A recent article in The Economist on the state of education in the Arab world does not make for pleasant reading. The Arabs fall behind most of the rest of the world in the quality of primary and higher education, even in the oil-rich Persian Gulf states.

This despite that the fact that as a share of GDP, Arab countries either equal or surpass the international average. And while widespread illiteracy is a thing of the past and more women are educated than ever before, the region is still strikingly lacking in meaningful education.

The most rigorous comparative study of education systems, a survey called Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) that comes out every four years, revealed in its latest report, in 2007, that out of 48 countries tested, all 12 participating Arab countries fell below the average. More disturbingly, less than 1% of students aged 12-13 in ten Arab countries reached an advanced benchmark in science. . . . Only one Arab country, Jordan, scored above the international average, with 5% of its 13-year-olds reaching the advanced category.

Furthermore, not a single Arab university is listed in the annual Shanghai Jiao Tong University ranking of the top 500 universities in the world (by contrast, South African records three and Israel six). And Egypt, the most populous Arab nation with 75 million people, is ranked 124th in “primary education system and its mathematics-and-science teaching” by the World Economic Forum. Egypt is not resources-rich, but even oil-rich Libya with a GDP pre capita at $16,000 ranks at 128th below $577-pre capita poor Burkina Faso. Gaddafi is not known to value education. The Libyan dictator once remarked to Tunisian youth that the whole act of education and testing is pointless and that the spread of knowledge in society should be no more complicated than one person casually passing on information to another and so on.

Such a poor quality of education ill prepares Arab youth for productive careers. Such a fact explains the reason why the region is home to the highest rates of youth unemployment even after several years of high growth rates (and why high rates of poverty, especially in Egypt, are still present). Arab states know that given the technological backwardness of the region already, they can ill afford to maintain should ineffective schools. But instead of seeking public reform, many nations are pushing instead for private education:

In an attempt to leapfrog the slow process of curriculum reform and teacher training, many have taken the easy route of encouraging private schools. In Qatar, for instance, the share of students in private education leapt from 30% to more than 60% between 1999 and 2006, according to the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). Syria has licensed some 20 private universities since 2001; 14 are up and running. Yet their total enrolment is dwarfed by the 200,000 at state-run Damascus University alone.

The most prominent of these schools is the new, $20-billion endowment King Abdullah University of Science of Technology (KAUST). Recently opened, it lures Western faculty, maintains an independent board and unlike nearly elsewhere in this ultra-conservative Kingdom men and women will be able to freely mingle.

In supporting free-market education, the Arabs are returning to their roots. The Golden Age of Islam - during which the Arabs translated the Greeks, invented Algebra, opened the first hospitals, pioneered medicine and astronomy, and produced literary jewels - was an age of free market education.

In his book Market Education: The Unknown History, author Joseph Coulson cited the earlier years of Islam as proof that a society entirely dependent on free market education (instead of public, or government, schools) could be very educated and innovative.

Coulson’s book offers an illustration of the possibilities of private education not just for Arabs and Muslims, but for the world.

Maybe the new era of private education will bequeath a new and thousands more “Beit al-Hakim” (House of Wisdom) that will usher in a Arab nahda (renaissance)