Bahrain has the oldest public education system in the Arabian Peninsula. The system was accomplished in 1932 when the government assumed responsibility for operating two preexisting primary schools for boys. consequently, separate facilities for girls and various secondary programs were accomplished. Since the 1970s, education has been one of the largest current government expenditures. contempt the intensity of government efforts, the literacy rate for adult citizens was only about 75 % as newly as 1985. The literacy rate for 1990 was around by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization to be 77 % for adults (82 % for males and 69 % for females). Nevertheless, literacy levels among Bahrainis born since freedom in 1971 were high because an around 70 % of primary and secondary school-age children attended school.

In addition to the public education system, there are fortyeight private and religious schools, including the United Statesoperated and accredited Bahrain International School, which offers classes from primary school through secondary school. There were 5,000 teachers in 1988, of whom 65 % were native Bahrainis. Egyptians constituted the largest group of foreign teachers.

In 1927 the first group of Bahrainis to obtain a university education listed at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. The first institution of higher education in Bahrain, the Gulf Polytechnic, was accomplished in 1968 as the Gulf Technical College. In 1984 Gulf Polytechnic merged with the University College of Art, Science, and Education (UCB), founded in 1979, to create a national university offering bachelor of arts and bachelor of science degrees. During the 1992 academic year, more than 4,100 students, 1/2 of whom were women, studied at the two campuses of UCB/Polytechnic.