Access to education: who goes to school and who is excluded
Arab Human Development Report 2002: creating opportunities for future generations
The nature and extent of development in the Arab world
Authors:
N. Fergany
Publisher:
United Nations Development Programme , 2002
This first Arab States' Report acknowledges that Arab countries have made substantial progress over the past three decades. Life expectancy has increased by 15 years; mortality rates for children under five years of age have fallen by about two thirds; adult literacy has almost doubled, reflecting large increases in gross educational enrollments.
Yet it is obvious that Arab countries have not developed as quickly as comparable nations in other regions. Indeed, more than half of Arab women are illiterate; the region's infant mortality rate is twice as high as in Latin America and the Caribbean. Over the past 20 years, income growth per capita has also been extremely low.
The report highlights the causes of these deficits and identifies three areas where Arab institutional structures are hindering performance and crippling human development: governance, women's empowerment, and access to knowledge.
A whole chapter of the report is dedicated to education, focusing specifically on building human capabilities for knowledge acquisition in Arab countries through education. The assessment of the state of education using such indicators as enrolment and illiteracy rates and per capita expenditure reveals tangible achievements but also significant areas for further progress in the Arab countries as a whole. In addition, a mismatch between educational output on the one hand and labour-market and development needs on the other could lead to Arab countries’ isolation from global knowledge, information and technology at a time when accelerated acquisition of knowledge and formation of advanced human skills are becoming prerequisites for progress. To address these and other quality issues, a radical vision of education reform is put forward, including strategic directions and policies and specific areas for educational expansion and improvement.
