Remittances and education in the MENA region

The Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) has made great strides towards achieving universal primary and secondary education and reached high levels of tertiary education. The gross enrolment rate in primary school averaged 108.9 % and the net enrolment 95.1% in the region in 2012. For secondary education, the gross enrollment and net enrolment rates averaged 82.8% and 75.3% in 2012, respectively. Turning to tertiary education, the average gross enrollment rate in the MENA region was 37.9% in 2012. In terms of parity, the primary and secondary rates averaged 96.6% and 94.9%, respectively. Gender disparities in favor of women exist at the tertiary education level with a gender parity ratio of 176.4% in 2012 across the region. This good performance at all educational levels suggests sustained investment in education. Several reasons may explain why governments, parents, and other stakeholders (donors, non-governmental organizations [NGOs]) invest in education. Previous literature has shown that education positively affects economic growth (Glewwe et. al., 2014, Hanushek and Woessman, 2007). The literature on returns to education found mixed results with some authors predicting high returns to education and others  low or no returns at all depending on the level of education. Expected high returns to education can explain why parents invest in education. In addition, education has been shown to impact health outcomes which can lead to governments, parents, and other stakeholders investing in education.

Sources of funds to invest in education include taxes (value added and other), official development aid, loans, and remittances. Remittances are transfers of funds from migrant workers to their families in their home countries. Remittances represent a high share of some countries’ income (e.g. 15% of GDP in Nepal, Bansak and Chezum, 2009) and can be used to finance household expenses including education. One question that arises is what impact do remittances have on educational outcomes in recipient countries? This question has been addressed in past literature using household survey data for specific countries but little has been done to study this question at the aggregate level (Ngoma and Ismail, 2013). Our study focuses on the MENA region and addresses gender aspects of educational outcomes. The outcomes of interest are educational attainment and education quality, the latter having been seldom addressed in previous studies.