Special Report: GCC Education

The education landscape has seen some seismic shifts due to Covid-19. How is it coping and what’s coming next?

Benjamin Franklin said: “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” Recognising education as a fundamental stepping stone to economic and social development, several nations worldwide have invested heavily in their academic spaces. Effective collaborations between the government, the private sector, and educational institutions in developed countries have helped curate thriving academic ecosystems to further develop technologically advanced and sustainable economies.

Regionally, the Gulf states have also recognised the significance of creating a progressive academic infrastructure and earmarked a sizeable chunk of their budgets for educational purposes.

For 2020, the UAE government allocated Dhs10.4bn ($2.83bn) towards public, higher education and university programmes. Of that amount, the estimated costs for public education programmes stands at Dhs6.7bn ($1.82bn) while higher and university education is expected to cost Dhs3.7bn ($1.01bn).

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia allocated a whopping SAR193bn ($51.38bn) for the education sector in 2020, amounting to 18.9 per cent of the annual budgeted expenditure.

“Sector priorities for 2020 budgeted expenditure are consistent with recent years, with education, military and healthcare accounting for more than 50 per cent of total allocations,” a KPMG report read.

“The education sector plays a vital role not only in increasing the employment rate in Saudi Arabia, but also in increasing the desired skills for the labour market. The Ministry of Education has taken numerous initiatives to improve the education sector such as the Teaching Staff Proficiency Development project that aims to raise teaching and leadership competencies of the teaching staff,” it added.

In Oman, social spending covering education, healthcare, housing and social welfare continues to increase and totals 40 per cent of public spending in 2020.

“According to the latest statistics by the Statistical Centre for the Cooperation Council for the Arab Countries of the Gulf (GCC-STAT), in the academic year 2017/2018, there were a total of 35,250 schools in the GCC compared to 31,515 schools in 2014/2015, recording a positive CAGR of 3.8 per cent,” Aditi Gouri, associate partner, Strategic Consulting and Research, Cavendish Maxwell notes.

During the academic year 2017/2018, Saudi Arabia had the highest number of schools in the GCC comprising 87.2 per cent of the total schools followed by Oman at 4.2 per cent.

In the UAE, according to the Ministry of Education (MoE), the total number of schools stood at 1,262 during the academic year 2018/2019, of which 619 (49 per cent) were public and 643 schools (51 per cent) were private.

The total number of students enrolled in private schools accounted for 74 per cent (810,537 students) while those enrolled in public schools accounted for only 26 per cent (288,794 students).