THE TIMES KUWAIT REPORT
Several civil society organizations recently issued a joint statement expressing their angst at the deteriorating level of education in the country. Citing a recent study by the Ministry of Education, which found the quality of education and outcome in a survey of over 260 public and private schools to be ‘disappointing’, the statement said that education in Kuwait was in real danger of not being able to fulfill public expectations and objectives.
Warning that the poor standard of education was a ‘national crisis’ the statement demanded urgent action from the government, parliament and other relevant authorities.
Speaking for the group, Nadya Al-Sharrah, an economist and founding member of the Solidarity Group for Education, which is among the organizations spearheading the campaign for educational reform, said they planned to develop a roadmap on education improvement and submit it to His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, pleading for his immediate intervention in the matter.
It is refreshing that civil society is finally waking up to what we at The Times Kuwait have been maintaining for long. However, what the education sector needs for its revival is not, yet another roadmap, reform strategy or recommendations; there have been plenty of these in the past with the same zilch results. It is also not a question of reminding the government of the current deplorable state of education; the authorities are well aware of this plight.
What is missing is the willingness to introduce far-reaching systemic changes to the educational process and the low policy priority that education is accorded by the government and parliament. Unless these basics change the status quo is likely to prevail. Just think about it, when was the last time a bill on education reforms was tabled in parliament; for that matter, when was an education minister ‘grilled’ for the poor quality of education or for its mediocre outcomes?
Since the inception of parliament in 1962, the country has had ten education ministers with only four of them having had to take the podium to answer questions by lawmakers; but none of those interpellations were related to reforming or improving the educational system in the country. Of course, parliament is preoccupied with far more weightier debates such as grilling the defense minister for inducting women in the armed forces.
Until policymakers accord education the prime priority it deserves, and work towards implementing meaningful reforms in a time-bound manner, by evaluating educational outcomes on a periodic basis, and ratcheting up pressure on educational institutions and educators to constantly improve the quality of teaching and learning, the existing system will continue to be sustained. And, as long as the prevailing entrenched educational process is preserved, no amount of new surveys, studies, and suggestions are likely to make a dent in the pitiful quality of education currently being imparted.
We need a paradigm shift in the education and learning process, both in order to prepare students for the workplace of the 21st century, and to develop a national cadre that is aware of and comfortable with its social responsibilities and commitments. A good place to begin this process is for the relevant authorities to accept and acknowledge that the existing education system is broken and is not tailored to meet the students’ prospects in a future workplace.
The future that beckons students of today is already embarking on the 4th Industrial Revolution that will be marked by rapid changes in technology, industry and in societies; a future of increasing interconnectivity and smart automation that blurs the borders between physical, biological and digital worlds. Are students in Kuwait being prepared for this ‘new world’? The answer is apparent in the recent internal survey mentioned above that was conducted by the ministry of education in its schools in the country.
We teach our students to read, write and do the basic calculations and experiments, with the primary focus being on them passing year-end exams. This results in teachers who teach by rote, and students who remain distant from the learning process, without being actively involved or motivated by it. At the end of their academic career we provide them with a graduation certificate, do a class photo-shoot and then bid them goodbye.
What happens next to the students is of no concern or interest to the educators, the schools, or sadly to society. Ill-equipped to meet the needs of today’s and tomorrow’s workplace, the youngsters sit around waiting for a secure job in a public sector entity, to which they believe they are entitled by virtue of nothing more than being Kuwaiti citizens.
Until recently, Kuwait’s welfare state and government was able to cater to this sense of entitlement. But this 60-year experiment during which the state doled out jobs and prodigious subsidies to ensure welfare of citizens is no longer sustainable. The current inadequate educational process that prepares students for non-existing jobs in an overwhelmingly bloated public sector has to change; there is no option B.
No doubt, Kuwait has come a long way in terms of education compared to that provided at the time of the country’s independence in 1961. Transformation of the country into a modern society replete with a dazzling variety of educational institutions was not an unintended consequence of the abundant flow of oil revenues. It was the outcome of a visionary leadership’s early decision to distribute the oil revenues among the citizenry through a welfare state that provided free healthcare and housing, as well as ensured free education, but unfortunately not quality education, as a priority.
Education is currently offered to all Kuwaitis free of charge and, since 1966, it is compulsory from the age of 6 to14. The state also guarantees an educational slot, at every level of education, for every citizen of Kuwait who wishes to pursue an education. By the late 1990s there were 300,000 students in state schools in an education system to which the government devoted 9.1 percent of the budget in 2019, which represented 12.2 percent of total government expenditure that year.
As a result, today the adult literacy rate — the percentage of the population aged 15 and above who can read and write — in Kuwait is over 96 percent. This is a high rate relative to both regional (79%) and global (86%) standards. Based on this measure of adult literacy, 94.9 percent of female adults and 96.7 percent of male adults in the country were literate.
Although literacy is no doubt crucial to the personal development of individuals and the overall growth and prosperity of a country, it is only part of the educational picture. Literacy rate does not automatically translate into a rate of those educated. People can be called literate because they know how to read and write, but they cannot be considered educated if they do not know how to apply the knowledge acquired through literacy. Moreover, the basic definition of literacy — the ability to read and write — is no longer tenable or sufficient in a rapidly changing world.
