Qatar and Saudi Arabia seem to be leading the GCC countries when it comes to spending on education.
Overall, Qatar has in absolute terms spent more per capita for education since 2016, despite some fluctuations.
The numbers — Qatar’s per-capita expenditure on education — are $16,816 in 2016 and 2017, $15,615 in 2018, $15,615 in 2019, and $18,198 in 2020.
The spend this year so far has been $14,354.
The total expenditure on this head accounts for between 5 percent and 6 percent of Qatar’s Gross Domestic Product.
However, when it comes to absolute totals and the share of the GDP spent on education, Saudi Arabia leads the pack.
The country has, on an average, spent more than $50 billion every year in the sector between 2016 and 2020.
That has more often than not resulted in a spend that is between 6.5 percent and 8.6 percent of the GDP within the same period.
Meanwhile, the UAE seems to be in the middle of the list, with average spending of between $1.7 billion and $2.8 billion between 2016 and 2020, which has been consistently under 1 percent of the total GDP.
