The Impacts of Education on the Sustainable Development in United Arab Emirates: A Simultaneous Equations Approach

Abstract

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is an Asian country that consists of seven emirates. UAE is the eighth largest oil producer in the world which is the main source used for development. UAE is a member of the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) council. UAE is one of the world’s most open and successful economies. UAE maintains a free-market economy and is one of the most politically stable and secure in the region. All together ensures that UAE has a robust competitive edge since it is the region’s premier commercial hub and the second largest economy. In addition, this economic environment encourages the establishment of private universities and branches of well-known foreign universities in UAE. In this study, the impact of education on the sustainable economic development is measured by human development index (HDI) using simultaneous equations approach of two equations. The results show that there are more than one million students enrolled in primary and secondary schools and more than 60 thousand enrolled in territory education in more than 561 programs distributed over 70 institutions, around 40% of them are noncitizens. The regression results show that there are impacts of education on the sustainable economic development at UAE. These results emphasize the role of education in creating sustainable development in UAE, in particular, as well as the rational policy of the UAE and confirm the results of other studies.