Look to Japan and China: can the Middle East learn from East Asia’s success story?

Education systems and effective systems of authority are among the areas that could be adopted, according to experts at the Middle East Institute’s annual conference

However, they point out that differences in governance are potential roadblocks to successful emulation

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The emergence of China in recent years has propelled Gulf elites to become “think about it as a potential model for success for governance”, according to an expert. Photo: EPA

Published: 9:17pm, 16 Jan 2020Updated: 3:31pm, 17 Feb 2020

Middle Eastern states can take a leaf out of East Asia’s playbook, but differences in governance could stand in the way of their successful adoption of models from countries such as China, according to experts.

Speaking at the Middle East Institute’s annual conference in Singapore, Yitzhak Shichor, a professor of political science and Asian studies at Israel’s University of Haifa, said one such area of emulation was East Asia’s stellar education systems.

Schools from the region often dominated university rankings, he said, and students from those countries came out on top in the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) ranking released last month.

Students from mainland China, Singapore, Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan were ranked among the best in the global benchmarking test, which assessed 15-year-olds in science, mathematics and reading.

“The average number of schooling years in the Middle East is a little over six years. In East Asia, it’s around 12,” Shichor said.

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