Education In Egypt

“Most of the problems are well known; the issue is fundamentally one of political will. Improving education is of great importance to the public, but overhauling the large bureaucracy is a difficult task. Senior business people can and should press Egypt’s newly elected parliamentarians and forthcoming new government to tackle the challenges of the education system with urgency.”

Chatham House
MENA Programme: Meeting Summary
“Education in Egypt”
January 2012

Egypt is in the midst of a revolution where the ruling party is reexamining every aspect of life. The recently elected Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) has never been mentioned in history books or educational texts, as it didn’t exist. It’s another pivotal moment in history for a country whose major transitions have impacted not only its own citizens, but also people of the Middle East region and the rest of the world. Decisions made today become part of the changing face of the Middle East, as it navigates the era of “the Arab Spring”, a period which Foreign Affairs Magazine has likened to “a pan-Arab awakening” (Ajami: 2011) We will look at Egypt specifically through the lens of education and consider some disturbing trends. We will see how shifting policy and political change have shaped the complicated educational landscape today. We’ll identify the structure and features of the education system in our effort to understand the multiple challenges facing Egyptian educators, policy makers, students and families.

There was a period not too long ago when Egypt’s well-trained professors and teachers set the professional education standards for the Middle East. Many were recruited to neighboring countries, lured by higher wages and the accompanying prestige, as outside educators looked to them as role models for effective teaching practices. The educational picture looks vastly different today. In state run schools, students can show up to class to find no teacher and teachers can show up to find the majority of their students missing without repercussions on either side. Students feel that they aren’t missing much; they will prepare for state administered tests with private tutors. Many teachers care about their students and their responsibility to prepare them for the future, while others support learning for test taking results alone. Some withhold their knowledge for a tutoring venue where they’ll receive higher pay than in school. Others allow cheating to take place unchallenged. Students and teachers alike are quoted as saying that they don’t need to know the materials; they simply need to pass the test. Stories of corruption, physical and psychological abuses are emerging. Some teachers being paid as low as the equivalent of sixty-seven cents per day in poorer neighborhoods (Sobhy: 2012). Teaching, at least in some parts of the Egyptian education system, has lost its moral compass and its position as a respected art in the region.

These are unfortunate trends inherent in parts of the public Egyptian education system. Meanwhile in the private sector, educational institutions are thriving, with teachers making a living wage. The lack of quality education in government funded public schooling has forced the whole system to right itself through a more capitalistic mode of operation that serves the laws of supply and demand. The societal impact is the expansion and reinforcement of class distinctions in education, employment, and daily life. Illiteracy has been an ever-present theme in Egyptian culture, particularly during times of the British Occupation, which only ended officially in 1952. While difficult to measure, recent estimates place overall illiteracy rates at about 1/3 of the population (Fakhouri: 2010). With strong leadership and clear focus on literacy it will take many decades to balance inequities in society, but unfortunately leadership direction and consistency have not traditionally gone hand in hand in Egypt. How did Egyptian education fall from its highly regarded place of respect to its current state?

Regime change has been a constant in Egyptian life. The Egyptian people have experienced multiple leaders in the last 150+ years, and have been forced to adapt to the inevitable policy changes that accompany governmental change. This concept was introduced in the first project and will be addressed more deeply here. Specifically in education, the constant change mimics shifting sands, where the wind of change gives shape to a new, appealing form that is subsequently blown to dust by the next storm. Citizens experienced everything from state funded free schooling, which had the masses flocking to educational institutions, to the abandonment of the social system of education and a required free structure during British occupancy. The British wished to provide quality higher education solely to an elite sector that would mainly support the rule of the Monarchy. Not surprisingly, a period of Arab Nationalism followed, with multiple social programs under Gamal Abdel Nassar. Free education returned with the promise of government jobs for all university graduates. Civic pride was renewed, and a cohesive Egyptian voice emerged. Nasser’s programs endeared him to the public but did not prepare the country for the resulting economic shortfall or the next wave of change, which took place a short 15 years later.

Nasser died unexpectedly of a heart attack, making his second in command, Anwar Sadat, Egypt’s new leader. To address the strain on the economy from Nasser’s social programs, Sadat opened the country to foreign investment, including private international schools, more liberal policies, and a peace treaty with Israel. He did not live long to see the fruits of his labor, as fundamentalists whose resurgence began during Nasser’s tenure, assassinated him.

