Back to School

The start of a new school year – risks or opportunities for Tunisia?

Lyubov Timofeyeva | Shutterstock.com - Grandfather and granddaughter walking back from school in Sousse, Tunisia

It’s that time of year again. Some weeks ago, more than two million Tunisian primary, junior high, and high school students headed back to school, just as hundreds of millions of children in northern countries.

Also available in: Français | العربية

Victor Jiang | Shutterstock.com - A university student in Naqsh-e Jahan Square

Every year, Iranian schools and universities are in back in session on the first day of autumn—September 23^rd. Despite educating some of the world’s top minds, such as the late Maryam Mirzakhani, the only women recipient of the Fields Medal, the most prestigious award in mathematics, Iran’s educational system has been in crisis. In this short space, I want to focus on the crisis Iran’s higher education system has been facing, which has taken a turn for worse in the past decade.

Also available in: Français | العربية

The Lycée Eucalyptus, a high school in Nice, France, sits close to the airport, surrounded to the west and north by a resolutely working-class neighborhood and by a more middle-class area to the east. The school has a heterogeneous group of students who stay for the most part to themselves. So, for a working relationship to form between Marwan, 12, a Syrian refugee, who has only been in France a few months and speaks little French, and Charlotte, 17, the captain of the girls’ tennis team, is quite remarkable.

Also available in: Français

This is the second part of our interview with with Safaa El Tayeb El-Kogali, World Bank Practice Manager in the Education Global Practice, on the challenges faced by the region’s education systems and the efforts to address them.

Also available in: Français | العربية

On the heels of the first World Development Report focused entirely on education, and its critical importance for stable and inclusive societies, we launch our annual ‘Back to School’ series that focuses on the state of education in the Middle East and North Africa region. We begin the series with a two-part interview with Safaa El Tayeb El-Kogali, World Bank Practice Manager in the Education Global Practice, on the challenges faced by the region’s education systems and the efforts to address them.

Also available in: العربية | Français

The demographic clock is ticking on both sides of the Mediterranean, from an aging workforce at one end to a workforce surplus on the other. Yet, whatever the demographic dynamics, the Mediterranean area is facing an incredible challenge, that of providing a safe, buoyant and prosperous future for its youth, one which would benefit its societies, their economic development, and progress.

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Education in Yemen witnessed noticeable improvement during the pre-war period 1999–2013. School enrollment rates rose from 71.3% to 97.5% of children. In the academic year 2012/2013, Yemen’s Education Ministry put the number of school students at more than five million registered in about 17,000 schools that includes more than 136,000 classrooms.

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This year, I was given the incredible opportunity of a summer internship at the headquarters of the World Bank Group in Washington, DC, researching the different levels of investment that countries in the Middle East and North African (MENA) have made in Early Childhood Development (ECD). As a result, I gained insights into development issues I would not otherwise have been aware of, nor would I have had any idea of how to go about making improvements.

Also available in: العربية | Français

Back to school—back to the twin feelings of hope and fear. As the new school year begins, it brings hope for a better future for our children, and fears over what schools really offer them in terms of learning. Current statistics indicate that 50% of students with five years of schooling in Egypt cannot read or write, and 40% cannot do simple mathematics.

Also available in: العربية | Français

In Part II of her interview, Safaa El Tayeb El-Kogali, World Bank Practice Manager for Education, explains the initiatives being take to improve all levels of public education in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and how important it is for children to be able to go to school, especially when their countries are affected by conflict.

Back to School

The start of a new school year – risks or opportunities for Tunisia?

Update from Iran: Iran’s Over-Education Crises

A school called Eucalyptus where a tutoring program promotes Citizenship Skills

Back to School 2017 – Part II

Back to School 2017

Education reform to create entrepreneurs

Education in Yemen Struggles after More than a Year of Conflict

Back to the beginning: What I learned about early childhood development in the Arab World

How best can we support Egypt’s next generation back at school?

Q & A: New initiatives for education in the Middle East and North Africa, including for refugees

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