Middle East / North Africa and the Millennium Development Goals ...

Middle East / North Africa and the Millennium Development Goals
Generally, it should be borne in mind here that political interventions may
not be able to do much to improve school enrolment rates. Comparative
time-series analyses conducted by Clemens, Kenny, and Moss (2004, 15f.)
indicate that, starting from a given point of time, school enrolment rates
throughout the world move within a relatively narrow, seemingly naturally
given corridor (see Figure 4). Regardless of the year in which this development
commences, school enrolment rates start rising very slowly, when
the first public schools are opened, in order then to accelerate over the
course of time. The development slows down again after a period of 100 to
150 years, when more than 50 % of the children attend school regularly,
and it entirely looses steam when the goal of 100 % school enrolment has
almost been achieved. The last 5 to 10 % of children not yet enrolled in
school are the most difficult to integrate into a school system. In other
words, it may take years or even decades to close the gap between the day
on which the enrolment rate has reached a threshold of 90 or 95 % and the
day on which MDG2 has been fully attained. Many countries can thus be
seen as having made excellent progress if at least 95 % of all primaryschool-age
children are regularly attending school in 2015.
A total of seven MENA countries will in all likelihood fail to reach
MDG2. This goes in particular for Iran and the United Arab Emirates
(UAE), where primary-school enrolment rates declined between 1990 and
2001 from 97 to 75 % and from 94 to 78 % respectively, but also for Sudan,
Oman, and Saudi Arabia, where, during the same period, primaryschool
enrolment rates stagnated at around 45 % (Sudan), 65 % (Oman),
and 58 % (Saudi Arabia). As reported above, Yemen and Kuwait are also
unlikely to reach MDG2. On the other hand, Morocco, Bahrain, and Syria
still have a chance to reach the goal, if but only if they undertake substantial
additional efforts (see Tables A1 and A4. Annex).
This situation is similar for preschool and secondary-school enrolment
rates. Only in a limited number of MENA countries are these rates rising
at the rates that would be required to reach MDG2. This is the case above
all for Egypt, Jordan, and the UAE. In Syria and Bahrain, on the other
hand, secondary-school enrolment rates have declined, as have preschool
enrolment rates in Iran, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia (see Table A4, Annex).
For a good number of MENA countries, data are not available.
German Development Institute 51