Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards Productive

even contradictory. For example, data forthe indicator on enrolment in a specificstage of education extracted from therecords of the educational institutions maynot be consistent with those extracted fromfamily surveys because of the difference inthe time period, the beginning or end ofthe school year, how enrolment is defined,the coverage of those enrolled, and othermethodological factors.In general then, there are severeshortcomings in knowledge data withinthe Arab countries, because interest incollecting these data remains recent. Atthe time when these data are becomingrelatively available with respect to somefields of knowledge, such as educationand communications, they remain almostnon-existent in other fields, such as thoseconnected to research and development,the publishing industry, patents, literaryand artistic production, the media,and translation. In the face of theseshortcomings in knowledge data aboutthe Arab countries, it was decided, for thepurposes of the present Report, to conducta statistical survey to examine the opinionsof those concerned with knowledge.Implementation was, however, postponedbecause of the delay such a survey wouldcause to publication of the Report, andbecause postponement may be beneficialin light of the increasing fine-tuning ofthe diagnosis of the reality of knowledgein the Arab countries, of the priorities andsubjects on which data should be gathered,and of the best formulations for gatheringand tabulating this data that the currentReport sets out.266 ARAB KNOWLEDGE REPORT 2009