The lack of quality education plays a major role in explaining the Arab Spring: As a result of past shortfalls in education, large shares of the working-age population in the Arab-Spring countries do not have the right qualifications for entering the labour market. This not only leads to high levels of unemployment but also entails poverty and social distress. At the macro level, it triggers a vicious cycle of underdevelopment by hampering an upgrade to economies driven by knowledge and innovation despite the substantial numbers of higher educated citizens of working age in these countries. This holds particularly true for Egypt. Remedying the current lack of quality education should be a top priority in the countries of North Africa, because it is the source of many deficiencies plaguing this region. In the Arab-Spring countries, the European Union's sectoral aid given for education has focused on quantity (e.g. raising enrolment by supporting the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals for Education) rather than on quality, where interventions usually target higher education (mostly through individual sponsorship programmes), although there are challenges at all levels, starting with basic education. The European Union's main priority should be to guide and assist these countries in developing training programmes for teachers as the driving force behind the entire system reform
