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What the Region Teaches: Education Systems and Curriculum Content

Document 30: The Scores, the Textbook Wars, and Who Is Actually Learning

Purpose [ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK — framing, not a factual claim]: education claims in this region arrive pre-weaponized — "their textbooks teach hate," "our schools teach peace," each side citing studies the other calls fraudulent. This document separates the layers: the measurable (PISA/TIMSS scores with their sampling caveats), the textbook record (anchored on the one study that examined both sides' books with a single methodology), the reform arc (who is genuinely improving, who stalled, who never started), and the catastrophes (Gaza's satellite-verified destruction; Israel's self-chosen Haredi gap; Lebanon's collapse). Every study carries its provenance flag; every score carries its sampling frame. A reader should leave able to evaluate any claim about the region's schools in about a minute.

The Short Version

What do schools in the Middle East actually teach, and how well? The test scores say: not well, almost anywhere — most of the region scores far below international averages, and six in ten ten-year-olds in the region cannot read a simple text. The textbook fights are angrier than the facts: the only study that ever examined both Israeli and Palestinian schoolbooks with the same method found that neither side's books usually demonize the other as people — but both tell one-sided national stories, Palestinian maps erase Israel, and Israeli maps erase the Green Line. Palestinian books do contain documented passages glorifying violence — math problems that count "martyrs" — confirmed even by the European Union's own academic review, which also found the same curriculum meets international standards in other ways. Saudi Arabia quietly removed most of the antisemitic content from its books; Iran still teaches ninth-graders to assemble rifles and rank martyrdom as life's highest act. Israel's own failure is different: it funds religious schools that legally must teach math and English and largely don't — its supreme court froze a billion shekels over it. And Gaza's schools are simply gone: 97% damaged or destroyed, verified by satellite. Every claim here has a source; the loudest versions of every claim are the ones that fail checking.

Every fact in the full page below carries a tag showing its evidence.

PART 1: THE MEASURABLE LAYER [VERIFIED via PISA 2022 / TIMSS 2023]

System PISA math PISA reading TIMSS G8 math Note
OECD average / TIMSS centerpoint 472 476 500
Israel 458 474 487 (down from 519) The two caveats below
Türkiye 453 456 — One of the world's few sustained 20-year improvers
UAE 431 417 489 (+16) The region's strongest trajectory
Qatar 414 419 451 Improving
Saudi Arabia 389 383 397 Bottom third of participants despite OECD-level spending
Palestinian territories (2022 debut) 366 349 382 80% below baseline proficiency in math; girls ahead of boys by 49 points in reading; tested spring 2022 — the last pre-war measurement of Gaza's system
Jordan / Morocco 361 / 365 342 / 339 388 / —
  • Who doesn't test matters as much as who does: Egypt (25M+ students — the region's largest system), Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon sat out PISA 2022 — regional comparisons systematically overrepresent Gulf states that can afford measurement and omit the systems most at risk. Egypt debuts in PISA 2025 (results due late 2026) [VERIFIED participation facts; DOCUMENTED inference]
  • Israel's two caveats, stated plainly: its internal gaps are among the largest on earth (Hebrew-vs-Arabic-sector spread of ~100–136 points), and its national score excludes most Haredi boys' schools — meaning the true national figure would be lower [VERIFIED gaps; the exclusion DOCUMENTED via the Shoresh Institution analysis]. Its TIMSS decline (519→487) coincided with the post-October 7 disruption year — annotated, not explained away
  • The Gulf paradox: per-student spending at or above OECD levels, scores 40–90 points below OECD everywhere — alongside genuinely improving TIMSS trajectories. Both facts [VERIFIED]
  • The sourcing trap flagged: Gulf communiqués touting "UAE 4th globally in science" cite Dubai's private-school benchmark (563), not the UAE's national score (486) [VERIFIED — the two are separately reported]
  • Precision on the excellence claims: Israel's Nobel record stated correctly — 6 chemistry laureates plus 2 in economics (~13–14 total), not the inflated "12 science Nobels" that circulates; Israeli institutions hold three global top-100 rankings (Weizmann, Hebrew U, Technion) against zero Arab universities in that band; Israel's R&D spending (~6.3% of GDP) is the world's highest. The Arab world's science laureates (Zewail, Bawendi, Yaghi) all did their prize work at Western institutions — the brain-circulation pattern is itself part of the record [VERIFIED via laureate lists and rankings]

