Private Religious Schools (Non-Muslim) in the Middle East

There are several different types of private, non-Muslim religious schools in the Middle East. Before many Middle Eastern countries expanded public education, these schools provided alternative means of education to non-Muslim children whose Christian, Jewish, or Druze families preferred not to send them to Qur'anic schools and had the means to pay for their education. The schools also sometimes filled a gap in the education system where no schools were available to children. Despite the widespread expansion of government-funded public education, many of these schools continue to fill a gap. While some of the schools may originally have been founded to serve specific religious populations, most of them now enroll children of all religions.