Search

Begin New Search Topic Education Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Publication Year within 25 Years

1. Innovation and New Directions: Searching for Novel Paths in Arab Education Reform

Author:
Wafa Al-Khadra, Shaikha Jabor Al-Thani, Nathan J. Brown, Heba El-Deghaidy, Rima Karami-Akkary, Marwan Muasher, and Christina Zacharia
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
In October 2018, Carnegie published a report calling for fundamental educational reform in the Arab world and arguing for the need for that reform to move “from schooling to learning” in order to “serve the needs of pluralistic societies and foster the development of active, responsible citizens who are empowered to deal with complexity and advance constructive change.”1 The report gave a number of recommendations encompassing the different fields within which education takes place: the school, the state, and the society at large. This paper, with many of the authors of the first report participating again, attempts to go in further depth about the findings of the first report. It is evident that Arab governments still see education reform as a top-down effort that continues to perpetuate power relations and authoritarian thinking, sidelining critical and creative thinking among students. The paper places special emphasis on several reform efforts that are being implemented across the Arab region, many in a bottom-up approach that attempts a collaborative approach with governments but is not held hostage to old authoritarian thinking. Rather than simply admiring the problem, the paper attempts to highlight several experiences taking place within different Arab educational systems, not so much because these experiences are necessarily transportable but rather to point out that together with the challenges, there are also successes that can be built on. Consistent with Carnegie’s strategy of working with experts from the region, the paper has once again drawn on the practical experiences of experts from the Qatari, Jordanian, and Egyptian educational systems as well as from the regional, bottom-up experience of the TAMAM project, led by the Arab Thought Foundation and the American University of Beirut and spanning eight different countries. Under the able coordination and facilitation of Nathan J. Brown, these experts have authored a document that I hope will further contribute to the debate on education reform in the region—and help push it forward. I want to acknowledge the Asfari Foundation for their generous financing of this project, and hope that policy recommendations in this paper will help guide future education policies in the Arab world.
Topic:
Education, Reform, and Innovation
Political Geography:
Middle East and Arab Countries

2. West African Elites’ Spending on UK Schools and Universities: A Closer Look

Author:
Matthew Page
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Political, business, and cultural elites from around the world have a strong affinity for the United Kingdom (UK) education system. Nowhere is this truer than in West Africa, where some families in Nigeria and Ghana have a long tradition of sending their children to private boarding schools and universities in the UK. These institutions are especially popular destinations for the offspring of prominent politically exposed persons (PEPs) from the region. Immigration officials, admissions staff, and UK law enforcement are not likely to scrutinize the conditions under which the children of PEPs enroll in British schools, even though the PEPs themselves may have modest legitimate earnings and opaque asset profiles that in other circumstances would raise serious financial concerns. This relative lack of review has allowed some West African PEPs to channel unexplained wealth into the UK education sector. It is not easy to estimate the overall value of this flow, yet it likely exceeds £30 million annually.1 Most of these funds emanate from Nigeria and, to a lesser extent, Ghana; compared with these two countries, only a handful of students from elsewhere in West Africa seek an education in British schools. Tackling this small but significant illicit financial flow should be a priority for UK policymakers. In doing so, they would be helping to realize the UK’s global anticorruption objectives, advance its International Education Strategy, and close a troublesome anti–money laundering (AML) loophole. Failing to do so would exacerbate existing corruption challenges both at home and abroad and increase the UK education sector’s reputational liabilities.
Topic:
Corruption, Education, Law Enforcement, Higher Education, and Elites
Political Geography:
Africa, United Kingdom, Europe, and West Africa

3. The Local Roots of Chinese Engagement in Pakistan

Author:
Muhammad Tayyab Safdar
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
China has deepened its economic engagement with Pakistan through elite-centered negotiations over the routes and projects of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). But elites are not the whole story: China has made inroads beyond Pakistan’s political elites with a broader array of local stakeholders in the country’s education, media, and energy sectors. Pull factors in each of these areas are giving local Pakistani actors incentives to develop closer relationships with Chinese actors. In education, China’s status as a rising global power and the promise of future economic returns have driven ever more Pakistanis to learn Mandarin and opt to study abroad in China. In the media sector, the financial pressures facing Pakistan’s private media houses have contributed to increasing domestic buy-in for news sharing agreements with Chinese media organizations. In the power sector, the lack of alternative sources of external funding for local Pakistani conglomerates has resulted in the emergence of joint ventures on electricity generation projects with large Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs). At the same time, Chinese government policies are serving as push factors to incentivize Chinese actors to expand their interactions in different segments of Pakistani society. For example, China has opened and sponsors Confucius Institutes and classrooms across Pakistan, while also offering scholarships to Pakistani students interested in studying in China. As Chinese firms have expanded their presence in Pakistan, they have worked with local universities to adapt to local customs and cultural and religious values. In media circles, stakeholders like China’s Xinhua News Agency have worked with local Pakistani media outlets to localize information dissemination and shape Pakistani public opinion on important international issues in ways that are in sync with Beijing’s worldview. And Chinese investment in Pakistan’s power sector is aligned with Chinese SOEs’ Go Global strategy and the expansion of these firms’ operations in overseas markets as part of the BRI. China’s engagement with Pakistani political, social, and economic institutions comes in response to local conditions. By adapting to these conditions and working through local institutions and actors, a host of Chinese actors are poised to continue deepening their interactions with different parts of Pakistani society.
Topic:
Education, Partnerships, Media, Economy, and Engagement
Political Geography:
Pakistan, China, South Asia, and Asia

