The secretary-general of the Higher Population Council, Dr. Issa Al-Masarwah, participated in the 56th session of the commission on population and development at the United Nations, held in New York during the period (April 10-14, 2023), under the title "population, education and sustainable development".
During the meetings of the session, the secretary general of the council presented Jordan's position paper on the subject, as this paper was prepared in cooperation and coordination with all relevant national partners on this subject.
The secretary-general pointed out that Jordan is taking the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development as a framework for its policies and plans, and Jordan has so far submitted to the United Nations two voluntary reviews on progress towards achieving the goals of this agenda, and also submitted a voluntary National Review on the fourth goal of the Sustainable Development Goals related to education, as well as presented its commitments related to education according to the Global Education Transformation Summit in 2022, which focused on recovering education losses associated with the effects of the corona pandemic, focusing on children at risk of exclusion, such as children with disabilities and refugee children, providing safe and healthy educational environments, and an empowering support that is easily accessible by all children.
He pointed out that Jordan has witnessed dramatic demographic changes during the first two decades of the third millennium, which have had serious impacts on its educational system, as the population has more than doubled in twenty years and reached 11.4 million people by the end of 2022. Therefore, over the past two decades, Jordan has made great efforts to increase the efficiency of its educational system by focusing on Human Resources Development, increasing access to high-quality education, expanding the scope of the school feeding program and ensuring its access to the most needy students, improving the infrastructure of educational institutions, in addition to continuing to reform the technical and vocational education and training system, building the capacities of teachers and raising their qualifications, pointing out that despite the scarcity of resources, Jordan is trying to pay attention to the early childhood development stage, focusing on providing a feasible environment for students at all educational stages, including kindergarten, as Jordan is moving towards The second kindergarten (KG2) is a mandatory stage as stated in his commitments related to the world education summit 2022.
Al-Masarwah also added that Jordan has achieved significant achievements in the rates of access to basic and secondary education, bridging the gender gap in education, and providing qualified teachers, so the total enrollment rates at the basic education stage reached 97.1% (97.1% males, 97.2 females), and at the secondary level 82.2% (76.5% male, 88.1% female) in the academic year 2021/2022, which is one of the highest rates in the region, and the illiteracy rate in Jordan has fallen to the lowest level among the countries of the region (less from 5%).
In the field of eliminating gender-related disparities in basic and secondary education, Al- Masarwah explained that Jordan has made great strides in this area, as gender has been integrated into the strategic plan of the Ministry of education, in addition to integrating the concepts of human rights and gender and promoting gender equality in curricula and textbooks.
With regard to the technical and vocational education and training sector, the national strategies have emphasized the importance of a well-developed system of vocational and technical education because of its impact on providing the labor market with the necessary competencies to reduce unemployment among Jordanian youth at a time when we are witnessing an accelerated change in the labor market.
In the field of higher education, he pointed out that Jordan has a distinctive higher education system at the regional level, and this was reflected in the numbers of international students studying at Jordanian universities, in addition to the great attraction of graduates of Jordanian universities to work in Arab, regional and international public and private institutions.
The secretary-general pointed out that the progress achieved by Jordan in the education sector cannot be seen in isolation from a number of major challenges that have emerged clearly due to the complex repercussions of the corona pandemic, global economic crises and political unrest in the region, indicating that the presence of large numbers of refugees has led to strain the capacities of various sectors and increased pressure on infrastructure and supplies, as Jordan bears the consequences of asylum and contributes to spending on services provided to Syrian refugees despite the challenges faced by the Jordanian economy, recalling that Jordan hosts the second largest percentage of refugees in the world compared to the number of its citizens, and this has led to non-stress Meanwhile, international funding for Jordan's response plans to the Syrian crisis has decreased, and this lack of funding has led to a decrease in the number of services provided to refugees on the one hand, and the quality of some others has been affected on the other.
He stressed the need to mobilize funding and activate partnerships at the regional and international levels to remedy the shortcomings in education infrastructure, digitization, inclusive and equitable quality education at all levels and create quality educational environments to ensure the promotion of the right to quality education for all and leave no one behind.
On a related note, Dr. Issa Al-Masarwah participated in the side meeting held on April 12 on the sidelines of the 56th session of the United Nations Commission on population and development under the title "population, education and work: The meeting was organized by the league of Arab states, the United Nations Population Fund and the ESCWA organization, and under the auspices of the minister of economy and planning of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia/ Chairman of the fourth session of the Arab Council for population and development, the purpose of the side meeting was to highlight the population trends and the reality of education and work in Arab countries, especially the education of women and girls, and to draw attention to the importance of education quality and linking education programs to the outputs of the labor market and the challenges of the future in light of digital transformation and climate change, and the importance of investing in youth as human capital to reap the benefits of demographic dividend to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
The secretary-general also held a long meeting with Ambassador Mahmoud Al-Hmoud/ resident representative of Jordan to the United Nations, during which he briefed him on the program of the 56th session of the commission on population and development at the United Nations and the paper submitted by Jordan on the subject of this session, and presented to Al-Hmoud the tasks of the council and a summary of the demographic situation in Jordan and its effects on all national sectors and the strategies being implemented to respond to these effects. the secretary-general pointed to the participation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and expatriates in the workshop on the hoped-for role of administrative records as a source of data and the role of the ministry in continuing its efforts to contact Jordanian expatriates in the diaspora countries in order to update their data at the Jordanian embassies so that the ministry and the relevant institutions have up-to-date data on the size of the Jordanian expatriate communities and their role towards the motherland.
