Road not travelled
Education reform in the Middle East and North Africa is sorely needed, but yet unrealised. It is not, however, beyond reach, writes
Ahmed Galal*
Everyone agrees that education is probably the most important determinant of the future of countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), including Egypt. Yet there is no common view about which road to travel to improve the region's ailing education systems.
I tried to answer this question in a recent comprehensive study. The short answer is that the region must travel a new road.
Any reform package must encompass three parallel tracks: reforms to improve the education process itself; reforms to motivate the actors involved through better incentives; and reforms to accord citizens greater sway to hold policymakers accountable for results. Thus far, most reform efforts are focused on the education process alone.
To tell the story more fully, I will try to answer the following questions successively: How much progress has the region made thus far? What went wrong along the way? What is the best path to follow? How do we get there?
How much progress has been made?
Over the past 40 years, the MENA region invested heavily in education, with significant positive results. Indeed, the region spent on average five per cent of GDP and 20 per cent of government expenditures on education. As a result, the region was able, between 1970 and 2003, to achieve full primary education enrolment and to increase enrolment in secondary schools threefold and fivefold at the higher education level.
The crowning achievement for the region has been the closing of the education gender gap. Illiteracy rates have also been halved, and some countries now score relatively well on international tests.
Despite this impressive track record, education systems in the region continue to deliver inferior outcomes to those obtained in other regions at similar levels of economic development. The region lags behind East Asia and Latin America with respect to secondary and higher education enrolment. The average number of years of schooling in MENA is also below both regions by more than one year.
Equally important, investment in education was not translated into higher economic growth, better income distribution and lower poverty. In comparison with other regions, MENA allocated more resources to education. However, per capita growth rates were lower and unemployment was higher. The limited contribution of human capital in MENA to development outcomes can be traced to a host of factors, particularly low quality and poor allocation of graduates, dominated by government hiring in low productivity jobs. Low returns in education also mean that the poor are not reaping the benefits of investing in education by moving up the social ladder.
What went wrong?
Like other developing countries in the wake of their independence, governments in the MENA region pursued aggressive education policies to enhance their national identity and make education available to as many citizens as possible. This drive worked quite well.
Indeed, countries in MENA committed themselves early to free access to education for all citizens. To achieve this objective, they relied on a command-and-control centralised apparatus, which involved building and owning schools, producing the content of education, and hiring teachers as civil servants. The focus was on building new schools, development of pedagogical material and curricula, and the recruitment, training and deployment of teachers. After enrolling as many students as possible, most MENA countries were subsequently faced with the problem of overexpansion in higher education . Growing graduate unemployment rates and the costs of higher education led many to consider ways to dampen demand for this level of instruction. Some adopted higher standards of entry and retention and fewer incentives to attract students (including fewer scholarships). The most common response, however, was to orient lower- performing students to terminal vocational training at the secondary education level. Once in the vocational stream, students acquired some practical skills, but very few had the option of pursuing university education.
Over time, circumstances changed, both within region and globally. Globally, firms can no longer afford to compete without employing a well-educated, technically skilled workforce capable of adopting new technologies and selling sophisticated goods and services. Students now require proficiency in new subjects and new sets of transversal skills. Whereas literacy and numeracy remain fundamental, with ever-greater levels of mastery, foreign languages and science training increasingly hold importance. In addition, problem solving and communication skills, rather than the ability to perform routine tasks, are essential for productivity. And modern pedagogical methods incorporate inquiry-based learning and adapt teaching to the learning capacity of individual students.
MENA countries, however, continue to use a more traditional model of pedagogy (for example, blackboard based learning and little interaction between teachers and students). They do not provide multiple opportunities for learning; rather they view schooling as a pyramid with a narrowing group of students advancing to higher levels of instruction. Education systems are not inclusive and diversified, particularly at the post-compulsory level of instruction. In post-compulsory education, once a decision is made regarding a field of study, there is no turning back.
In sum, the region invested heavily in education and was able to make significant progress by means of state-led and funded education systems. This approach, however, exhausted its usefulness and present education systems need to undergo significant transformations to cope with important changes in circumstances.
