POLICY PAPER CONCEPT
Policy Issue to Be Examined (1 sentence):
Assessing Education reform in Qatar
What are the country/context you are addressing and why this policy issue is important to the Government (maximum 350 words, paragraph format, and use indicators to support your argument)?
Education reform in Qatar, Education impacts the development of the countries in many different levels such as human development and economic development. A good education helps the country to achieve its future generations in term of their mentality and skills politically, economically and socially. The need of education plays a crucial role in Human growth and development of Qatari Students going along Qatar 2030 vision. As Qatar cannot develop its economy without investing in its human capital. Human development considered as significant factor for countries development as the Qatar National Vision 2030, which entails better health care infrastructure and higher standard educational system (GSDP, 2008).
Many studies discussed the important role of education play on the economic development of country as shown in figure 4.2 the paper argues that countries with higher GDP per capita in 1882 are those who have higher number of primary school enrollment in 1913 (Stevens et al. , 2014).
“In most countries that are rich in oil, minerals, and other natural resources, economic growth over the long haul tends to be slower than in other countries” ( Gylfason , 2011, p 848). By investing in education, the efficiency of the labor force increase (Barro, 1997) and thus creating better conditions for governance to improve the quality of health (Aghion et al.,1999). As Qatar is one of the countries that is rich with oil and natural gas, for the long term they should evaluate economic diversification where it will promote well established sustainable economic environment that will not be affected by changes that may occur in the coming years. Which is in fact one of the main aims of Qatar National Vision 2030 to achieve suitable economic diversification through “a knowledge-based economy characterized by innovation; entrepreneurship; excellence in education; a world-class infrastructural backbone; the efficient delivery of public services; and transparent and accountable government” (GSDP, 2008).
Overview of Current Government Policy on your selected policy topic (300 words; paragraph format, and use indicators to support your argument):
In earlier 2000’s Qatar, government considered to support new education policy by approaching RAND cooperation system. In 2001 the State of Qatar decided to take the lead, in a region reforming its K-12 public education with the goal of building new educational system with higher standards. after applying the new educational reform policy there was some issues raised regarding the implementation of the new policy, and other assessment criteria like the Qatar Comprehensive Education Assessment that measured school’s performance. In 2010/2011 Student National Assessment showed that only 5 % of the students in grades 4–11 met the national standards in mathematics, 12.3 % met the national standards in science, and 15.7 % and 17.9 % met the national standards in Arabic and English respectively (Evaluation Institute ,2011). Many other countries in the region have addressed the educational system and approached to reform it like Oman and UAE. As UAE was eager to develop their economic growth and diversification which is directly linked to building strong national human resource base. As main goal of the educational reform in UAE is to decrease the gap between the national human resource and marketplace needs to reduce the number of non-nationals in the private sector , the ministry of education worked together with Abu Dhabi and Dubai Education Councils suggesting new reform and one of the suggestion was to introduce a stronger role for the private sector in public education through a program called Public-Private Partnership for Public School Management. While Sultanate of Oman for the purpose of promoting the development of human resources, the government allocated 473.3 million Omani Rials to the “social structure” sector, which includes education and health.Having achieved the initial goal of providing education for all children in Oman, the government has recently changed priorities to focus on enhancing the quality of that education so that it is in line with the technological needs of the new, knowledge economy through new policies in education sector.
Preliminary Bibliography (minimum of six sources, maximum of eight sources):
• Barro, R.J., 1997. The Determinants of Economic Growth. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Corden, W.M., 1984. Booming sector and Dutc hdisease economics: Survey and consolidation. Oxford Economic Papers 36, 359}380.
• Brewer, Dominic J., Catherine H. Augustine, Gail L. Zellman, Gery W. Ryan, Charles A. Goldman, and Gery Ryan. Education for a New Era: Design and Implementation of K–12 Education Reform in Qatar. Rand Corporation, 2007.
• General Secretariat for Development Planning. “Qatar national vision 2030.” (2008).
• Gonzalez, Gabriella, Lynn A. Karoly, Louay Constant, Charles A. Goldman, and Hanine Salem. Facing human capital challenges of the 21st century: Education and labor market initiatives in Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Vol. 786. Rand Corporation, 2008.
• “Guiding Education Reform in Qatar.” RAND Corporation. Accessed November 02, 2018. https://www.rand.org/capabilities/solutions/guiding-education-reform-in-qatar.html.
• Nasser, Ramzi. “Qatar’s Educational Reform past and Future: Challenges in …” Qatar’s Educational Reform past and Future: Challenges in Teacher Development. January 17, 2017.AccessedNovember2,2018 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23265507.2016.1266693
• Stevens, Philip, and Martin Weale. “Education and economic growth.” International handbook on the economics of education 27 (2004): 205-311.
• Tok, M. Evren, Lolwah RM Alkhater, and Leslie A. Pal. “Policy-making in a transformative state: The case of Qatar.” In Policy-Making in a Transformative State, pp. 1-35. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2016.
Justification of Sources Selected (50-125 words; paragraph format):
Two of the sources discussed how the human development represented by education play’s significate role on the economic development. Other sources were directly about the educational reform in Qatar and contained the exact information about RAND cooperation and their contribution in the educational reform in Qatar. Chapter 4 of book “Policy-making in a transformative state: The case of Qatar” discussed the issues in the new educational system. To compare the situation of Qatar with other countries in region the book “Facing human capital challenges of the 21st century: Education and labor market initiatives in Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates” provided rich information regarding the educational history and reforms.
MPP 611 POLICY PAPER WORKSHEET INSTRUCTIONS AND TIPS
Policy Paper Worksheet (10%): The objectives of this assignment are to develop and demonstrate your abilities to: select an appropriate policy paper topic; locate appropriate academic and non-academic sources; use proper referencing techniques; and write clearly.
Instructions:
√ All text must be 12 point font, single-spaced. Use bold or italics sparingly, if at all.
√ You can expand the size of textboxes by adding or removing hard returns only. You may not adjust the margins.
√ Pay close attention to word count limits. Do not go under or over specified limits.
√ Bibliographic references should include only sources cited, and should be presented in Chicago Manual of Style guidelines (Check with library for help).
Tips:
– Read the instructions carefully.
– Begin the assignment immediately, and allocate sufficient time to complete it at a high standard.
– Ensure that your topic is within the jurisdiction of the level of government you decide to work on
– Make a strong argument regarding the importance of the policy area to level of government you decide to work on.
– Consider using data to support your claims.
– Allocate some time to determining the current Government policy. Depending on the topic, such information can be challenging to obtain.
– Focus on the quality of the non-governmental sources you are selecting. Aaim to have a strong representation of reliable sources published after 2000. Strongly favour peer-reviewed sources over other sources.
– Keep in mind that you will continue to add to your literature review as you work toward the final paper. While you are not limited in the number of sources for the policy paper itself, you have a maximum of eight sources to present in the worksheet assignment. Use that space wisely to demonstrate that you have a broad literature base with which to fully cover the topics addressed in your policy paper.
– Make a compelling case that the sources you have selected are appropriate. Justify your choices in terms of their quality (peer-reviewed versus non-peer-reviewed), relevance to your subject, breadth of coverage, and how you will use the sources to inform your paper.
– Ensure that your work meets university-level writing standards. Proofread, proofread again, and then proofread yet again. Re-read the instructions prior to submitting the assignment.
