Conference Paper
Quantifying School Segregation in MENA Countries: A Comparative Analysis
No.
ERF32AC_233
Publisher
ERF
Date
May, 2026
Topic
I3. Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
While most MENA countries have undergone structural transformation to improve their educational system, little is known about the level of school segregation in those countries. Segregation at the school level is quite important for the region as it could be related to increasing income and educational inequalities, such as achievement gaps, low educational attainment and separation of the rich from the poor. In this paper, we propose a richer analysis of the level of segregation in those countries by using the available TIMSS dataset over the period 2011-2023. We combine students’ achievement scores along with background information and school distribution we compute two types of segregation indices: Academic segregation, which illustrates the separation of the high achievers from low achievers, and socioeconomic segregation that represents the divide between the poor and the rich. On the basis of which form of segregation at which grade is more prevalent, we are able to classify countries into two main categories: countries with large levels of SES segregation at early grades and countries with large academic segregation at later grades. This classification allows for better targeted policies to the issue and to understand the prevalent segregation mechanism.
Authors
Abbas El Akari
PhD Candidate in Economics, Cadi Ayyad University
Authors
Aomar Ibourk
Professor of Quantitative Methods and Social Economics,...