MENA characteristics 19 

The sampling variance is then simply the average sampling variance across the 5 PV’s plus 1.2 times the imputation variance. As before, the standard error is the square root of the sampling variance. Note that in working with plausible values, one cannot simply estimate the average of the 5 plausible values and use the resulting score as your dependent variable. This results in biased estimates of the standard errors of any calculated statistic (Willms and Smith 2005). For estimations involving TIMSS test scores, one must estimate the sampling variance for each of the PVs using the Jackknife as shown above.

2.4

MENA characteristics

The country context in which the data are collected is important to interpret the results. Salehi Isfahani (2010) highlights some characteristics of MENA4 _economies which are related to human capital development: high income from natural

4_{The MENA Region, following World Bank classification, includes: Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq,} Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, West Bank and Gaza, Yemen and we added Turkey for its similarity to be a benchmark.

resources (oil) that is related to high individual consumption relative to low productivity, rapid growth of youth population accompanied by high rates of unemployment and low participation of women in labour market and low productivity of education though high investment in schooling.

MENA countries share many characteristics and differ in many aspects. They share religion, culture, geographical place, desert climate in most areas, language (with exceptions), history and poor education systems. Nonetheless, MENA has a high degree of heterogeneity especially in areas of human development such as health and education5_{. Studying MENA as a one region could be motivated by the} similarities, but made possible and interesting by the heterogeneity of income and institutions.

MENA countries can be classified into three groups by their levels of per capita income. First, there are the high per capita income oil rich countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Libya. Second, middle income countries are some large oil exporting countries (Algeria, Iran and Iraq) as well as Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, Palestine and Turkey. Third, the low income countries include Djibouti, Sudan and Yemen. The largest share of MENA’s population falls in the middle income category with more than three quarters of the region’s people.

The population size and incomes of the MENA countries are diverse but the majority of economies in the region are oil based. Table2.1 shows that in our TIMSS sample Saudi, Turkey, and Iran have higher GDP per capita followed by Algeria and Tunisia; with Egypt, Jordan and Syria having the lowest income. The variety of income levels provides one motivation to investigate education quality across these countries.

The populations of Egypt, Turkey and Iran each exceed 70 million compared to less than 20 million in each of Jordan, Syria, and Tunisia. Women represent less than one third of the labour market force in all countries. Public spending on education as a

percentage of the GDP is below 7% at most (in Saudi Arabia this is below military expenditure).

Table 2.1: MENA selected indicators of 2007 Country GDP per capita, PPP (constant 2005 internation al $) GDP per capita, PPP (current international $) GDP (constant 2000 US$) Millions Populati on, total Millions Female (% of total Labour force) Military expenditure (% of GDP) Public spending on education, total (% of GDP) Algeria _{7305.14 7764.58 73085 34 31.00 2.91} Egypt _{4955.16 5266.80 135869 77 23.93 2.50 3.68} Iran _{10285.53 10932.41 151803 71 29.43 2.87 5.49} Jordan _{4851.32 5156.43 13497 6 22.25 5.81} Saudi Arabia 20242.88 21516.01 238834 26 15.53 9.21 6.39 Syria _{4406.92 4684.08 26879 19 20.38 4.10 4.85} Tunisia _{7101.99 7548.65 27118 10 26.50 1.38 7.06} Turkey _{12488.23 13949.65 372619 70 25.96 2.17}

SOURCE: World Development indicators.

Table 2.2 indicates that MENA selected countries have very high primary net enrolment rates. The net enrolment for secondary education is not available in most of those countries. The gross enrolment ratios however reflect a better situation compared to other developing regions of the world according to the World Bank indicators.

Table 2.2: School Enrolment Ratios by Gender in Selected MENA Countries. Country School Enrolment 2007 (%net)

Primary Secondary

Male Female Total Private % of total Total Female Male Algeria _{96.32 94.72 95.54 0.20} Egypt _{95.48 91.66 93.62 7.79} Iran _{99.09 99.90 99.48 5.24} Jordan _{88.26 90.00 89.11 32.57} Saudi Arabia _{84.82 84.15 84.49 8.21 73.05 75.76 70.29} Syria _{4.15 65.56 64.49 66.58} Tunisia _{97.29 98.20 97.73 1.44} Turkey _{95.56 92.96 94.28 74.95 70.27 79.49} SOURCE: World Bank Edstats.

MENA societies expanded the education enrolment faster than other regions of the world except East Asia. However high rates of unemployment among youth and low productivity from education suppressed the potential of this achievement

(Dhillon and Yousef 2009; Yousef 2004). Despite impressive progress, the average level of education among the population is still lower in MENA than in East Asia and Latin America. The average gross enrolment rate in secondary schools in MENA in 2003 was 75 percent, compared to 78 and 90 percent for East Asia and Latin America, respectively(Galal 2007).

Figure 2 1: Gross Enrolment Rates in MENA (1970 2003) (%)

SOURCE: World Bank, 2007

Figure 2 2: MENA enrolment ratio of primary education

SOURCE: World Bank Education stats.

Figure2 2 shows that most of MENA region countries achieved or about to achieve the universal enrolment rates for primary education. The lack of accurate and

detailed data on net enrolment in many of these countries is a critical problem. The enrolment ratios for secondary education indicate large dropout rates of students at lower and upper secondary in Arab states (Table 2.3). Students leave schools for different reasons, but one important reason is the quality of education.

Table 2.3: Gross enrolment ratios in Arab states and the World, 1999 and 2006 Gross enrolment ratios %

Lower secondary Upper secondary School year ending in School year ending in

1999 2006 1999 2006

World 73 78 46 53

Developing countries 67 75 37 46

Developed countries 102 103 98 99

Countries in transition 91 89 87 88

Sub Saharan Africa 27 38 19 24

Arab States 73 81 47 54

Central Asia 85 95 80 84

East Asia and the Pacific 80 92 46 58

South and West Asia 62 66 31 39

Latin America and the Caribbean 96 102 62 74

Caribbean 67 72 39 43

Latin America 97 103 63 76

North America and Western Europe 102 103 98 98

Central and Eastern Europe 93 89 80 85 Source: EFA Global Monitoring Report 2009,www.efareport.unesco.org, p 86.

The Arab Human Development Report (2003) states that there are important shortcomings from the building knowledge process covering 6 of our 8 selected countries. There are entire generations of Arabs who have not read literary works because they were not accustomed to do so in school. Unlike developed countries, where creative pursuits are taken for granted, schools in the Arab world have simply neglected creative potential and concentrated on producing graduates with certificates (diploma). Passing tests of narrow scheme of skills based on school textbooks have been the ultimate goal for both students and their parents. MENA students’ performance in TIMSS 2007 shows a great gap relative to most participating countries for maths and science.