Big and quick change needed to prepare Mena pupils for future, experts say

DUBAI // The pace of education reform across the region needs to pick up to prepare Emirati and Arab pupils for the jobs of the future, experts say.

Although several countries within the Middle East and North Africa have been tackling education reform in incremental ways – by recruiting teachers, revising curriculums, moving away from rote learning and promoting critical thinking – more was needed to bridge the skills gap, said Maysa Jalbout, a non-resident fellow at the Centre for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, a non-profit US-based public policy organisation.

“All of those changes still need to happen, but we need to really step up the pace of reform and we need to move away from incremental changes to look at how can we advance the education system in not just faster ways, but [how] essentially can we use technology to leapfrog forward,” said Ms Jalbout, who is co-author of a study, Will the Technology Disruption Widen or Close the Skills Gap in the Middle East and North Africa?

“This is really what we’re advocating: technology presents an opportunity for us to accelerate the pace of change and to introduce new curriculum, better pedagogy [teaching practices] and better approaches to teaching and learning.”

Despite efforts to increase the emphasis on science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) subjects in schools, only about 23 per cent of Arab youth in the Mena region graduated from these fields, according to the study.

“Although some countries like Saudi Arabia and Tunisia produced between 20 to 25 per cent Stem graduates in 2012, the Stem rate was at, or below, 10 per cent in Algeria, Qatar, the UAE, and Lebanon,” according to the study, which said those rates were far below those in other developing countries.

Still, Emirati and Arab youth in the UAE were “very lucky by comparison,” to other Mena youths, Ms Jalbout said.

“The Government here is investing a lot of resources in improving the quality of education, and of course for Emirati students in particular, for any young person who wants to learn and wants to receive the best quality of education, there are tonnes of resources to support them,” said Ms Jalbout.

“What we want to see is that that investment is resulting in jobs growth and in improvements in the kinds of jobs young people can have. Encouraging more young people to go into Stem is one way to do that.”

Ms Jalbout, who was appointed last year as the chief executive of the Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation for Education, said it will announce details of its programming that will focus on promoting Stem education and adding skills through scholarship, mentoring and networking.

“One of the ways that we as a foundation want to work with government and other stakeholders in the UAE and other parts of the region is to make sure that we make going into the Stem sector more attractive,” said Ms Jalbout. “UAE students need to know how to be able to capitalise on the many, many opportunities that are available to them.”