Middle East & North Africa




Student performance in Jordan continues to
be stagnant in all three subjects.
•   Jordan is above the MENA average in Reading                                 MATHE-   READING   SCIENCE
    and Science, but student performance is nearly 3                            MATICS

    years of schooling1 below the OECD average.
•   For all three subjects, roughly half of the student
    population does not meet the basic level of
    proficiency, which places them at risk of
    exclusion.

What may be driving student performance?
•   Socioeconomic         background:      There     are
    differences equivalent to 2.5 years of schooling
    between the performance of students at the top
    and low income quintiles.
•   Preschool: The performance of students who
    completed more than one year of pre-primary
    education is roughly 1.5 years of schooling ahead
    of those with no preschool education.
•   Gender Gap: Girls outperform boys in all
    subjects, with a particularly wide gap in Reading
    that is equivalent to roughly 2 years of schooling.
•   School & Classroom: The performance of
    students in the top quintile of the Sense of
    Belonging Index2 is roughly 2.5 years of schooling
    ahead of those in the bottom quintile. Closely
    related is the Disciplinary Climate Index2, for
    which the difference in scores between the top
    and bottom quintiles is of half a year of schooling.
                                                           Science PISA Score




•   Teachers: Teacher-Directed Instruction2 is
    associated with better student performance (42
    points difference in Science scores between the
    top and bottom quintiles in this Index).
•   The Syrian refugee influx has had an impact on
    the overall education system. Yet, the very small
    number of Syrians in secondary school does not
    allow identifying any impact on the PISA results.

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    2   Key to Indices:
                                                                                                                Middle East & North Africa




                                                                                PISA is the OECD’s benchmarking tool to assess
     •        Second Education Reform for the                                   achievement and application of key knowledge and
              Knowledge Economy (Closing)                                       skills of 15 year-olds. PISA tests proficiency in
     •        Jordan Education Reform Project (Pipeline)                        mathematics, reading, science, and problem-solving. It
                                                                                was launched in 2000 and is conducted every three
                   3
                                                                                years, with a focus on one of the subjects in each
     •        SABER-School Autonomy & Accountability                            round. In 2015, the focus is on Science. The test was
              (2015)                                                            taken by representative samples from 72 countries,
     •        SABER-Student Assessment (2014)                                   including nearly 540,000 students. Six MENA countries
     •        SABER-Teachers (2010)                                             participated in this PISA round: Algeria, Jordan,
     •        SABER-Workforce Development (2013)                                Lebanon, Qatar, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates.
         3   Systems Approach for Better Education Results



Note: In 2015, the OECD introduced several improvements to the design, administration, and scaling of PISA. For the most part, these changes did not
affect the comparability of the 2015 results with those for previous assessments. For further information and implications for analyses of PISA data, please
consult the PISA 2015 international report. Source: OECD, 2016. PISA 2015 Results (Volume 1): Excellence and Equity in Education. Paris: OECD.