With so many modern luxuries in America, it is easy to forget that education up to the same quality in other countries. The Middle East is a prime example of what schooling is like outside of our privileged country. Even though education has dramatically increased from the days of Ancient Mesopotamia to those in the Middle East, schooling is still vastly different from what we have in America.

Even in a country where education based discrimination is next to non-existent, there are still many other places where it is hard for women to obtain the same privileges that men have. In the Middle East, the amount of women in universities is close to equal to that of men and the rate of literate women has increased, but it is not in the schooling that the problem lies. Gender based prejudice is so extreme in the Middle East, women do not have the same opportunities to receive  high paying jobs. When the reasoning for going to college is to have a higher-class job, then it makes sense that women don’t have much reason to go to school.

Ancient Mesopotamia, on the other hand, is even worse than the current Middle East. Girls are not allowed to attend school. The only chance that women have of becoming literate is if they are born into a weathy family where a tutor can be hired to teach the girl. The same prediciment lies though: when there is no reason to learn to read and write, when there is no chance to get a high paying job, then there is no reason to learn.

- As of 2000, about 60% of the women in the Middle East are literate.

-Colleges in the Middle East are populated by about equal men and women.

- 42% was the current population percent of females over the age of 15 in the Current Middle East and Northern Africa are illiterate in the year of 2000.

- 23% was the current population percent of females in the ages of 15 to 24 in the Current Middle East and Northern Africa were illiterate in the year of 2000.  

-Girls had no way, other than marriage, to increase their social standing unlike men, who could get a higher class job as a result of education.

http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/egypt/people/school.htm  -http://mesopotamia.mrdonn.org/school.html

http://www1.aucegypt.edu/src/wsite1/pdfs/rewebsite_cida/Somaya_2.pdf

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/37923/Egypt/Politics-/%E2%80%9CLet-Us-Learn%E2%80%9D-the-cry-of-Egyptian-Women.aspx

http://www.popcouncil.org/uploads/pdfs/unfulfilled_promises.pdf

http://www.peacexpeace.org/2012/01/egypt-a-revolution-in-womens-rights-is-not-over/

-Dr. Goldberg