IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/11477.html

Quality Matters : Estimating Economic Impacts of Improving Education Quality in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Author

Listed:
  • Patrinos, Harry Anthony
  • Aljabri, Nayyaf
  • Gajderowicz, Tomasz
  • Jakubowski, Maciej
  • Elsayed, Mahmoud Abduh Ali
  • Al-Qawba, Mohammed

Abstract

Quality education drives economic growth and equality. Saudi Arabia has achieved near-universal enrollment but still trails peers in learning quality, limiting workforce readiness. Using data from 97 countries (2000–19), this paper models how Harmonized Learning Outcomes affect gross domestic product growth, accounting for factors like resource income. A 180-point rise in learning—matching the world’s best—could raise Saudi Arabia’s gross domestic product by 27 percent in 20 years, or $225 billion (in 2021 prices). Simulated scenarios yield gains of $125 billion to $156 billion, or 15 to 19 percent of gross domestic product, with front-loaded improvements offering faster returns. Strengthening teaching, curricula, early childhood programs and private sector engagement are key to realizing these gains.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrinos, Harry Anthony & Aljabri, Nayyaf & Gajderowicz, Tomasz & Jakubowski, Maciej & Elsayed, Mahmoud Abduh Ali & Al-Qawba, Mohammed, 2026. "Quality Matters : Estimating Economic Impacts of Improving Education Quality in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 11477, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11477
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099419310012623017/pdf/IDU-36eaa524-e8a6-4ae5-b7b2-26c75107204b.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11477. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.