. Alas, most of the statistics dealing with Palestinian education continue to focus on the number of students killed, wounded and maimed by Israeli forces; on the number of schools shelled, partially or fully destroyed; on the number of students unable to reach the classroom because of military restrictions and checkpoints; on the number of students trapped behind the illegal Israeli Wall slicing up West Bank and completely isolating entire communities, and so on.
But poverty, security and freedom are not always the only causes of education deficits. Misguided developmental projects are an equally detrimental factor that keeps some rich Arab countries behind.
Most wealthy Arab states seem to comprehend and thus measure development by the number of skyscrapers, top of the line SUVs and the hosting of world-renowned sporting events. Conversely, a well-devised national education program is almost nonexistent. The end result is as simple as it is devastating: Detached generations of hip-hop bad boy wanna-bes who have no complete command over any particular language or much commitment or even interest in the development of their own countries.
Human capital is the most fundamental prerequisite for sustainable, beneficial and long-term development. A case in point is the Malaysian experience in the last 15 years. With over 20 percent of the budget spent on human development and education, the country has achieved phenomenal results in the field and continues to take significant strides.
There are other factors that must be scrutinized in order for the hampered educational progress in much of the Arab world to be fully revived and revamped. Without such understanding, Education For All in the Arab world shall remain confined to ineffectual workshops followed by photo-ops and fancy banquets.
Education For All is a decision where governments, civil societies and nations as a whole are and ought to be active participants. Unless that decision is made — not imposed — most Arab nations should not be expected to meet the minimal standards for progress and modernity; not in tens years, not in a hundred.
