Yemen’s Ministry of Education said earlier this month that over half of the country’s teachers lack necessary qualifications. Of an estimated 200,000 teachers, some 120,000 lack a bachelor’s degree. An additional 40,000 teachers—about 20 per cent—have degrees unrelated to education, according to deputy minister for education Dr. Abdulla Al-Hamedi. “The ministry is doing its best to improve teacher performance via professional development programs,” said the minister of education, Dr. Abdulrazaq Al-Ashwal. A 2013 report by the Brookings Institution had previously found Yemeni teachers failing five of eight benchmarks for teacher performance.
Among the new programs instituted by the minister is an upcoming agreement with the British Council to train English teachers in Yemen. UNESCO also sponsors a program for teacher development in Yemen, supervised by the Ministry of Education. Some teachers, however, object to the training courses. “Some things the teachers have been taught are difficult to implement in the schools,” said Ayman Abdulghani, the principal of a school in Taiz.
While there has been some encouraging news out of Yemen—opening its first school for gifted students, for example—improvements to the educational system are necessary. The nationwide literacy rate stands at 64 per cent, with a literacy rate among women of only 49 per cent. Only half of girls finish primary school in Yemen. Improving teaching standards and recruiting more female teachers may help close the gap and improve Yemen’s substandard record on education.
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Written by Alex Leedom