Anther interesting and pertinent report on the Middle East and the Arab world. Well written and well researched with new insights. Well worth publication in my view.
Fouad
Fouad
Summary:
Across the Arab world, different education reform initiatives have had varying levels of success in different contexts. This paper explores some types of education reform that could serve as groundwork for broader change.
This paper, with many of the authors of the first report participating again, attempts to go in further depth about the findings of the first report. It is evident that Arab governments still see education reform as a top-down effort that continues to perpetuate power relations and authoritarian thinking, sidelining critical and creative thinking among students. The paper places special emphasis on several reform efforts that are being implemented across the Arab region, many in a bottom-up approach that attempts a collaborative approach with governments but is not held hostage to old authoritarian thinking. Rather than simply admiring the problem, the report attempts to highlight several experiences taking place within different Arab educational systems, not so much because these experiences are necessarily transportable but rather to point out that together with the challenges, there are also successes that can be built on.
Consistent with Carnegie’s strategy of working with experts from the region, the report has once again drawn on the practical experiences of experts from the Qatari, Jordanian, and Egyptian educational systems as well as from the regional, bottom-up experience of the TAMAM project, led by the Arab Thought Forum and the American University of Beirut and spanning eight different countries. Under the able coordination and facilitation of Nathan J. Brown, these experts have authored a document that I hope will further contribute to the debate on education reform in the region—and help push it forward.
I want to acknowledge the Asfari Foundation for their generous financing of this project, and hope that policy recommendations in this report will help guide future education policies in the Arab world.
Marwan Muasher
Vice President for Studies
Foreward by Marwan Muasher
In October 2018, Carnegie published a report calling for fundamental educational reform in the Arab world and arguing for the need for that reform to move “from schooling to learning” in order to “serve the needs of pluralistic societies and foster the development of active, responsible citizens who are empowered to deal with complexity and advance constructive change.”1 The report gave a number of recommendations encompassing the different fields within which education takes place: the school, the state, and the society at large.This paper, with many of the authors of the first report participating again, attempts to go in further depth about the findings of the first report. It is evident that Arab governments still see education reform as a top-down effort that continues to perpetuate power relations and authoritarian thinking, sidelining critical and creative thinking among students. The paper places special emphasis on several reform efforts that are being implemented across the Arab region, many in a bottom-up approach that attempts a collaborative approach with governments but is not held hostage to old authoritarian thinking. Rather than simply admiring the problem, the report attempts to highlight several experiences taking place within different Arab educational systems, not so much because these experiences are necessarily transportable but rather to point out that together with the challenges, there are also successes that can be built on.
Consistent with Carnegie’s strategy of working with experts from the region, the report has once again drawn on the practical experiences of experts from the Qatari, Jordanian, and Egyptian educational systems as well as from the regional, bottom-up experience of the TAMAM project, led by the Arab Thought Forum and the American University of Beirut and spanning eight different countries. Under the able coordination and facilitation of Nathan J. Brown, these experts have authored a document that I hope will further contribute to the debate on education reform in the region—and help push it forward.
I want to acknowledge the Asfari Foundation for their generous financing of this project, and hope that policy recommendations in this report will help guide future education policies in the Arab world.
Marwan Muasher
Vice President for Studies
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