Educational Policy and Reform in the MENA Region: Between Crisis and Possibility

<span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">This presentation sets the stage for the symposium by exploring the evolving landscape of educational policy and reform across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). As editors of the forthcoming 2026 volume Educational Policy, Reforms, and Change in the Middle East and North Africa: Towards Social Justice, Equity, and Political Inclusion, we trace the genealogy of reform efforts in the region, emphasizing the complex intersections of political authoritarianism, colonial legacy, economic restructuring, and community resistance.&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">Rather than treating reform as a linear or technical process, we frame education policy as a contested arena—one shaped by ideological struggle, transnational pressure, and grassroots mobilization. We highlight how education systems in MENA operate under persistent crises, including war, forced displacement, gender exclusion, and privatization, while simultaneously becoming sites of resistance and innovation.</span><br style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">Through a justice-centered, comparative lens, we analyze how reform actors—educators, leaders, scholars, and policymakers—navigate the contradictions between top-down mandates and community-rooted aspirations. We examine how policies are reinterpreted, resisted, or reimagined in localized contexts, and how educational leadership is being reshaped in the face of ongoing disruption and possibility.&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">We conclude by raising critical questions that guide the symposium: How do MENA education systems respond to structural violence while sustaining visions of justice? What lessons can global policy discourses learn from MENA-based practices of care, resilience, and reform? And how might we reframe educational leadership to honor the region’s histories, pluralities, and political complexities?</span>