Knowledge gap is ‘now widening’
DOHA (The National) : The economic downturn is likely to exacerbate the “knowledge deficit” of the Arab world, slowing the progress achieved since the problem was first identified in 2003, according to the author of a report released yesterday.
While there were advances in the intervening years in education, government investment in research, technological innovation and knowledge-based industries such as media, a widening gap has been identified between this region and the rest of the world, it is claimed.
The report, published in June in English and released in Arabic yesterday at the UN-Islamic World Forum in Doha, was designed as a follow-up to the United Nations Development Programme’s controversial Arab Human Development Report of 2003, which first identified the “deficit” in the region.
Kristin Lord, a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at The Brookings Institution, said that while her report, A New Millennium of Knowledge?, recognised that more oil wealth stayed in the region to support education, research, innovation and productive industry, unemployment remained higher in the Arab world than in any other region, particularly among the young.
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090216/NATIONAL/516503284/1010
If anybody reads the 186-page report on education.gov.qa that ngourlay previously linked to, the problem is obvious...
Teach thinking, not memorizing.
Let them read.
Help them be interested.
btw, thanks for the report, I spent 3 hours on it, and it was a real eye-opener.
I think the old adage, " You can take a horse to water,but you cant make it drink" is the best way to put this.
Why learn anything when you can go shopping or socialising.
There's no point throwing money at universities and higher education - that's not where the problem is.
I agree, Nogourlay.
Qatar's education system is failing because time and time again it ignores that the real problem is in elementary education, both in the classroom and in the home. When we were children our parents spent hours each night reaching us the three R's to make sure that what was learnt at school was reinforced at home.
Unless solid educational foundations are created during early childhood, it is impossible for students to achieve overnight academic success.
This is just another example of the broader impatience that is so pervavise in this culture. Building world class universities isn't going to generate world class university graduates unless they were smart enough to get into them in the beginning.
education is not just putting money into it, but takes a lot of perseverance & dedication. Must start from A,B,C...1,2,3 & Do,Re, Mi!
"I do live by the motto that pessimists are usually right, but all the great change in history was done by optimists" -Thomas Friedman
Policy wonk argues for larger budget during economic downturn ;)
I can't see why Arab countries couldn't catch up during a worldwide recession. Raising a nation's educational attainment isn't just about throwing cash at universities, but is also about changing families' aspirations for their children, which doesn't take much money. If a mother wants her child to read, there's nothing stopping her from teaching the sounds of the letters. The first step in making a doctor is teaching a kid to read.