ERIC Number: EJ1410089
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: EISSN-2490-4198
The World Bank's Approach to Reducing Learning Poverty in the Middle East and North Africa: Advancing Arabic Language
Andreas Blom; Laura Gregory
Arab Journal of Applied Linguistics, v8 n1 p1-17 2023
A learning crisis across Arabic-speaking countries is leading to human capital deficits, undermining efforts to reduce poverty and putting achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals at risk. The World Bank has introduced the concept of learning poverty to highlight this crisis -- measured as the percentage of 10- year-old children who are unable to read and understand a simple text. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, this affects around 6 in 10 children, and likely more, because of the COVID-19-related school disruptions. The World Bank has proposed a path to reduce learning poverty through advancing Arabic language teaching and learning. The proposed path comprises a set of purposeful actions that governments and stakeholders can take to reorient education systems so that they can best achieve essential core Arabic language skills and learning for all. This includes, for example, setting literacy goals, aligning instructional resources to follow a systematic phonetic approach with a focus on reading comprehension in a literature-rich environment, ensuring high-quality instruction, and identifying and intervening early with struggling readers. As the largest external financier of education in the developing world, the World Bank has a significant role to play in helping countries to recognize these key challenges and to mobilize resources to address them effectively and efficiently. This paper outlines the World Bank's approach and explores how it is taking shape in the World Bank's support to countries' education programs across the MENA region.
Descriptors: Poverty, Poverty Programs, Foreign Countries, Literacy, Arabic, Second Language Learning, Language Skills, Phonetics, Reading Comprehension, International Organizations, Achievement Gap, Early Intervention
Faculty of Human and Social Sciences of Tunis, Tunisia. 94 BD du 9 Avril Tunis 1007, Tunisia. Tel: 216-71564797; Fax: 216-567551; Web site: https://arjals.com/ajal/index
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Middle East; Africa
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A