Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards Productive

Kuwait, and the worst performers such asMorocco, Iraq, Yemen, and Djibouti.The report describes the performanceof Arab states in terms of three “buildingblocks” which are subsumed beneaththe headings “engineering” (consistingof physical resources, finance andadministration, curricula and teachingmethods), “incentives” (which coverevaluation and monitoring, motivationand rewards, and information), and“public accountability.” It suggests thatthe most successful countries, suchas Jordan, Kuwait, and Lebanon, haveeducation systems that feature a goodmix of engineering, incentives, and publicaccountability. Indeed, it demonstrates thatwith such a mix, education systems canperform acceptably even in environmentsmarred by violence and instability as is thecase in Palestine and as was formerly for aprotracted period the case in Lebanon.On the basis of the foregoing, theWorld Bank report maintains that theway forward is for countries to make thetransition from engineering inputs toengineering for results, from hierarchicalcontrol to incentive-compatible contracts,and from accountability to the state tobroader public participation in educationalaffairs. In addition, it urges Arab states tosynchronise human capital accumulationwith labor demand both within eachindividual Arab state and within the Arabregion as a whole and, more generally, totailor education to the needs of economicdevelopment and the generation oflarge numbers of job opportunities soas to optimise the economic returns oninvestment in education.Perhaps the lack of extensive publicdebate in Arab countries, together andindividually, on the nature, goals, andchallenges of education reform, and thedearth of published studies, research,and documents on these issues havecaused reform efforts to turn in onthemselves, exposing them to the dangersof oversimplification. This has givenrise to the tendency to handle reform asthough it were merely a matter of applyingready-made formulas. In fact, authenticreform entails setting in motion asocietal dynamic that is associated withthe unleashing of the forces of innovativethought, experimentation, evaluation,rectification and renewed initiative, therebygenerating a new and vigorous educationalculture that pervades all facets of theeducational system and all aspects of itsrelationship to the needs of comprehensiveintegrated development (‘Adnan al-Amin,et al, 2005, in Arabic). In all events, it isclear that the Arab states, in general,do not have the critical mass needed tosustain the impetus of efforts aimed atelevating their educational systems to thestandards achieved by developed nations.Undoubtedly the fault for this shortcomingcan be traced to levels of responsibility,from the leaders of educational thoughtand education planners to teachers andinstructors at all phases of the educationprocess, via education and schooladministrators and all others in charge ofproviding educational services, especiallythose concerned with quality assurance.An example of a societal dynamicpromising for reform occurred inMorocco in 1998-2000. In this period,the organs and energies of civil societywere galvanised into action, generatingthe impetus that launched the NationalCharter of Education and Training (1999),or the so-called “Education Law,” that laidout the fundamental pillars for reform atall levels and in all branches of educationin the kingdom. The experience wasremarkable in spite of the hurdles that havecontinually obstructed the implementationof the agreed-upon principles by dint ofthe sheer number of difficulties and thefact that some of these have been left toaccumulate for so long and have becomeso intractable as to defy solution evenafter years of work. A similar movementoccurred in Lebanon from 1995 to 1997,although in this case it was restricted to thereform of the public education curricula.In all other countries, officials in chargeof the education systems and educationexperts formed the primary and soleThe lack of extensivepublic debate in Arabcountries has givenrise to the tendencyto handle reform asthough it were merelya matter of applyingready-made formulasArab educationaldevelopment driveshave, as a rule,remained stuck inthe rut of expansion,as opposed toreform, which is whyimprovement hasoccurred only in thequantitative indicatorsEDUCATION AND THE FORMATION OF KNOWLEDGE CAPITAL129