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which schools are organized, all the way from the timetable, the use of space, and the teaching and learning materials to external partnerships. Finally, these curriculum reforms lead to a much more sophisticated assessment regime, one which, for a start, is clearly aligned with the competency approach. Such a regime would obviously enhance and promote the relevance of the curriculum, although it is also true that assessment will become more complex, time consuming, and potentially more bureaucratic. Schools and education policy makers alike need to be aware of those risks and ensure that they take concrete actions to address them. Reform of the secondary-school leaving examination system is perhaps the most critically needed educational change in MENA. Transforming that system from an exclusively selective mechanism into one that promotes inclusion and learning could trigger dramatic changes in postbasic education in the region. For one thing, the competency-based curricula now being developed and implemented to some extent in most countries in the region provide a strong case for national public examinations to reflect and prioritize the evaluation of competencies. The introduction of more aptitude-oriented and higher-order cognitive elements into the examination instead of—or at least in addition to—rote memorization questions would send a strong message to schools, teachers, and students that the priorities for learning outcomes are changing.8 In this way, examinations could realize their considerable potential as instruments for closing the huge gap in perceptions of education quality: many employers and other stakeholders regard quality as the inculcation of 21st-century skills, achievable by all, whereas some influential stakeholders still regard it as the development of an elite of academically able pupils who can score 99 in a Tawjihi-like examination (that is, a general secondary examination also used to regulate admission to higher education). Any attempt to reform public examinations in MENA needs to acknowledge from the outset, however, that public confidence
in education currently relies to a great extent on these Tawjihi-type examinations and that the public regards them as a central institution in society and widely believes them to be a fair, meritocratic instrument for allocating further educational opportunities. Students and other stakeholders participating in focus groups in Jordan highlighted these points quite effectively and convincingly. Most mentioned that the Tawjihi exam plays a large role in determining one’s future, and, given that admissions policies across all universities and colleges in Jordan are directly based on Tawjihi grades, students’ choices about their postsecondary education are very limited.9 It is not surprising then that initiatives to reform examinations are raised continuously in public debate but resisted systematically by some stakeholders (the Arab Republic of Egypt is the most salient example). Consensus appears extremely difficult to build, although the changes brought about by the Arab Spring could provide a favorable political climate for complex reforms in the examination system.10
Investing more in disadvantaged students and schools To level the playing field for all individuals and to ensure that the proportion of young people who are unskilled and excluded from further education is as low as possible, greater investment is needed in disadvantaged students and schools. Chapter 2 presents strong evidence that a large share of young people in MENA are excluded from educational and training systems at some point during their school lives and, because of lack of skills, they cannot access quality employment. More inclusive policies are needed in education and training to prevent the exclusion of those vulnerable and disadvantaged because of early school leaving or school failure and to identify conditions in which second-chance programs effectively provide routes back into education—and therefore employment—for these young people. Such policies are needed throughout the region. Some education policy makers in Morocco