The Problem of Illiteracy in the Arab World

The UN has designated the month of September of each year to work towards the elimination of world illiteracy. It calls for governments that have a high rate of illiteracy to reexamine their educational strategy and introduce new methods to help to lower the illiteracy rates.

Illiteracy in the Arab world is still very high. It is estimated that half of the nearly 400 million

people cannot read or write.

A quick look at Egypt where one fourth of the total Arab population reside demonstrate the educational dilemma that Egypt faces.

1.     The official illiteracy rate exceeds 33% of the total population. In addition, I will add another 15-20% of people who finished middle and high schools who are functionally illiterate.

2.     The new minister of education stated publicly that the government needs to build 100.000 new class rooms in order to cut by half the average number of students per class room which is 160 students.

Even if the above is implemented, the problem still exists. How could one effectively educate 80 students in a class room?

It has been reported that nearly half a million students were not admitted to school’s due to the lack of space (Masr el Arabia 9/24/207).

I would like to stress the fact that the educational budge set by the government is very low and could not meet the educational challenge which Egypt is facing.

Due to the poor quality of teaching, millions of families rely on private tutoring to help their children. The cost of such tutoring has been estimated to be between 16-20 billion Egyptian pounds per year. This encourages some teachers to perform poorly in their classes in order to earn more money from private tutoring.

The rate of illiteracy in the rest of the Arab world varies. For example, in Jordan, Lebanon, the Gulf States, and Tunisia have the lowest rate of illiteracy in the Arab world.

It is a well-known fact that no society progresses economically without good education as well as scientific research.

The UN Human Right Report

The UN Human Rights organization has recently issued its annual report. It revealed that Turkey and Israel are the most abuser of human rights. It also listed China, India, Pakistan, Minimar and Venezuela are also abuser of human rights (Al Nahar Newspaper,9/22/2017).

Andrew Gilmore, Assistant Director of Human Rights organization, stated in the Report that there are cases individual kidnapping, and jailing without trial, and disappearance of some people.

The Report was indeed a surprise to me because it did not listed Egypt as abuser of Human Rights

On the other hand, private Human Rights Organization, that is, non-governmental, do focus on Egypt

It is a fact that those private organizations are paid by Qatar to turn the world opinion against Egypt.

It is a well- known fact that the Qatari government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to support terrorism world- wide.