Having largely achieved the once-distant goal of providing free access to primary and secondary education for all nationals, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—now face a much thornier challenge: raising the quality of that education. To make further progress, they must shift their focus—above all, to improving the skills of teachers and managing the overall performance of their school systems. Some GCC states (notably Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE) are making a start.

The economic and demographic profiles of the GCC states vary significantly. Nonetheless, their public-education systems have evolved along similar paths, focusing for decades on increasing the number of teachers and making effective investments in “hard” infrastructure—schools and, more recently, computers—in hopes of improving their students’ performance. But poor showings on the most recent global standardized math and science tests, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS),¹ served as a wake-up call for GCC policy makers (Exhibit 1). The national assessments that followed have only confirmed those results.

Recognizing the importance of public education as both a foundation for economic growth and a necessity for the well-being of the GCC’s citizens, policy makers are...