JEDDAH, 6 February 2008 — Whether the Arab world faces a bright future or an economic nightmare depends largely on a massive turnaround in the region’s education systems, the World Bank observed in a report released yesterday.
Noting low literacy rates in the 400-page report, “The Road Not Traveled: Education Reform in the Middle East and Africa,” the bank said the relationship between education and economic growth in the region has remained weak, the divide between education and employment has not been bridged and the quality of education continues to be disappointing.
“Despite considerable growth in the level of educational attainment, there continues to be an ‘education gap’ with other regions, in absolute terms,” the report said.
“Most reforms in the region have attempted to engineer changes in the education system: Building schools, hiring teachers and writing curricula,” the report said. However, “the success of future reforms will require changes in the behavior of key education actors — teachers, administrators and educational authorities,” the report said, adding: “This is the road not traveled in the region.”
Public school systems across the region drew criticism for failing to prepare students for the labor market and clinging to outmoded, inefficient methods of operation.
“Salaries are frequently too low to secure a decent standard of living, which contributes to the proliferation of private tutoring,” the report said. “Both excellent and mediocre performers receive similar treatment, affecting the morale of good teachers. And absenteeism may go unnoticed or without any penalties.”
The World Bank recommended that public schools emulate practices of successful private schools — allowing headmasters to hire and fire teachers and offering performance-based compensation and competitive salaries. Headmasters, it noted, are better positioned to monitor teacher performance and get feedback from students and parents. To avoid favoritism and poor judgments by headmasters, the ministries of education could set guidelines, it said.
Teaching methods tend to emphasize repetition and memorization rather than creative thinking and lifelong learning, the report said. Teachers are not always well trained and, if they are, they do not always apply their teaching skills in the classroom, the report added.
“Clearly, this is another critical reform area if better engineering of education is to contribute to better education outcomes,” the report said. “Updating the curriculum and improving the training of teachers are important ingredients going forward. For all of these reform areas, there is a growing body of accumulated knowledge and experience to draw upon.”
One of the bank’s gravest concerns is the incredible population bubble of young people across the region. To improve or even maintain current standards of living, millions of jobs must be created; to fill those jobs — millions of young people must be educated.
“Even if past investments in education generated maximum returns in terms of economic growth, greater equality and reduced poverty, the Arab world would still need to reshape its education systems to face up to a number of new challenges,” the report said. “The most glaring ones relate to globalization and the increasing importance of the knowledge economy in the development process, the youth bulge and out-of-school children and adults and financing requirements.”
If the region’s students don’t get better opportunities to learn, the consequences will be dire. “With respect to globalization and the knowledge economy, the education systems in the region must produce competent and flexible human capital to be able to compete,” the report said.
“Lifelong learning and coping with out-of-school children and adults are no longer a luxury but a necessity. Both challenges require a shift in what is taught in schools and how it is taught, to enable students to acquire the necessary skills and to upgrade these skills over time,” the report said.
“The time has come for countries to focus their energies on the quality of education and making sure that students are equipped with what they need for the labor market,” Marwan Muasher of the World Bank was quoted as saying by the BBC yesterday.
“It’s a very youthful region — 60 percent of the region’s population is under 30 years of age; close to 100 million new jobs will need to be created over the next 10 to 15 years in the Arab world. If we are to create such jobs, then we have to start with education.”
