Yemen

There is very little information available on informal education. Formal private education has become increasingly widespread in recent years, and informal education, in terms of private tutoring and at-work learning and training, is probably also quite common. In many countries, including Yemen, deficiencies and poor quality in the public education system often leads to parents arranging for extensive tutoring for their children after-hours, which is also an important way for teachers to supplement their low incomes. At-work training is also a common method of staff development with experience usually placed above tertiary qualifications as a measure of competence, but no figures are available as to the extent or expenditure of this form on learning.

Adult education, especially in the Arabic language to counter the problem of extensive illiteracy, has long been pivotal to the governmental education policy, especially in the YAR and PDRY. In contemporary Yemen, adult education is in serious decline. Despite the on-going problem of illiteracy, enrollments in illiteracy eradication programs fell spectacularly from the peak of 631,228 students in 1990-1991 to 122,610 in 1994-1995. The main reason for this decline appears to be a failing in the quality and effectiveness of the teaching, whether real or perceived and whether in the system structure, teaching methods and quality, or student motivation. Anecdotal evidence suggests that all these are factors, that the programs are extremely bureaucratic, and, ultimately, that there is a very low success rate in achieving literacy.