Today, literacy must include the ability to use languages, numbers, images, digital tools and other means to compile, comprehend and communicate information and acquire useful knowledge and skills, as well as develop a sense of social responsibility. Education is basically developing the ability to apply the acquired knowledge and skills gained from literacy to become a well-rounded socially conscious citizen. In Kuwait we have an enviably high literacy rate of over 96 percent, but when it comes to the level of applying the acquired literacy, we tend to fare poorly.
On a related note, Kuwait also has a high Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) — the total number of pupils enrolled in a school stage, regardless of age, as a percentage of the population of the ages officially eligible to be enrolled. Data available from the World Bank shows that in 2014, Kuwait’s primary school GER was 103 percent, compared to the GCC and global average of 108 percent. The country’s secondary GER was 94 percent, lower compared to 108 percent in the GCC but higher than the global average of 75 percent.
At the tertiary level the country’s GER was 46 percent, against a GCC average of 48 percent and 33 percent worldwide. For purposes of comparison with developed countries outside of the region, Germany’s tertiary GER is 61percent while that of the US is 89 percent. This indicates considerable room for Kuwait’s tertiary education sector to grow, particularly as the state looks to enhance the skills of its growing young population with an eye on Vision 2035 and economic diversification.
Also, according to the World Bank, Kuwait’s expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP was 6.6 percent in 2020 — the highest among the GCC states. The average spending on education for the six-nation bloc was 4.8 percent of GDP with three countries, Bahrain (2.3% of GDP), Qatar (3.1%) and the UAE (3.2%) falling below the regional average, and Kuwait (6.6%), Oman (5.4%) and Saudi Arabia (5.1%) faring higher than regional average.
Despite the high literacy, primary and secondary GER, and government spending on education, Kuwait’s educational performance and the quality of education provided leaves a lot to be desired. According to the World Economic Forum’s ‘The Global Competitiveness Report 2015-2016’. On the quality of its primary education, the state ranked 103rd out of 140 economies, 88th on the overall quality of higher education and training, 99th on mathematics and science education, and 86th on school management. On the extent of staff training Kuwait ranked 84th, and 81st on the availability of internet access in schools and 112th on the availability of specialized training services.
In another indictment of Kuwait’s education system and its outcomes, the US-based International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) — which conducts regular international comparative assessments of student achievement in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) across more than 60 countries — found Kuwait and the region as a whole faring well below the international average.
Ironically, the countries in the region spending the most in terms of GDP on education fared the worst when it came to TIMSS scores. In 2019, among the three countries that spend more of their GDP on education relative to the regional average, the average TIMSS scale score for 8th grade students in mathematics was 394 for Saudi Arabia, for Kuwait it was 403 and Oman 411. On the other hand, among the three states that spent less of GDP on education than the regional average, Qatar’s score was 443, followed by UAE with 473, and Bahrain at 481.
This reversal in GDP spending on education and outcome was also witnessed in the science grade assessment by the IEA, where Saudi Arabia scored 433, Kuwait (444), and Oman (457), while the UAE scored 473, Qatar (475) and Bahrain topped with a score of 486. However, none of the GCC states scored higher than the international average which was pegged at 500. In this context it is worth noting that nearly 70 percent of Kuwait’s spending on education goes to cover administrative costs, only 30 percent is devoted to the education process.
In all fairness, Kuwait has made sporadic attempts to reforming its education system. At least on paper, and according to policy statements periodically issued by the authorities, educational development “represents a cornerstone of the government’s commitment to utilizing the country’s human resource base and meeting the needs of the 21st century workplace and the social development challenges of the new millennium, as well as fulfilling the needs created from the country’s strategic 2035 vision labeled ‘New Kuwait.”
The ‘New Kuwait’, National Development Plan, laid out in Kuwait Vision 2035, also underscores the need for human capital development as a catalyst to economic diversification, sustainable growth and social progress in Kuwait. As part of this plan, the government made improving the general level of education by reforming the education system a priority. In March 2015, the Ministry of Education and the National Center for Education Development (NCED) and the World Bank launched the second phase of an Integrated Education Reform Program (IERP), following a five-year first phase that began in 2010..
The second phase, which targeted capacity building, improving quality of teaching and learning, and monitoring impact on schools and students, ended in 2020. At the end of this ten-year long education improvement exercise, a Program Achievement Report by the World Bank cited several shortcomings in achieving the desired outcomes and in its implementation. Among other drawbacks, the report highlighted the lack of sustained, high-level political commitment and support to the reform process, which limited its potential for positive impact. A pertinent question that arises from this assessment is why engage in a costly and time consuming program if the authorities have no interest or commitment to the outcome of the exercise.
As the 21st century unfolds, the upgrading of educational and training systems has become a priority for most governments around the world. Kuwait, which still has to come to grips with its traditional attitudes, socio-religious values and societal norms with regard to education and gender discrimination in post education, clearly has a long way to go before catching up with countries in the developed world, and now apparently with many in the developing and emerging world as well. Whether this catching up process will begin today or in the near future is anybody’s guess.
Meanwhile, it is worth heeding the words of Gabriela Mistral, the Chilean poet, educator and humanist, and in 1945 the first Latin American author to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature, who wrote: “Many things can wait. Children cannot. Today their bones are being formed, their blood is being made, their senses are being developed. To them we cannot say ‘tomorrow’. Their name is today.”