Education of Disadvantaged Children in OIC:
The Key to Escape from Poverty
149
sector and civil society to upgrade the physical and educational learning environments of Jordan’s
most neglected public schools402 (see Annex 4 for details).
Technology: There have been several initiatives in the past to introduce technology in teaching
methods (e.g. the Jordan Education Initiative since 2003403) and several current ones (e.g. MoE
and UNICEF partnering with Orange to bring digital learning to public schools404, Edraak –
Jordan’s Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)405 ). Several conferences in the last year have
brought together companies and initiatives pertaining to technology and education, including the
No Lost Generation EdTech Summit in March 2017.
Non-Formal Education: Under ERfKE I and in partnership with Questscope, the MoE established
a Non-Formal Education path in 2003 in order to offer an accredited alternative pathway to
children who have been out of school for too long and thus are not eligible to return to formal
education according to MoE regulations. “From 2003 to 2016, more than 13,000 young people
have enrolled in NFE, and more than 500 MoE teachers received training as NFE facilitators to
build the human resource capacity of MoE for the program”406.
Conclusion
Both the UNESCO/education administrative data and the DHS data show that Jordan has done
particularly well in terms of access to schooling across socio-economic backgrounds (including
poor children) and regions. This is particularly true at the primary level both in terms of gross
enrolment rates and attendance rates. In addition, Jordan has reached gender parity in access to
education since 1979, mostly at the primary level as can be seen in UNESCO/DHS data. The Jordan
case can help ‘bust the myth’ of girls being disadvantaged in accessing schools in Muslim-majority
countries since, especially at the secondary level, male students seem to be at a disadvantage in
terms of access rates. The prioritization of education within the successive Jordanian
development plans has been driving the success in these high access rates.
Poverty remains a significant determinant/barrier to further schooling as seen from the DHS data
analyses in section 2. While the HOI points to a lessening of inequalities over time, the Shapley
Decomposition and regressions point to poverty or wealth as one of the main determinants of
inequality and access to schooling. The second most important factor is the level of education of
the head of household which is an indicator that is closely related to poverty levels. Unlike global
trends, the data analyses did not point to strong disparities in access to education linked to
location, geography or gender.
Lower access in Jordan is generally linked on the demand side to parental attitude and
participation in school, early marriage, gender expectations, violence in schools, disability,
402
403UNESCO (2006)
404
405
406 NCHRD (2016)