Education of Disadvantaged Children in OIC:
The Key to Escape from Poverty
136
2006 and 2013357. The PISA trends in gender performance resemble the TIMSS ones, with girls
outperforming boys in mathematics at the lower levels (level 1, 2 and 3) with no or negligible
disparities at levels 4, 5, and 6358.
Challenges, Barriers and Bottlenecks
Access to schooling by vulnerable Jordanians and refugees faces challenges both on the demand
side (perception of education, child labour, economic barriers including transportation, early
marriage, violence, lack of community/family engagement) and the supply-side (low quality due
to teacher training issues, poor and unsafe school environment, outdated curricula,
administrative hurdles, governance issues such as lack of effective accountability and leadership
or lack of involvement of community and parents in school management)
Demand-Side Barriers
With the high enrolment rates seen in section 2 at primary level, the main issues with access to
schooling are linked to drop-outs (except in the case of refugees and disabled, where never
enrolling is also significant issue).
According to the National Council for Family Affairs report (NCFA 2012)(see table 2.15), the
number one reason for dropping out of school is child labour (28%), followed by violence in
school (17%), low interest in school (15%) and illiteracy challenges (15%).
357 Akour et al (2015)
358 Akour et al (2015)
Table 18 Reasons for students dropping out of school
Reason %
Work because in need of income 27.6
Bad treatment from teacher 17.2
Low interest in school 14.9
Can’t read and write 14.9
Parents’ pressure to leave school 4.6
Health situation 2.3
Source: NCFA 2012
The findings in Section 2 showed that in Jordan, the main determinants of access to schooling
include poverty status, gender and education of the head of household. These were sometimes
inter-related and as such so are the cultural demand-side barriers and socio-economic demand
side barriers explored in this section. For instance, gender and child labour are closely interlinked,
as are child labour and poverty status, and poverty status with education of the head of the
household.