PART 2: THE TEXTBOOK WARS — THE SYMMETRIC SPINE

The anchor study [DOCUMENTED — the only one of its kind]: Adwan/Bar-Tal/Wexler, "Victims of Our Own Narratives?" (2013, US State Department-funded, jointly run by Palestinian and Israeli scholars with Yale oversight, blind raters, 74 Israeli and 94 Palestinian books — the only large-scale single-methodology comparison ever conducted). Its findings survive every partisan filter:

  1. Dehumanizing characterizations of the other are RARE in both Israeli and Palestinian books
  2. One-sided national narratives are PERVASIVE in both — the other as enemy, the self as peace-seeking victim (Palestinian books: victims 66% / perpetrators 2%; Israeli books: 35% / ~10%)
  3. Both erase the other's map: Palestinian books lack Israel; most Israeli books lack the Green Line — the two findings on which IMPACT-se, the EU's academic institute, and this study all agree, making them the strongest anchors in the entire literature
  4. Israeli state-secular books were measurably the most self-critical; Israeli ultra-Orthodox books scored closest to the Palestinian pattern

Israel's education ministry rejected the study before publication — a verified fact this page records alongside the findings [VERIFIED reaction; the equivalence interpretation DISPUTED by Israeli critics, noted]

Palestinian Authority textbooks, at exact documentation level:

  • The passages are real [VERIFIED as passages]: Grade 3–4 math problems counting "martyrs" of the Intifada; martyrdom vocabulary from Grade 1; attacker Dalal al-Mughrabi presented as heroine — photographed by IMPACT-se and corroborated in substance by the EU's own commissioned review
  • The EU's Georg Eckert Institute study (2021), quoted whole [VERIFIED — the study's own text]: the books "adhere to UNESCO standards" in adopting human-rights and tolerance criteria and contain "anti-Semitic narratives and glorifications of violence" — both clauses appear in the same report; each camp quotes only its half, and any citation doing so fails this site's dispatch test. The study also found the 2020/21 amended editions measurably de-escalated; IMPACT-se claims re-escalation since — trajectory DISPUTED
  • The provenance flags carried inline: IMPACT-se and UN Watch are advocacy-aligned (with photographable primary passages — the existence of passages is rarely disputed; representativeness and framing are); Prof. Nathan Brown's published methodology critique is the counter-position [DOCUMENTED both ways]
  • The EU's official acts, kept distinct [VERIFIED]: seven consecutive years of European Parliament condemnation resolutions (2021–2026 — non-binding) versus the European Commission's July 2024 funding-conditionality agreement (operative) — which IMPACT-se's 2025 assessment says the PA has not honored

UNRWA — the distinct question [the structural fact both attackers and defenders blur]: UNRWA delivers host-country curricula (PA books in the territories, Jordanian in Jordan) with its own review overlay — so "UNRWA's textbooks" are mostly not UNRWA's. Its own documented failures are recorded on their own terms: the self-authored 2021 materials it admitted violated UN values; the Colonna Review's finding that some materials in use "constitute a grave violation of neutrality"; and the documented staff social-media incitement cases — 14+ staff celebrating October 7, with UNRWA's zero-tolerance policy, suspensions, and its dispute of sample representativeness also recorded [VERIFIED via UNRWA's own statements and the review; DOCUMENTED via the UN Watch/IMPACT-se files]

