Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards Productive

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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
BOX 3-10The Lebanese Association for Educational Studies:a model for national and pan-Arab networking for the development of educational knowledgeThe Lebanese Association for Educational Studies (LAES)was founded in 1995 with the aim of developing pedagogicalknowledge. The decision to form the association was inspired bythree considerations: the quantitative and qualitative decline in theeducational knowledge produced by governmental agencies, the factthat the educational knowledge produced in universities remainslocked up in these universities, and the fact that the huge shortage ofeducational knowledge compels officials to take their decisions onthe basis of the pressures of the moment and of narrow interests,and not on the basis of acquiring knowledge.LAES is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation with norepresentative capacity for employees or specialists in education. Itestablished itself in this manner in order to avoid any dependencyon the government, any commercial taint, and any need to act inthe manner of a syndicate or lobby, so as to be able to enjoy fulland unrestricted academic freedom. Its membership is restricted touniversity professors endowed with the qualities of the impartial andobjective scholar.It was not long before the LAES developed into a point for contactand exchange among scholars from diverse disciplines, Lebaneseinstitutions that had remained remote from one another for historicalreasons, and parallel global cultures (Arabophone, Francophone,and Anglophone). As these diverse elements participated in studycircles and joint research projects, prejudices evaporated, mindsopened to fresh approaches and diverse perspectives, and the generalscope of thought broadened. The added knowledge value from thisnetworking was palpable.Soon the LAES and its publications became a resource forscholars, researchers, and others, both from Lebanon and abroad,interested in information on the state of education and pedagogyin Lebanon. In addition, the activities of this association began toattract the attention of people engaged in the educational sector.One of the conferences it organised drew around 500 participants,and had it not been for the confines of the venue there could havebeen more.“Providing a network” for Lebanese academicians had not beenexplicitly mentioned in the aims of LAES. However, the phrase“enhancing the educational academic community” was used in orderto sum up the association’s desire to strengthen the type of scholasticinterplay aimed at the advancement of educational knowledge bycompiling a body of literature consisting of tests, criteria standards,and analytic and assessment approaches and methodologies to helpensure objectivity and quality in study and research, and applyingthis literature and making its findings available through publicationand conferences. In the process, LAES has become, at the Lebanesenational level, a nucleus of the educational academic community.Another of the association’s aims was to “engage with similarorganisations in other Arab countries.” However, due to the dearthof such organisations, LAES’s activities in this regard have beenconfined to cooperation with a single “similar” organisation, theKuwaiti Society for the Advancement of Arab Children. The jointactivities undertaken in the context of this cooperation includeda study circle on “The Reform of General Education in ArabCountries” (papers and discussions appeared in book form in 2005)and a study on The Psychological Conditions of Children and Youth inLebanon after the July 2006 War (2008).LAES also engaged in academic activities with a broader Arabscope in cooperation with faculties of education, Lebanese-basedUNESCO committees, universities, ministries, and individualscholars. Such activities included conferences and workshops allof whose proceedings have been published, an example being theconference on “Teacher Preparation in the Arab Countries” (2001).The association also conducted a major study on a topic that isnow of the highest priority in higher educational circumstances.Incorporating an extensive survey in 2003 to which 157 Arabuniversities responded, the results of the study were publishedin 2005 with the title, Quality Assurance in Arab Universities, anddistributed widely in the Arab world. Such a large-scale effort couldnot have succeeded had it not been for the cooperation and supportLAES received from the Federation of Arab Universities and theUNESCO bureau in Beirut.Faced by the poor level of networking on educational knowledgein the Arab region, the sense that education specialists in eachcountry are in the dark about what is happening in their field in othercountries, and the near certainty that the lack of networking andthe mutual ignorance are detrimental to Arab knowledge productionin every Arab country, LAES had another inspiration. This was tocreate a database on all the books, articles, theses, and studies oneducation published in Arab countries and to make it available toall on a website, the Arab Educational Information Network (www.shamaanet.org).LAES hopes that all other scholars, organisations, and institutionsthat share its belief that networking, information exchange, andthe creation of a robust educational academic community form aprerequisite to the development of educational knowledge in Arabstates and a fundamental pillar for their educational revival willsupport its efforts.(Based on a contribution by ‘Adnan al-Amin, General Secretary, LAES)agents of the reform processes. As theseprocesses did not provide for widespreadgrassroots participation, the diverse sectorsof society could not be brought to embracethe reform aims and hence be mobilisedtowards the realisation of their aims. 92Unfortunately, the reform initiatives thatwere launched in Lebanon and Moroccoalso proved unsustainable. In these cases,follow-through proved weaker than hopedfor, and, as a result, these initiatives failedto fully mature, yielding only partial results,as can be seen in the indicators discussedin this chapter.Arab educational development driveshave, as a rule, remained stuck in the rut ofexpansion, as opposed to reform, whichis why improvement has occurred only inthe quantitative indicators. In most cases,educational systems in Arab countries have130 ARAB KNOWLEDGE REPORT 2009
