The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has the largest gender gap in learning poverty among regions with available data. Learning poverty is defined as the proportion of children unable to read and understand an age-appropriate text by 10 years of age. The size of this gender gap, however, varies across MENA countries. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is among the countries with the largest gender gaps in student achievement in the world. Available data show that boys in KSA consistently and significantly underperform girls across different grades and subjects. For example, in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2019, 53% of KSA's grade 4 boys failed to achieve minimum proficiency in mathematics, i.e., lack basic mathematical knowledge of whole numbers and graphs, compared to 45 percent of girls. In grade 8, 58% of boys did not achieve minimum proficiency in mathematics compared to 49% of girls. This gender gap persists in the national indicators of educational achievement. -blog.wb.org/blogs

A version of this article appears in the print on February 21, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.