The Hamas layer in Gaza [DOCUMENTED, source-flagged]: not a separate curriculum but documented additions atop the PA books — the in-school Futuwwa paramilitary program (weekly military instruction in Gaza high schools from 2012, expanded to 49 schools and ~13,000 students by 2014, some lessons taught by Qassam Brigades operatives) and the military summer camps Hamas itself publicized. Primary documentation is Israeli-intelligence-linked (flagged) but photo-supported and corroborated by Hamas's own publicity and a European Parliament record

Israeli textbooks, both columns: the Peled-Elhanan critique (Palestinians as "refugees, primitive farmers and terrorists") with its own published critiques [DOCUMENTED/DISPUTED]; the verified 2009 ministerial removal of "Nakba" from Arab-sector textbooks; Arab-sector curriculum-control episodes (the summoned principal, the "Borderlife" exclusion) [VERIFIED/DOCUMENTED]; and the datapoint that cuts both ways — IMPACT-se's own review of Israeli books found state books largely meet standards, from the same organization documenting the PA books [DOCUMENTED]

PART 3: THE REFORM ARC [DOCUMENTED via the tracked editions]

  • Saudi Arabia — the region's largest documented improvement: by 2023, "practically all" previously identified antisemitic material removed — the Muslims-kill-Jews end-of-days hadith deleted for the first time, an entire jihad unit scrapped, Protocols-style tropes gone. What remains: Israel as "Zionist entity," absent from maps, some negative content. The honest frame: genuine, large, sustained — and centrally authored, therefore centrally reversible
  • Qatar: improved 2020–2022, then stalled — problematic content unchanged for four consecutive years per the 2026 review. UAE: the showcase — a moral-education curriculum that the region's harshest textbook watchdog rates "head and shoulders" above the region (with the caveat that independent academic review of it is thinner). Jordan: the 2016 modernization that got textbooks burned in the streets by protesting teachers [VERIFIED events]
  • Post-Assad Syria [VERIFIED changes; DISPUTED intent]: the January 2025 published edits — "martyr" redefined from dying for the homeland to dying "for the sake of God"; a Quranic gloss identifying "those who angered God" as Jews and Christians; the evolution chapter removed — followed by a ministerial walk-back framing it as de-Assadification. The Islamization concern is documented; the trajectory unresolved

PART 4: IRAN — THE IDEOLOGY CURRICULUM [DOCUMENTED via ADL/IMPACT-se reviews]

The region's only system where the ideology layer is the core: martyrdom ranked as the noblest act — above sacrificing one's life — in Grade 12 sociology; "Defense Readiness" classes teaching Kalashnikov assembly in Grades 9–10; model-martyr biographies from Syria deployments; Israel taught as "fake" and destined for destruction; missile-trajectory math problems; mandatory Islamic Revolution coursework through university. Documented passage by passage in the ADL's and IMPACT-se's reviews of current editions

PART 5: ISRAEL'S OWN DOCUMENTED FAILURE — THE HAREDI EXEMPTION

Stated at full strength because it is the region's clearest case of a first-world system choosing an education gap — no war, occupation, or poverty to blame:

  • State-funded Haredi schools legally required to teach proportional core curriculum (math, English, science); many boys' schools teach little or none; only ~7% of Haredi students sit in state frameworks [VERIFIED via the legal and enrollment record]
  • Enforcement: the ministry deducted less than half a percent of funding from non-compliant networks over three years [VERIFIED]
  • The High Court froze ~NIS 1 billion in transfers in 2025, with the Attorney-General arguing the state cannot lawfully fund non-compliance [VERIFIED court record]
  • The economics: the Bank of Israel prices non-integration at more than 10% of future GDP per capita as the Haredi share heads toward a quarter of Israelis by 2050; the IMF repeats the warning [DOCUMENTED via the central bank and IMF]

PART 6: GAZA — THE EDUCATION CATASTROPHE [attribution-disciplined]

