IT and Educational Policy in North Africa and Middle East Region

Abstract

North African countries include Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. Gulf countries are Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, and Oman. Other countries in the region include Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, and Israel. Although the use of communication facilities using IT is growing very substantially in the region, the expenditures in the educational sector are probably insufficient to educate the users about how to use IT facilities for learning. Middle East and North-African countries are starting to embrace IT integration in education and training. The Gulf countries and Israel at the infusing level of policy, while the other countries in the region are at the applying-policy level. Infrastructure investments need to be balanced with investments in digital content development and staff training.