Equitable Access to Nonstate Education: An Analysis of Legislative and Regulatory Frameworks in the Gulf States

The Middle East and North Africa region has witnessed the rapid growth of the non-state education sector, including within the Gulf states. Although this growth of non-state education has provided parents with a wide variety of schooling options in which they can enroll their children, obstacles to accessing equitable, quality education persist across the Gulf. This paper examines existing legislation and policies on nonstate education to examine their inclusivity, focusing particularly on dis/ability, socioeconomic status, and ethnic background. We begin by describing the education landscape in the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman. We then discuss the data and limitations before summarizing the challenges and offering some recommendations to policymakers moving forward.