Learning Beyond the Classroom: Why Gulf States Are Investing in Lifelong Education
By Ayesha Tauqeer
The Global Partnership for Education began its latest fundraising drive. Its chief executive told Semafor that with USAID shuttered and Western aid budgets shrinking, she was counting on the Gulf to fill the gap, which would have been impossible a decade ago. The UAE pledged approximately $100 million in the previous cycle, Saudi Arabia contributed $46 million, and Qatar provided around $20 million, with Frigenti expecting these figures to “significantly increase.” The Gulf, she said, had demonstrated a rare ability to build a world-class education system within a single generation.
A generation ago, Gulf states were sending their students abroad and importing expertise wholesale. Today, they are being asked to fund education for the rest of the world. This is a remarkable feat with a simple mechanism behind it. Economies that depend on finite natural resources cannot depend on those resources long term. Therefore, a meaningful investment in human capital is central to long-term economic planning.
For the gulf, the drive behind it all simply is oil. Or rather, the fear of its absence. Every major Gulf education initiative traces back to the same underlying anxiety of an economy built on a finite resource cannot outlast it without a workforce built on knowledge. Saudi Arabia’s Human Capability Development Program, launched in 2021, spans every stage of learning from early childhood through to lifelong learning. It is also designed to match educational outcomes directly to labour market needs. This is not just aspiration; it is survival planning.
The program seeks to develop skills throughout every stage of life, ensuring that educational outcomes align with the needs of the future labor markets.
As Gulf economies diversify into technology, finance, and tourism sectors, the importance of lifelong learning has increased. Rather than limiting education to a university-level degree, they are increasingly treating it as a continuous cycle of learning as an economic necessity.
The overwhelming attraction to this concept of education and learning is evident. A joint report by ETS and Saudi Arabia’s Human Capability Development Program showed optimistic respondents who are more hopeful about upskilling opportunities than the global average.
However, education in the Gulf is not only an economic project. It also represents a strategic investment in influence, competitiveness, and national identity. In a world where economic power is not sufficient, many institutions and governments are seeking knowledge and education as a way to strengthen their position within the global economy.
Ultimately, the Gulf’s education system showcases that when states invest in opportunities pertaining to intentional learning on a larger scale in society, it creates a real difference. It creates a sense so detrimental to growth and reshapes the concept of education as more than just a tool of employment to a way of expanding opportunity and redefining what freedom itself means in the 21st century.