  • The pre-war baseline, both facts: Palestinian literacy ~97% — among the region's highest — achieved in the system Hamas ran atop UNRWA's network [VERIFIED via PCBS/UNESCO]; and PISA 2022's harder truth — scores near the world's bottom, West Bank ahead of Gaza — the last measurement ever taken of that system [VERIFIED]
  • The destruction: 97% of school buildings damaged or destroyed — independently satellite-verified by UNOSAT (432 of 564 directly hit; ~92% needing reconstruction) — the figure that needs no one's word [VERIFIED]. Every university damaged or destroyed — one demolished with 315 mines; ~80% of university buildings gone, 103 academics killed per UNESCO's assessment [VERIFIED for damage; definitional counts flagged]
  • The human toll, attributed: 14,600+ students and ~880 educators killed per the Gaza Ministry of Education as relayed by UN agencies — attributed as such, not converted into independent verification [DOCUMENTED with attribution]
  • "Scholasticide" [the accusation, handled per this site's method]: the term was raised by UN Special Procedures experts (April 2024), who "questioned whether there is an intentional effort" — raised, not adjudicated. Israel rejects intent, citing Hamas military use of schools — itself DISPUTED case-by-case. The destruction figures above are the record either way; the intent label is an accusation, noted and routed, not seated beside the satellite data as a peer fact [VERIFIED as to who says what]
  • The restart: ~60% of school-age children still without in-person learning as of early 2026; UNICEF's temporary-learning-space program targeting 336,000 children in 2026 and full coverage by 2027; a cohort missing 2–3 full school years [DOCUMENTED via UNICEF/UNRWA operational data]
  • The West Bank, in parallel: PA teachers at ~60% salary and 3-day school weeks under the fiscal crisis (the clearance-revenue withholding and the PA's own budget priorities both recorded); 18 Area C schools demolished over 12 years with 80+ under threat, against Israel's unlicensed-construction rationale and the 1%-of-Area-C permit reality — both stated; the East Jerusalem curriculum fight (Israeli-mandated PA-textbook modifications, the 2022 school strikes) — the mirror accusations handled by the same dispatch test [DOCUMENTED throughout]

PART 7: THE META-PICTURE [VERIFIED/DOCUMENTED]

  • Learning poverty: roughly 6 in 10 MENA ten-year-olds cannot read and understand a simple text (World Bank) — the region's real education headline, bigger than any textbook fight
  • ~30 million children out of school across the region: Yemen ~3.7M (170,000 teachers unsalaried for years), Syria ~2M, Sudan driving the surge, Lebanon's public system near-failed (enrollment down to ~43% at the 2022 trough, teachers at $140/month)
  • The mismatch: the world's highest youth unemployment — highest among the most educated — the credential-vs-skills gap two decades of Arab Human Development Reports have diagnosed without cure
  • The two-column verdict: genuinely improving — the UAE, Türkiye, Qatar, Saudi Arabia from a low base; collapsing — Gaza, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon

PART 8: THE READER'S TOOLS [ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK]

  1. Ask for the passage, then ask for the denominator. The photographed textbook page is usually real; the question is three passages or three hundred, and in which books
  2. Quote studies whole. The EU's Eckert report contains both camps' favorite sentence in one document; a citation using only one half is a tell about the citer
  3. The symmetric-study test: if someone cites textbook research, ask whether their source ever examined their own side's books with the same method. Exactly one study did — and its findings embarrass everyone a little
  4. Distinguish the curriculum from the system from the staff. PA-authored books, UNRWA's delivery of them, and individual teachers' social media are three different claims with three different evidence bases; collapsing them is the standard move in both directions
  5. Scores need their sampling frame. Israel-without-Haredi-boys, Dubai-vs-UAE, and a league table missing the region's two biggest systems — every number on this page carries who was counted

VERIFICATION SOURCES