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United Nations Development Programm
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This Report has been produced throu
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This year’s report may perhapsbes
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ICT in the Arab countries and reinf
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CONTENTSPREAMBLEIntroductionPrelimi
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Quantitative indicatorsTertiary edu
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LIST OF BOXESBox 1 The Effect of th
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Figure 5-7 Published scientific art
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Table 21 Time devoted to secondary
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The knowledgefield and revolutionto
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The literature onhuman rights place
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Arabic istechnologicallypoor in com
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Intercommunicationwith the self mea
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Table 2CountryGroupGroup 1: Oilecon
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Figure 2504540353025201510508070605
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In the period2003-2007, morethan 83
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eversion, in many cases, is not ass
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Thus the Arab region in general, an
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knowledge over recent years. This w
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However, this progress remains limi
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CHAPTER ONETHE THEORETICAL FRAMEWOR
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The successfuldeployment ofthe know
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The knowledgerevolution atthe end o
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Technology, theeconomy, andsociety,
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No one pursuesknowledge forits own
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The Report adoptsa concept ofknowle
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The goal of thiscritical review isn
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In our bidfor economicand humandeve
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The political reformproject remains
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Globalisation isdependent oninforma
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The battle overknowledge in oursoci
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The most obviousexample of the gapb
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BOX 1-9The Virtual as an Interrogat
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The upsurge intechnologicalprowess
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Collective humaneffort must bedirec
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End Notes1Epistemic saturation refe
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CHAPTER TWOARAB KNOWLEDGE PERFORMAN
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current economic crisis in the autu
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FIGURE 2-3Perceptions of corruption
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technology infrastructure, blogs ar
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nations continue to occupy their pr
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to the third oil boom, which reache
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have realised a degree of progress
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FIGURE 2-8Index of global competiti
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FIGURE 2-10Net exports of manufactu
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namely the spread of poverty, socia
Page 96 and 97: TABLE 2-2Arab Countries according t
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Page 106 and 107: solutions that allow use of the ava
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Page 110: specific cases.These flexibilities
Page 114 and 115: CHAPTER THREEEDUCATION AND THE FORM
Page 116 and 117: FIGURE 3-1Education and human resou
Page 118 and 119: of the qualitative knowledge capita
Page 120 and 121: TABLE 3-1CountryOpportunities for b
Page 122 and 123: Virtually the only area in which Ar
Page 124 and 125: must possess if they aspire to part
Page 126 and 127: TABLE 3-2Opportunities for the form
Page 128 and 129: General secondary education andthe
Page 130 and 131: elatively high enrolment rates of b
Page 132 and 133: Available data shows large discrepa
Page 134 and 135: TABLE 3-3Comparison of overall resu
Page 136 and 137: females. According to this data, to
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Page 140 and 141: inroads well beyond their current f
Page 142 and 143: FIGURE 3-6aMaths performance of eig
Page 144 and 145: BOX 3-8The Contribution of Non-Publ
Page 148 and 149: emained encumbered by the prevailin
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Page 152 and 153: countries and providing a picture o
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Page 156: 89Finland, for example, whose stude
Page 160 and 161: CHAPTER FOURINFORMATION AND COMMUNI
Page 162 and 163: FIGURE 4-1ICT index values for Arab
Page 164 and 165: countries and the Arab countries. T
Page 166 and 167: Arab countries-Egypt, Algeria, Leba
Page 168 and 169: of Arabic content and its low rate
Page 170 and 171: exchange of future technology servi
Page 172 and 173: of national partnerships aimed at s
Page 174 and 175: TABLE 4-2Readiness of Arab countrie
Page 176 and 177: as the implementation of programmes
Page 178 and 179: BOX 4-2Evaluating the Performance o
