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Arab Education Reforms Make Slow Progress
In 2002, the Arab Human Development Report, produced by the United Nations Development Programme, reported that “educational achievement in the Arab countries as a whole is still modest when compared to elsewhere in the world, even in developing countries”.
Spurred by that analysis, Jordan launched a campaign a year later to tackle persistent underperformance. This involved school renovation, curriculum revision and a shake-up of teacher training. The reforms have also allowed the private sector into the school system.
Qatar, another reformer, is encouraging independent schools to circumvent state-run institutions along the lines of the charter schools movement in the US.
But more than eight years on after the landmark UNDP report and several years into the reform efforts, standards have improved only slightly, according to the latest Programme for International Student Assessment, a benchmark international test.
The tests, conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development every three years, are considered the gold standard of comparative educational assessment.
Four Arab states – Qatar, Jordan, Tunisia and Dubai – took part in the latest Pisa tests, sat in 2009, the results of which were released this month.
Nearly three-quarters of Qatari and Tunisian students and 65 per cent of Jordanians tested attained only level one and below in mathematics, for example. Pisa says students below level one “have serious difficulties in using mathematical literacy as a tool to advance their knowledge and skills in other areas”.
Mona Mourshed, an education specialist at McKinsey, the consultants, in Bahrain, says: “It’s a great thing for countries of the region and Dubai to be participating in Pisa but we still have a way to go in order to create the human capital that we want in the region to create the economic growth that we aspire to have.”
Employers in the Arab world complain of low skill levels among nationals, which only encourages the widespread hiring of overseas workers. Yet Gulf Arab states in particular want to build knowledge economies that require high levels of education and training.
The Arab states’ results in reading and science, two other Pisa categories, were little better than the maths scores. The region also displayed among the widest of gender differences, with girls substantially outperforming boys.
By contrast, 16 per cent of students in Singapore, the top-ranked school system for maths, scored at level six, the highest rank, and only 9 per cent were rated at level one. The OECD average is that about 20 per cent of students fall within the level one band.
Ms Mourshed says it is still too early to say whether the reforms introduced by Qatar and Jordan are transforming standards. The evidence base generated by Pisa and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, another benchmark test, is not yet developed enough to be categorical about the reforms, she says.
The most recent Timss tests were released two years ago and also found that Arab states performed poorly.
“There is some degree of improvement. The question is: is the improvement pace consistent with the demand pace that we need in order for these countries to fulfil the aspirations that they have?” Ms Mourshed says.
“It is early days in terms of an evidence basis to say whether or not [the reforms are] working. We have these four systems participating in Pisa. We will have many more. Timss 2011 is going to be pretty definitive,” she says.
But it is possible, Ms Mourshed says, to force through relatively fast improvements in educational systems. She cites Chile as an example where students’ performance has improved markedly.
What of the fourth participant in the latest Pisa tests? Dubai scored significantly better than Tunisia, Qatar and Jordan. But, experts say, this may reflect the international make-up of the emirate. Only 37 per cent of Dubai’s schools follow the United Arab Emirates’ curriculum, while 23 per cent use the British curriculum and 14 per cent the US, according to local data.
Dubai has yet to release details of the relative performance of the schools following the different curricula in the Pisa tests.
“Dubai should be concerned about how well Emirati students are performing. The data need to be split more finely to look at those issues,” says Natasha Ridge, an education expert at the Dubai School of Government.
She and Ms Mourshed say that one of the main findings from the Pisa tests is that education spending is not a main determinant of outcomes. “The takeaway from all this is that you can’t buy a high-grade, good education system. It takes time, it takes effort, it takes buy-in,” says Ms Ridge. “That is the lesson for the Gulf states.”
James Drummond
Financial Times