Education
The State of Kuwait is directing its attention towards Inclusive Education, which provides opportunity to all children, irrespective of their social class, including children with special needs. Kuwait education system is marked by several achievements in recent years. As of 2005/06 Kuwait allocates 13 percent of all public expenditure to education, which is comparable to the allocation of public funds to education in many OECD countries but lower than other Arab countries. For the same years the public expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP was 3.9 percent in 2005/12 which is well below the percentage of GDP spent by OECD countries on education.
As of 2005, the literacy rate of Kuwait is 93.3 percent. Kuwait is facing challenges in improving the quality of education at all levels and to build capacities of students' from a young age. The Ministry of Education is also making efforts to incorporate women into the educated workforce through various programs, for instance the 1989 initiative to establish daytime literacy clinics for women. The Kuwaiti government also offers scholarships to students accepted in universities in United States, United Kingdom and other foreign institutes.
There is also higher education, which has improved drastically in the past years. The largest university is Kuwait University which is free for Kuwaitis and has over 1,500 faculty members and approximately 30,000 students. There are also a number of private institutions such as The Arab Open University (AOU), American University of Kuwait, Gulf University for Science and Technology, Australian College of Kuwait, The American University of The Middle East, Box Hill College Kuwait and Kuwait Maastricht Business School. A new project called "Sabah Al Ahmed University City" is also being initiated and is expected to be completed in a few more years.
Kuwait has the highest literacy rate among the Arab world with 94%, up from 93.3% in 2005 (as stated above).
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