Page 180 and 181: of common principles that guarantee
Page 182 and 183: data from various sources and then
Page 184 and 185: FIGURE 4-11Paper consumption and in
Page 186 and 187: processing and the methods and tool
Page 188 and 189: TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEAND FUTURE INI
Page 190 and 191: within bounds that do not hinder bu
Page 192 and 193: preservation and the consolidation
Page 194 and 195: 21As a result of the nature of comp
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CHAPTER FIVEARAB PERFORMANCE IN RES
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FIGURE 5-1Innovation system index f
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The extremely lowamounts spentby Ar
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It has become clearthat the wager o
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Joint researchprojects among Arabsc
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Theoretically, themore researcherst
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Average expenditureon scientific re
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BOX 5-6Jordan’s “A Professor in
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BOX 5-8For the last three decades,
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FIGURE 5-7Published scientific arti
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A review of theperiod from 2002to 2
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Social scienceresearch holds aspeci
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Most Arabic-languageperiodicals in
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Arab societies arefilled with examp
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Human capitalis among Arabcountries
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TABLE 5-12Trade in technological pr
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It is ironic thatalthough the Arabw
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End Notes1UNESCO Institute for Stat
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CHAPTER SIXBUILDING THE KNOWLEDGE S
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The most conspicuousfeature of thek
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A review of nationalplans in the Ar
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The positiveachievements inthe Arab
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One of the keyfoundations of thevis
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Freedom andinstitutionalisationare
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Priorities are subjectto a great de
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If we admit thatlanguage is avehicl
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The major challengelies in changing
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Deployment is linkedto the creation
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The variousproposals includedin thi
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ReferencesReferences in Arabic‘Ab
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the President of the ICRC Expresses
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al-Duwal al-‘Arabiyya, UNESCO’s
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Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development asF
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Castells, Manuel. (1998/2001). LaSo
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the Age of Technology).• Binsa‘
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egional and international levels an
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ANNEX 3. MEASUREMENT OF THE ARABCOU
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indicators that make up the pillar.
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countries’ rankings among the cou
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of the Arab countries and suffer fr
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Freedom House and Heritage Institut
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Endnotes* This annex was prepared b
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STATISTICAL ANNEXGENERAL INDICATORS
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Table 3: Economic IndicatorsCountry
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KNOWLEDGE PERFORMANCE ENVIRONMENTST
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Table 7: Press Freedom Index in the
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EDUCATIONTable 9: Adult literacy ra
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Table 11: Gross enrolment ratios in
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Table 13: Adult illiterate populati
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Table 16: Net and gross enrolment i
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Table 18: Lessons in basic educatio
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Table 20: Literacy rates among youn
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Table 22: Evolution of enrolment ra
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Table 24: Student enrolment rates i
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Table 26: Distribution of graduates
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Table 28: Estimated educational lev
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Table 30: Enrolment rates in non-go
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RESEARCH AND INNOVATIONTable 32: Nu
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Table 34: Indicators on research an
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INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHN
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FIGURE b-2Growth in average number
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competition between the internet se
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Table c-4: Ranking of a group of Ar
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United Nations Development Programm
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