The Migrant Effect: An Evaluation of Native Academic Performance in Qatar

Recent data have suggested that despite massive outlays on educational reform Qatar consistently ranks as one of the least academically proficient countries in key areas of literacy. Of the seventy-four countries that participated in PISA 2009 Qatar ranked between sixty-seven and sixty-nine in mathematics, reading and science literacy. Although this is a very dismal level of performance when compared to other countries, for the native Qatari population even these low rankings are biased upward. This study shows that a major reason for overestimation of native academic performance in Qatar is the presence of a large foreign component in the student population. The bias persists even after controlling for demographic differences such as age, gender, grade and socioeconomic status. An estimate of the bias which can be used to obtain correct estimates of true native academic performance is provided.