4. The Arab World's Education Report Card: School Climate and Citizenship Skills

Author:
Muhammad Faour
Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The youth of the Arab world have driven much of the popular upheaval that has overtaken the region in the last year. Calling for fundamental political and economic change, they seek to remake their societies into more open, global players. But if that grassroots momentum is to be solidified, real societal reform must take place.
Topic:
Democratization, Demographics, Economics, Education, Globalization, Regime Change, and Youth Culture
Political Geography:
Middle East, Arabia, and North Africa

5. Gaza Five Years On: Hamas Settles In

Author:
Nathan J. Brown
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
As political upheavals spread over much of the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, regimes throughout the region were shaken and a few fell. But in both the West Bank and Gaza, a soft authoritarianism that has provoked uprisings elsewhere has only been further entrenching itself.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Civil Society, Democratization, Education, and Islam
Political Geography:
Middle East, Arabia, Gaza, and Cameroon

6. Freedom and Reform at Egypt's Universities

Author:
Ursula Lindsey
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Underfunded, understaffed, and suffering from opaque governance and political repression, the public higher education system that Egypt's new civilian government inherited from the Mubarak era is deeply flawed. Yet change in this area has stopped far short of a revolution.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, Education, Regime Change, and Youth Culture
Political Geography:
Arabia and Egypt

7. Religious Education and Pluralism in Egypt and Tunisia

Author:
Muhammad Faour
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Religion occupies a prominent position in the education systems of all Arab countries. With the rise of Islamists across the Arab world, especially in Egypt and Tunisia, there is a possibility that the new parties in power will update education curricula to reflect conservative Islamic beliefs.
Topic:
Democratization, Education, Islam, and Regime Change
Political Geography:
Arabia, Egypt, and Tunisia

8. Education for Citizenship in the Arab World: Key to the Future

Author:
Marwan Muasher and Muhammad Faour
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Any romantic notions in the West that the 2011 Arab uprisings could create instantaneous democracy in countries that have succeeded at toppling their leaders are already shattering. In the absence of strong political parties and viable civil society structures in most of the Arab world, these uprisings are proving to be only the first step in a process that will not follow a clear path and will take years to unfold. Much trial and error will take place and the region will experience multiple ups and downs before stable political and economic systems take hold.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, Economics, Education, and Regime Change
Political Geography:
Middle East and Arabia

9. Islam in Uzbekistan: Religious Education and State Ideology

Author:
Martha Brill Olcott and Diora Ziyaeva
Publication Date:
07-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Islam in Uzbekistan: Religious Education and State Ideology is the fourth paper of the ongoing series on Islam in Central Asia. It provides a historical overview of religious education in Central Asia, focusing on the hujra system and its founders, and assesses the efforts of the Uzbek government to define the content of Islam that has been presented in public life since independence was obtained in 1991. It examines the presentation of Islam in the schools—especially in Tashkent Islamic University, seen as the premier training institution for secular teachers of Islam—and the presentation of Islam in the mass media.
Topic:
Civil Society and Education
Political Geography:
Central Asia, Asia, and Uzbekistan

10. Human Capital and the Quality of Growth

Author:
Nancy Birdsall
Publication Date:
12-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
T. W. SCHULTZ was ahead of his time, at least among economists. The earliest postwar models of development emphasized accumulation of physical capital, and saw spending on health and education as a drain on the accumulation of "productive" assets. But eventually, the newer classical growth models incorporated formally Schultz's insight, and related work on accounting for growth by Hollis Chenery and colleagues at the World Bank pointed to the contribution of more skilled workers with more human capital to increased productivity and growth. The more recent endogenous growth models are even more emphatic. Sustainable growth in these models is the result in part of positive externalities generated by education, an important form of human capital. In these models, the new ideas and new technologies that are critical to high sustained growth rely fundamentally on high levels of human capital.
Topic:
Economics, Education, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
India

11. Natural Resources, Human Capital, and Growth

Author:
Nancy Birdsall, Thomas Pinckney, and Richard Sabot
Publication Date:
02-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
In this paper, we present evidence that among developing countries, those that are resource-abundant invest less in education. We then discuss the economic processes behind this evidence. We describe a virtuous circle in which rising private returns to human capital and other assets lead to increased work effort and higher rates of private investment immediately, including among the poor, and generate higher productivity and lower inequality in the future. With resource abundance, however, governments are tempted to move away from the policies that generate this virtuous circle. Dutch Disease and related effects tend to lower the rate of return to the agricultural and human capital investments available to the poor. Resource rents accumulate in the hands of the government, and/or a small number of businessmen, further reducing incentives to invest. Staple-trap effects lead to the subsidization of capital, thereby taxing labor. The labor market in the resulting capital-intensive economy offers little benefit for moderate levels of education. The government may try to assuage the poor by directing some proportion of resource rents to populist programs that create new fiscal burdens but that do not enhance productivity. In short, resource abundance tends to break the virtuous circle linking education, growth and inequality in several places: the choice of development strategy, the level of inequality, the lack of incentives for investment in education, and the creation of a welfare state. We illustrate this breakdown by contrasting the cases of Korea and Brazil, and, since resource abundance need not be destiny, we conclude with policy lessons for resource-abundant developing economies.
Topic:
Economics, Education, Emerging Markets, Government, Political Economy, and Third World
Political Geography:
Brazil and Korea