Experts say Jordan education progress should be coupled with equal opportunity

DEAD SEA — Academics and labour experts on Sunday called for amending labour policies in Jordan to address inequality in job opportunities in the market.

Speaking at a session on “Recent Research on Inequality of Opportunity in the Middle East on the sidelines of the 17th World Congress, panellists singled out strategies that address inequality based on gender or geographic location are crucial to the development of the economy.

“Jordan has substantial inequality in opportunities in the labour market when compared to other countries,” Caroline Krafft of the University of Minnesota, said during the session on Sunday.

The Kingdom should work on embarking on efforts to encourage labour market dynamism and reduce segmentation, Krafft said Sunday.

During the session, Ragui Assaad, a research fellow of the Economic Research Forum, reviewed the results of a study on education and its relationship to the labour policies in the country.

Assaad said “Jordan enjoys a high level of education attainment”, adding that there is a major increase in women education in Jordan over the past period.

He added that the increase in schooling was coupled with a large increase in number of schools in the Kingdom.

Rana Hendy, an economist at the Economic Research Forum, presented a research thesis at the session on “Inequality of Opportunity in Education Attainment in the Middle East and North Africa”.

She noted that Jordan ranked ahead of the Arab states and was above the average in the Middle East and North Africa region in terms of average hours of schooling for school students.

Participants in the 17th World Congress on Sunday discussed several local, regional and international issues including “Jordan and the Middle Income Growth Trap: Arab Spring and institutional changes”.

They also discussed the issue of women’s empowerment among other economy-related issues.