Education in The Middle East and North Africa - Problems of Education Quality in The MENA Region

Problems of Education Quality in The MENA Region

According to the 2002 Arab Human Development Report, “the most worrying aspect of the crisis in education is education’s inability to provide the requirements for the development of Arab societies.” Despite that both secondary and higher education are regarded as the most suitable sources that provide training and expertise for the future labor force, access to colleges or universities is still limited. In cases when education is available, it suffers from the low quality of its educational system, lack of educational materials or qualified teachers.

The financial problem emanates from the region itself: the intervention of government to provide a free education has started to become burdensome as result of the increasing number of students who complete their basic education and seek to further their studies. As a result, the central government faces the challenge to control the unsustainable cost of providing free education for the ever rising number of students and doing so at different educational levels.

From a different perspective, in the MENA region, despite intensive governmental investments in education in order to improve the efficiency of education and rise the level of academic achievement, the quality of education remains a problem. According to the 1995 World Education Report, although females access to education in the MENA is low when compared to male enrolment rates, the low quality of educational systems in the region affects both males and females.

One way to explain such phenomenon could be to argue that educational management have not witnessed substantial changes and reforms since the post-independence period. In fact, during the 1950s and the 1960s, educational systems were framed and planned in accordance with the demands of state industries, agriculture and services. The central government used to anticipate the required skills for the future employees before deciding and planning the different educational specializations. No less important, the number of new workers was also determined. Manpower forecasts had to predict the number of employees required in every field prior to students' graduation and completion of secondary or higher education.

Similarly, access to higher education was also monitored by government. Very often programs open and close according to governmental planning and in accordance with market demands. Also, the centralized planning helped to determine the necessary technical, manual or professional services that lead to the nation's economic growth. Thereupon, the mobility across specialization was not flexible. In addition, as there was more emphasis on skilled manual and technical professions, academic training was considered irrelevant. Furthermore, entry to the specialized universities of medicine required the acquisition of specific academic experiences taught in specialized secondary schools located in the cities. Consequently, students who lived in urban areas could attend privileged educational institutions. However, students from rural areas very often cannot enjoy the same educational advantages. Most of those willing to continue their education at a higher level are concentrated in the over-crowded technical schools or universities of humanities and social sciences.