In search of a new path
In a fundamental way, the guiding principle of most education reforms in the MENA region thus far has been that engineering education (reforming inputs) will do the trick. That is, it is sufficient to increase the quantity and improve the quality of inputs (schools, teachers, administrators and equipment) to improve outcomes. More resources and better mix of inputs constitute the necessary ingredients to fix education systems. This premise is flawed. It leaves out motivating the actors involved in the process to do a better job. And it ignores the importance of holding policymakers accountable to citizens. Without a combination of reforms on all three fronts, as illustrated in Figure 3, progress will remain elusive.
The road ahead
The road not travelled is thus the road ahead. This new road is a significant departure from past reform efforts. It involves a shift in thinking on multiple fronts. What are the main landmarks of the new road?
From engineering inputs to engineering for results
In earlier phases of reform, engineering was a relatively straightforward activity of putting in place buildings, teachers and pedagogical materials based on a simple prediction of demand. Now education must produce appropriate skills for global competition and meet a growing demand for post-compulsory education.
This increased complexity requires a new kind of engineering based on partnership rather than hierarchical command. For example, rather than controlling the allocation of all educational inputs and resources, education authorities need to coordinate the contributions of an assortment of actors (public, private, local, nongovernmental) to meet expected objectives.
Some of the tools of this type of engineering include quality control and public- private partnerships. In addition, "engineers" (from the ministry to the school level) would have the responsibility of finding additional sources of financing.
From hierarchical control to incentive- compatible contracts
Using incentives to change the behaviour of educators, schools, or providers of other education services is not entirely new in the region. However, to promote the flexibility and performance of education actors, there are three areas in which MENA countries can further improve incentive structures.
First, non-public provision of instruction and education could be further promoted, particularly in areas where it has an evident comparative advantage to meet diversified demand for educational services (for example, vocational training, and postsecondary education). Second, more decision-making responsibilities could be shifted to the school or university level to increase flexibility. In parallel, (additional) public financing could be tied to outcomes, thus ensuring accountability for performance. Finally, teachers are now expected to function more like physicians or lawyers, applying diagnostics and crafting responses according to the specific needs of students.
To support this transformation, new teacher incentive structures are needed. Although linking teacher pay or promotion to class outcomes is not easy, it can be done initially at the level of schools or specific departments. Also, teacher licenses and promotion could require teachers to continuously upgrade their skills and competencies, rather than depend on seniority alone.
Accountability to the state versus accountability to the public
For education systems to perform better, they must cater to the increasingly complex demands of a diverse clientele (parents, students, workers, employers). Ensuring better accountability to this public can be approached along two dimensions.
First, institutional mechanisms can be put in place to enable different stakeholders to influence educational policy, resource allocation and service delivery. This can be done in part by holding consultative events, parliamentary oversight committees, advisory committees, or nongovernmental representation on oversight agencies. Civil society can play the role of "watchdog" through independent research institutes, professional associations and well-informed media.
Second, an accurate, credible, regularly updated and detailed information system is required to enable the above actors to exercise their accountability mandates effectively. At present, education information systems tend to be weak, as demonstrated by the many gaps in basic educational data available to the public; even simple information on student outcomes, attendance, dropout, teacher absenteeism, and teacher training and qualification at the level of school, district and nation.
Synchronising human capital accumulation with labour demand
Initiatives are needed at national, regional and international levels to produce better labour market outcomes and higher returns to investment in education in MENA.
First, employment policy in government has led to suboptimal use of labour and created expectations that could not be fulfilled. This policy was coupled with relatively low levels of job creation by the private sector in new and dynamic directions. In turn, private sector activities were limited by excessive and costly regulations, constraints on openness, and low confidence in macroeconomic policies. One important implication for the education sector is this: until sufficient progress is made to create productive jobs in dynamic sectors of the economy, further expanding education systems in the region may be counterproductive.
Without labour mobility or migration, unemployment in the region would have been higher and the returns on education lower than observed. Yet this positive outcome was possible despite an array of migration policies and practices that do not encourage migration. Collectively, governments of both host and home countries can benefit from concluding bilateral or multilateral agreements on orderly migration and return migration of workers. They could further coordinate their education systems to ensure that the graduates the exporting countries have the skills most in demand in host country markets.
Clearly not all countries in the MENA region need the same recipe suggested here. Some have made more progress than others. What seems certain, though, is that all countries need to travel a new road, with different degrees of emphasis on engineering, incentives and accountability.
* The writer is managing director of the Economic Research Forum.
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