Research on educational quality has been scarce in the Middle East and North
Africa (MENA) region, whereas the debates over educational quality date from
1966 in the USA with the Coleman Report. Fortunately TIMSS (Trends in
International Mathematics and Science Study) starts to fill this gap by providing
data on students’ achievement and for many MENA countries this is the first time
that such data are available. The paper gives an overview of the quality of
education in MENA using TIMSS’ 2007 data. The research questions addressed
here are why is achievement low? And why is the gap between the top-performing
countries and MENA countries large? In order to answer these questions, the paper
focuses on several aspects: the first is the inefficiency of acquiring the language,
the second is the inefficiency of time devoted to homework, the third is the meagre
intended curriculum which is translated into a weaker implemented curriculum,
the fourth aspect deals with the inefficiency of public resources devoted to the
education sector. Finally, the paper highlights two other factors believed to affect
students’ achievement: family background and students’ attitudes towards
mathematics and science.