Education Choices and Statistics
The topic of public, state funded education vs. private family funded education is a major consideration in Egypt. Within the category of public schooling, families have the choice of traditional state-based secular schooling or religious schooling. Religious schools are primarily Islamic (though there is a small Christian percentage of the population) and feed into a single religious university .
Private schools are expensive and elite, with resources more readily available. They are divided into further categories which include international schools that not only teach language, but stylistically, may also teach to the culture of origin. English and French are popular, as the Egyptian culture still bears the memory of both British occupation and French influence under Napolean. While the British era is considered to have significantly decreased the quality and access of education to the masses by design, the French period was brief and according to Fatima, had more of a cultural impact on the country. Students still learn English and French in various areas of the school system, public or private.
The cartoon below illustrates one popular sentiment in the public vs. private debate.
Statistics from the World Education Encyclopedia, 2002 show the following:
I believe these numbers have changed more recently, but it gives us an indication of Egypt’s path leading up to the revolution. Illiteracy is still a major factor in Egypt as well. It is heavily impacted by birth rates, which continue to be high in Egypt. (I will provide population statistics in future posts.)