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The Republic of Yemen (hereafter, Yemen) was formed on 22 May 1990 with the merger of the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR, or North Yemen) and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY, or South Yemen). The YAR, an Imamate (or kingdom), which had been under Ottoman rule until it achieved independence after World War I, was very insular and retained much of its traditional lifestyle and socia…
The highest foundation for education in Yemen is the Constitution (Constitution of the Republic of Yemen, 1994), which includes several references to the obligations of the Government and its citizens in regard to education. Article 32 of the Constitution provides that: The role of the Government in this respect is spelled out further in Article 53: This has generally been assumed to require the G…
The Yemen Arab Republic (YAR): The YAR was, until the 1970s, one of the most isolated countries in the world. It was also, perhaps as a result, one of the poorest and least developed. For example, until the 1960s the YAR had no paved roads, no factories or export industry, and no doctors of Yemeni nationality. This stemmed, in large part, from the limited education sector in the YAR before that ti…
Preprimary education, in the form of kindergartens and nursery schools, is still very much fledgling. In 1993-1994, the last year for which statistics were available, there were 62 public kindergartens with 680 teachers and a total student enrollment of 11,999, of which 47 percent were females. The figure had increased slightly from 1990-1991, when there were 51 kindergartens, 665 teachers, and 10…
Secondary education is a 3-year program that typically runs from ages 15 to 17 and is similar to upper secondary or senior high school in many countries. Secondary school allows students to develop specializations in preparation for particular careers or work that requires a comparatively advanced education. The main streams include a general academic one for students wishing to go to into higher …
Higher or tertiary education witnessed a dramatic expansion in the 1990s. In 2000, there were seven public universities and eight private ones, compared with only two public ones at unification in 1990. Further, there are a number of two year colleges, plus several postsecondary specialized education institutes. In 1996-1997, there were 53,082 students enrolled at Yemeni universities, of which 8,2…
As mentioned, the Ministry of Education manages the public education system with some administrative and local decisions devolved to governorates, districts, and individual schools. Government spending on education rose steadily during the 1990s as a combined result of greater focus on education, the need for improved and increased facilities as the population grew, and as increased income, especi…
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 exte…
According to one figure, Yemen had 85,688 teachers in 1996 across all levels, of which 79,044 were Yemeni nationals and 6,644 were non-Yemenis. This was probably a low estimate that did not include religious, private, or technical tertiary teachers. The true current (2001) figure is probably much higher, perhaps circa 120,000-125,000 plus some casual or informal teachers and private tutors. The fi…
Many of the weaknesses and problems have been highlighted previously and include problems of equitable access for males and females and for urban and rural students, the problems introduced by poverty and very limited public funds, excessive bureaucracy, and the variance between students' preferred areas of study and the graduates that the country most needs. There are some other general po…
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