Brookings Institution report sheds light on UAE education

The quality of education in UAE schools needs to be further improved, especially in rural areas, a group of leaders in the sector has heard.

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DUBAI // The quality of education in UAE schools needs to be further improved, especially in rural areas, a group of leaders in the sector has heard.

Maysa Jalbout, co-author of a report from the Brookings Institution into education in the Arab world, said despite great efforts and investment from the Government, more was needed.

“The learning outcomes are still lower than hoped given the amount of investment and focus on education,” Ms Jalbout said.

“More than a quarter of students, particular boys at the secondary level, are not meeting basic learning levels. And there are huge learning disadvantages for students in rural areas at the moment.”

But Ms Jalbout said the data showed the UAE stood out as a regional leader in some areas of education.

“It has some of the highest percentages of students meeting basic learning levels in numeracy and literacy at both the primary and secondary levels,” she said.

“It also has one of the highest primary to secondary transition rates in the region, at 99 per cent in 2011.”

The report, Arab Youth: Missing Educational Foundations for a Productive Life, was presented at a meeting yesterday.

It draws an overall picture of education in the Middle East and North Africa using data from reports and results of national aptitude tests in 20 countries.

The report states that 46 per cent of the rural youth in the UAE are not reaching required learning levels, compared with 27 per cent of urban youths.

“It’s just meant to show you that if you try to say where are the students that are having the bigger problems, there’s a bigger cluster of them in rural areas,” Ms Jalbout said. “On the whole, rural areas have more challenges.

“It’s all framed in the context that we’re still seeing progress and it’s important progress, but you can’t do that without adjusting the challenges that still remain.”

Dr Dina Craissati, educational adviser for the United Nations Children’s Fund in the Mena region, praised the report for identifying areas of improvement in education.

“The UAE, like any other country, has major success in terms of access, but then again when the children stay in schools do they learn?” Dr Craissati asked.

“That’s the major basic question that this research is asking and we are all asking is how to improve the learning.

“We definitely need to work on quality of teaching and learning in the classroom, how to ensure that teachers are motivated and they have the capacity to teach, how to ensure also that resources are put where the poor are because, as you know, there are also disparities.

“It is always in terms of learning the poor children and the rural areas that are most disadvantaged.

“There are a lot of resources in the Arab world, but are they distributed to reach those who are disadvantaged?

“So this is also key. We need to invest in quality and we need also to invest on the disadvantaged.”

rpennington@thenational.ae