93706 January 2015, Number 139 THE RISE IN EDUCATION ATTAINMENT IN MENA IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE Farrukh Iqbal 1 Country-Specific Performance in Comparative Perspective: How well did each MENA country do? Introduction: While education stocks (measured as To answer this question, we need to assess each the number of years of schooling attained per person country’s performance relative to its comparators. over age 15) have risen significantly in all regions, We define comparators as those countries whose they have risen the fastest in the Middle East and educational stocks in 1970 were very similar to those of the MENA country in question. North Africa (MENA) region. This note documents this remarkable regional achievement. Such an assessment (for details see Farrukh Iqbal and Youssouf Kiendrebeogo, Education Attainment in Figure 1 shows that all 15 MENA countries for the Middle East and North Africa: Success at a Cost, which we have comparable data increased their Policy Research Working Paper 7127, World Bank, education stocks over time. December 2014), shows that 12 out of 15 MENA countries rank first or second among comparators in Figure 1 education attainment over time (see Table 1). Table 1 Table 2 uses another measure of comparative performance. It provides global ranks for MENA countries in terms of percentage improvement in education stock during the past four decades. Once again the region does very well. Four MENA countries (Yemen, Libya, Egypt, and Morocco) are in the top 10 ranks globally. And all but two rank within the top half of the global 1Chief Technical Specialist, Office of the Chief Economist, distribution. Middle East and North Africa Region. Table 2: Global rank order of MENA countries for Sources of MENA’s Performance Edge: Why has increase in education stock, 1970-2010 the region performed better than other regions? Econometric analysis suggests that the two most important factors determining education attainment among developing countries were the initial endowment of education in 1970 and the average level of public spending on education during 1970- 2010. Indeed, the data show that MENA countries had the highest rate of public spending on education among developing countries. Their spending (measured in 2005 PPP dollars per capita per year) averaged 252.3 PPP dollars while the next highest spending was in the Latin America and Caribbean region at 197.4 PPP dollars. Some Related Considerations: How cost-effective was this spending? Our calculations show that the education stock in MENA increased by 2.02 years over the 40-year period between 1970 and 2010 for every $100 spent per capita per year. This is well Regional Performance in Comparative Perspective: below the payoff achieved by such regions as South Table 3 shows trends in population weighted Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia, though averages for education stock across regions. It is somewhat better than that achieved by Latin clear that the greatest percentage increase (239%) America. So the region’s impressive advance in occurred in the MENA region which moved from education was achieved at comparatively high cost. being clustered with low-stock regions like South In addition, one should note that the quality of Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa in 1970 to convergence education in MENA leaves much to be desired. The with higher-stock regions like Latin America and limited though growing body of comparative data East Asia by 2010. on education quality shows most MENA countries Table 3: Evolution of education stocks over time and clustered towards the bottom of the global across regions distribution with scores below those to be expected on the basis of their per capita income levels. While the challenge of building schools and getting children into them has been met successfully, that of converting all this schooling into productive learning remains to be met in the future. January 2015· Number 139· 2