In January 2015, the British Council's first symposium on employability, skills and opportunities for young people in MENA was launched in collaboration with the League of Arab States as a response to growing unemployment levels in MENA.
The main outcomes of this research show that it is not only English, but multilingualism that improves young peoples' employability and allows societies to prosper. The second important find is that many public English language support programmes in MENA are not achieving the desired improvement in English language attainment levels because many of the initiatives deal with individual parts of the system, the teacher or the curriculum, and not considering the whole through a holistic approach.
The report contains the following sections:
Section 1: Context and situation: the challenge of promoting economic growth in MENA
Section 2: The role of education in economic growth and employability
Section 3: The role of English in MENA
This publication is free to download in pdf format below.