Summary

BY RAMI G. KHOURI

Millions of primary and secondary school-age youth have never entered a school, and millions more are in danger of dropping out.

It shows that more than 21 million children and young adolescents across the Arab world are either out of school or at risk of dropping out.

Available data from worldwide tests that measure the numeracy and literacy abilities of students in primary and secondary school show that about half of all school children in the Arab world actually are not learning. Let me repeat that to confirm that this is not a printing error: About half of all school children in the Arab world actually are not learning.

The percentages of primary school students who did not meet basic learning levels (average of numeracy and literacy) in 2011 was around 90 percent in Yemen, 77 percent in Morocco, 69 percent in Kuwait and 63 percent in Tunisia.

If this does not happen, these tens of millions of uneducated young Arabs will prove to be our own homemade weapons of our own mass destruction.

SOURCE:   http://dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Columnist/2015/Apr-18/294861-the-perils-of-our-hopeless-arab-youth.ashx