Too often we become stuck in thinking through the educational challenges in our own school, system or country. To explore new paradigms of organised learning it is often helpful to study other systems that are trying to respond to challenges of an entirely different level of magnitude. The Arab region is definitely one such region:
- 40% of the Arab population are 18 years or younger.
- High youth unemployment e.g. 43% of 18-24 year olds in Saudi Arabia are unemployed
- The OECD PISA rankings of participating Arab States/ economies show them performing at the lowest end of the international distribution.
The design question becomes – How do you make rapid progress on improving learning and life outcomes in the Arab region within a generation?
Clearly the institutional models of schooling developed in the Western world will not be sufficient for the required scale and pace of change. These are the design challenges that push us to explore new paradigms of organised learning.
Click this link for a recent dialogue on Arab education from the WISE summit in Qatar.
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