Maysa Jalbout on education challenges in the Arab world

By Maysa Jalbout. “The Arab world has made huge progress in giving children access to school,” says Maysa Jalbout, a nonresident fellow with the Center for Universal Education at Brookings. Yet even so, she calls the 2.6 million Syrian children out of school in the region “perhaps the biggest education crisis globally.” In the podcast, Jalbout—former CEO of the Queen Rania Foundation and a global leader on education in international development—discusses the challenges and solutions to educating children in the Arab world, why quality and not just access matters, how the education crisis is a global security issue, and why 3 out of 4 Arab women remain out of the labor force in their countries. Much of the discussion is about Jalbout’s new report, “Reaching all Children with Education in Lebanon: Opportunities for Action.” More...