Quote:Literacy in the Arab world remains below the developed nations' minimum average of 95 per cent
Literacy rates in the Arab world remain below the minimum average of 95 per cent in the developed nations, despite several countries notching up increasingly high literacy statistics.
WHICH MEANS THAT A FEW COUNTRIES HAVE HIGH STATS AND LOTS DON’T.
Quote:alJazeera 070208
Beyond literacy in the Arab World
A new World Bank report said the quality of education in the Arab world is falling behind other regions
By James H. Roth
Chicago, Illinois - Education in the Arab world is a mixture of good and bad news. On one hand, literacy continues to improve across the region, with some countries progressing more than others. On the other hand, the Arab world continues to lag behind most of the world and is producing citizens ill-equipped to participate in the rapidly evolving global market. As a result, structural unemployment is a major dilemma. Educational reform is urgently needed.
OH DEAR LOOK BACKED UP BY YOUR FAVOURITE NEWS SOURCE.
FROM THE SAME ARTICLE…
Quote:Eradicating illiteracy was an important mission of the post-colonial Arab world. The Arabs have made a serious dent on that front. Although about 70 million Arabs remain illiterate, that number is quickly decreasing. Yet, there is a difference between educating to achieve literacy and providing quality education. By and large, the Arab world has not yet transformed their educational systems from focusing on literacy into a system with the institutions necessary to integrate their young people into their own labour markets and to push their countries into the competitive global arena.
OH DEAR…
FROM UNESCO
Quote:Present weaknesses
This short reminder of history shows how ironic it is that Arabs themselves now identify a knowledge deficit as one of their major weaknesses at the beginning of the 21st century. A thousand years ago the Arabs did not simply lead in making discoveries and codifing knowledge, they also drove the development of the scientific method that became the basis of civilisation all over the world.
According to the UNDP’s Arab Human Development Report 2002, which has been a wake-up call for all of us, The great weaknesses of the Arab world are the lack of freedom, the lack of knowledge and the lack of women’s empowerment.
First, there is poverty and its corollary of unemployment. About one in five Arabs live on less than two dollars a day and economic growth at an annual 0.5% is dismal. Unless growth can be accelerated, the current figure of 12 million unemployed could rise to 25 million by 2010.
Second, the global trend of democratisation has had little impact in the Arab region, making for frustrated populations.
Third, freedom of expression and freedom of association are very limited, exacerbating the frustrations.
Fourth, more than half the Arab women are illiterate with the result that much that goes on in contemporary life passes them by.
Fifth and related to this, women’s political and economic participation remains the lowest in the world (with only 3.5% of all seats in parliaments).
Sixth, and a symbol of this lack of engagement with the modern world, only 1.2% of the population uses a PC and 0.6% of the population uses the Internet.
Finally, telephone line access in the countries is barely one-fifth that of the developed world, which must hinder attempts by Arabs to work together.
Looking now at literacy, the Arab region has some of the world’s lowest adult literacy rates, with only 60% of the region’s population of 15 and over able to read and to write in 2000, well below the world average of 80% and the developing country average of 73.6%. Gender disparity in literacy is severe. Women account for nearly two-thirds of the region’s illiterates, a figure not expected to change much by 2015. Gender gaps are particularly large in Algeria, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen.
WHAT WAS THAT? THE ARAB REGION HAS SOME OF THE WORLD’S LOWEST LITERACY RATES.
ONLY 60% OVER 15 ABLE TO READ AND WRITE.
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