An academic study issued by the Bahrain Center for Strategic, International and Energy Studies (Derasat) recommended the necessity of developing balanced educational policies in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries that enhance boys’ achievement without affecting the gains achieved by girls, warning that the continued educational gap may have repercussions on boys’ opportunities in higher education and the labor market, and the associated social repercussions.
The study was published entitled: “The educational gap between genders in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries” in the magazine Economy of the Middle East, Volume 2, Issue 1, 2025, and was prepared by Dr. Omar Al-Obaidli, Director of the Studies and Research Department at the Derasat Center, and researcher Mai Al-Sayyouf, and the study relied on normative data from the 2011, 2015, 2019 and 2023 courses in mathematics and science (TIMSS), and the 2016 and 2021 courses in reading (PIRLS), with an analysis of the differences between the sexes in the fourth and eighth grades, and comparing them to global averages and leading countries in education, such as Finland, Singapore, and the United States. United States and Chile.
The results showed that girls regularly outperform boys in the Arab Gulf countries, especially in science and language, while excellence in mathematics was limited, and reached near parity in the latest data (2023 AD). They also showed that the gap took an increasing path, reaching its peak in 2015 and 2016 AD, before gradually shrinking after the Covid-19 pandemic, and at the country level, it reflects the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Kuwait, and the Sultanate of Oman. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the general Gulf pattern, while the countries of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates show smaller gaps, and sometimes results that favor boys.
The study believes that the reasons for this superiority are due to a combination of biological, environmental, and socio-psychological factors, as well as Gulf specificities, including government policies to empower women, which may increase girls’ incentives to excel academically.
This research achievement comes within the framework of existing cooperation between the Derasat Center and the Russian Oriental Institute, in accordance with the memorandum of understanding signed between the two parties, which contributed to strengthening the joint research presence in international scientific journals.
