It seemed like Tunisia was doing all the right things. The country spends 7.3 percent of GDP on education, a higher proportion than the U.S., Finland, or Israel. Of course, its GDP is far lower, so absolute education expenditures are lower as well. Nonetheless, Tunisia’s education effort exceeds that of any other Muslim country, including 2 percent of GDP for university education. About 30 percent of secondary school graduates go onto university although 60 percent of them fail exams. The trouble is that their diplomas are largely worthless. Like most developing countries, Tunisia teems with
It seemed like Tunisia was doing all the right things. The country spends 7.3 percent of GDP on education, a higher proportion than the U.S., Finland, or Israel. Of course, its GDP is far lower, so absolute education expenditures are lower as well. Nonetheless, Tunisia’s education effort exceeds that of any other Muslim country, including 2 percent of GDP for university education. About 30 percent of secondary school graduates go onto university although 60 percent of them fail exams. The trouble is that their diplomas are largely worthless. Like most developing countries, Tunisia teems with diploma mills that issue worthless degrees to half-trained graduates. Even in India and China, the majority of engineering graduates do not meet international standards—although the elite universities in those countries do produce a huge number of first-rate engineers. No Arab country produces graduates who can compete with their East Asian counterparts; the only Muslim country whose graduates meet world standards is Turkey. University graduates throughout the Arab world have miserable prospects. “The average unemployment rate for the age group 15-24 years in the Group of Arab Countries reaches to 30%, compared with an average rate of world 14.4%,” according to the Arab Labor Organization. “Problem [sic] of high unemployment rates among the educated graduates from universities and colleges, which reaches to 26.8% in Morocco and 19.3% in Algeria, 17.7 % in Jordan. It was noted that 94% ...
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of the unemployed in the Arab Republic of Egypt are in the age group 15-29 years, reflecting a lack of consistency of education plans to the needs of the Labor market.”
