Educational deficiencies hinder Arab economies

Across the Arab world – from the wealthiest oil economies to the resource-poor countries of North Africa and the Levant – education remains a key obstacle to making the region’s economies economically competitive, a report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) has found.

The WEF’s Arab World Competitiveness Report for 2011-2012 (PDF) found that in virtually every country in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), educational institutions have failed to prepare citizens for jobs in modern, technology-oriented economies. The only MENA countries that scored high both in terms of quality of education and enrollment rates are Tunisia and Lebanon.

The report was released over the weekend as many of the region’s leaders gathered in Jordan for a WEF conference on generating badly needed employment as the Arab Spring continues to shake the region. It warned that the political and social grievances that have been exposed by the uprising need to be addressed by creating jobs and boosting the standard of living.

“We have to re-engineer the expectations of our children, instill in them the belief that there are no limits to their aspirations,” Jordan’s Queen Rania told the conference on Sunday. “That will take a quality education. It will take inspiring teachers and modern curricula that teach them the skills of an entrepreneur – critical thinking, team work, problem solving, initiative, communications and leadership.”

“The skills of an entrepreneur are the skills of the 21st century workers,” she said.

While the Arab Spring turmoil has focused on democratization and other political change, the MENA region faces equally daunting economic challenges. Already grappling with a double-digit jobless rate, the region will have to add 25 million new jobs over the next decade just to keep unemployment from climbing higher. Economists maintain that the only way those jobs will be created is by private businesses that can compete in global markets.