by Robert Prouty 1. Introduction

1. Introduction

At first glance, the development of the education sector in the MENA Region over the past half-century appears to be a remarkable success story. Between 1970 and 2010, the average number of years that children remain in school increased at a faster rate than in any other region.1 The Gross Enrolment Ratio for primary schooling rose from 72 percent in 1970 to 104 percent in 20192, with even greater gains for girls, who saw an increase from 55 percent to 103 percent. Most MENA countries are now at or near universal primary enrolments, with Djibouti, Syria, Jordan and Yemen as the exceptions, although each of these has also shown significant gains. A similar pattern holds for secondary education as well, where gross enrolment ratios increased from only 27 percent in 1970 to 82 percent by 2019. The secondary school gross enrolment ratio for girls increased by 62 percentage points over this same period, from 18 percent in 1970 to 80 percent in 2019. MENA countries also have lower average class sizes than comparator countries (17 students per classroom compared to a global average of 24) and until the mid-2010’s showed the highest rate of public spending on education among all developing countries3 .

Yet these positive gains mask a host of challenges. MENA countries show weak results on international assessments of learning. Private and social returns to education in the region are among the lowest in the world. Five of the six countries in the region that participated in the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), scored in the bottom one-third among the 79 participating countries and the other scored only marginally better. The ten MENA countries participating in the 2016 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) all ranked among the lowest 25 percent among 50 participating countries. All 11 MENA countries that participated in the 2019 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) similarly scored in the bottom 25 percent of the 64 participating countries. A recent report (World Bank, 2022) estimated that across countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), 63 percent of children are in learning poverty—they cannot read and understand an age-appropriate text by age 10—and the number is projected to have increased further because of the school closures of the past two years.

This chapter argues that the underperformance of the education sector throughout the MENA region can be attributed in part to a failure of governance and a lack of accountability for results. The unique nature of the education sector makes governance a particular challenge. This is a sector where 80 percent (and often more) of the budget goes for salaries, leaving a very small margin for other expenditures. This means that improvements in workforce performance through careful attention to governance are a pre-requisite for better results.

The three main components of education governance considered in this chapter are i) setting standards, (ii) assessing progress, and (iii) ensuring accountability. MENA countries have generally done well at setting standards, although there is often a lack of clarity around specific, quantifiable goals. Most MENA countries also have a relatively well-developed assessment system although these tend to focus on high-stakes assessment rather than on formative approaches and there is limited capacity to use assessment for informing policy. Of greater concern, examples abound throughout the region showing that accountability has been widely neglected: mechanisms for communicating results are weak; there is little ability to harness data in order to identify needed action or to identify and support those who should follow up on needed actions, and follow-through implementation lacks systematic political support.

1 See for instance, World Bank (2015). See also Narayan et al (2018). 2 UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Data as of September 2021. 3 Iqbal and Kiendrebeogo (2015).

The MENA region has a wide range of socio-economic contexts, from the high-income Gulf states to low-income countries and those that have been enduring long-term humanitarian crises. There are wide disparities in spending on education in the region. In 2021, Saudi Arabia spent almost 19 percent of its budget on education, while Kuwait was spending around 12 percent and Bahrain and Qatar, under 9 percent4. There are also major socioeconomic disparities within countries, and political unrest that has contributed to the largest displacement and refugee crisis since World War II. About one in five children in MENA is in need of humanitarian assistance, and more than 12 million children in the region are internally displaced or refugees5. Many of these children are not in school.

Jordan typifies the paradoxes built into many education systems across the MENA region. It is very close to achieving universal primary school enrollment and has a remarkably high completion rate for secondary schooling (90 percent) that is on par with, or ahead of, many OECD countries6. It has achieved these levels despite immense pressures on the education system from the presence of large numbers of refugee children. Jordan has also shown intermittent signs of learning progress. Between 1997 and 2007, it showed greater gains on the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) science test than any other participating country, albeit from a very low base.7 Yet Jordan’s 2011 and 2015 TIMSS results were very disappointing, with the country again scoring in the bottom tier of countries for both science and mathematics, before rebounding modestly in 2019. This low level of learning achievement comes despite expenditures on education that rival OECD countries as a share of total government expenditure.

Throughout the world, increases in educational attainment are almost invariably a precursor to increases in both economic development and personal income. This is emphatically not the case in MENA where both the private and social returns to education are among the lowest in the world (Rizk, 2019; Psacharopoulos and Patrinos, 2018), almost certainly due in large part to the large number of children who remain in learning poverty. More education does not translate easily into more jobs in MENA, and it has less impact than anticipated on citizenship measures such as overall civic engagement and participation in community issues.

So, what is going on in MENA, and how can it begin to catch up with the result of the world? Why has it not been able to convert its success in recruiting teachers, building schools, and increasing the number of children in school, into gains into learning gains? What would it take for its investments in the education sector to produce tangible results in terms of learning outcomes and greater economic mobility for its citizens? How can MENA countries move onto a new growth trajectory, one in which the education sector makes a far greater contribution to economic growth and overall stability?

Definition of Terms

Education governance means how the education sector gets things done. It can be examined from a structural perspective, i.e., what are the institutions that are responsible for education delivery; what mechanisms may be brought to bear for achieving sectoral goals? It can also be examined from a procedural perspective, i.e., what is the process by which policies are established and implemented? Who gets a seat at the table and who is left out? How are decisions taken? Who is responsible for following up on decisions? How is compliance determined and enforced? What strategies are available for shaping choices and influencing the course of action?

4 World Bank (2022). https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.xPD.TOTL.GB.ZS; latest available data are cited: Saudi Arabia and Qatar (2021), Kuwait (2020), and Bahrain (2019). 5 UNICEF (2020). 6 World Bank (2016). 7 Mullis et al. (2020).