Hosni Mubarak took his place, serving as Egypt’s leader until 2011. He inherited a weary population with a very complex social make up. Society had varying degrees of religious fervor, high illiteracy rates, and strong class distinctions primarily as a result of the educational system itself. A brief review of the structure of that system is in order, as it is the system that still exists today. Then we will consider the impact of Mubarak’s leadership, bringing us to a current state of education today.

The Egyptian educational structure is quite similar to the American one. Children attend Kindergarten, though for two years, then primary (elementary), preparatory (middle school or junior high). This is compulsory schooling. It is followed by secondary school (high school). If a child completes this level of education (and many do not as they are pulled into the work force to support large families) parents have three choices. They can select state-funded religious education, and as most Egyptians are Muslim, it’s based on the Quran, and feeds into a state funded religious university founded in 972 called Al-Azhar Mosque. The second option is the over-burdened, state funded General School system. It falls under the central direction of the Ministry of Education (MOE), which dictates what will be learned and when through prescribed lessons. For those who can afford it, private schooling is the third alternative. Private schooling can cost many times the average Egyptian’s salary and the growth of the private education industry has served to deepen class structure in Egyptian life. Wealthier families’ students enjoy smaller class sizes in well-maintained buildings with key features such as technology, access to the arts, sports, and foreign language. Private university graduates also have better access to well-paying jobs, as society places high emphasis on standardized test scores and credentials, with less concern for critical thinking or lifelong learning.

All private schools loosely follow the specific curriculum designed by the MOE, but state funded schools are more rigid in instruction, allowing little flexibility in lesson planning. Government inspectors come periodically to the classroom to ensure compliance with state-approved materials, which can be politically motivated. With this understanding, we return to the events that impacted the educational climate of Egypt.

During Mubarak’s time, the state funded education system became the victim of economics, as the population expanded at an alarming rate – approximately 105,000 births per month from 1985 to 2000 (Hartmann: 2008). The Egyptian people of Mubarak’s era were accustomed to state-paid education and other subsidies, but had also sampled the opportunities of the free-market economy and the potential for entrepreneurialism, creating a desire to have the best of both worlds.

It would have taken forward thinking leadership and very serious financial commitment to keep the state funded education system in tact during this period. Mubarak opted to allow privatization to fund Egyptian education as a means of relieving economic burden, a choice that heavily impacts society even today. Instead of investing in the existing infrastructure, state funded education expenditures were kept constant, while classroom sizes doubled, placing 40-50 students in a space designed for 25. Teacher training standards were relaxed to meet the demands of the expanded classroom, birthing a system of decline in the quality and reputation of instruction. Combined with low wages and low teacher self-esteem, professional standards and respect for the craft eroded. As infrastructure has crumbled, corruption, sometimes at the hands of the Ministry of Education itself, has followed. (Sobhy: 2012).

Only the wealthy flocked to private or international schools leaving the majority of the population, teachers and the state system to support multiple times the people it was ever designed to accommodate. Families, desperate to provide quality education to their children, became committed to the growing idea of private tutoring, and/or committing large portions of their family income to private education. Tutoring itself has become a kind of educational track of its own, where most students commit to some form of it throughout their schooling, to make up for deficiencies in the system or to feed the social norm that “we are getting behind if we’re not being tutored” (Fouda: 2013). Teachers have participated in the perpetuation of the tutoring system, seeing it as an option to increase their pay. In some cases, teachers teach to the standardized tests only in tutoring sessions, in effect coercing students to pay for the additional services. The MOE has unofficially supported tutoring by allowing teachers to “teach to the test” that they administer only in tutor sessions as opposed to in classrooms. They have not required accountability or penalties for lack of attendance. They have insisted that students purchase MOE authored texts, which are rarely used. (Sobhy: 2012) In poorer schools, physical violence and psychological abuse have been reported as tactics by teachers to force tutoring and insure their own livelihood. (Sobhy: 2012)

All schools rely heavily on rote memorization and test taking. At the conclusion of secondary school, standardized tests are administered in Egypt, the results of which will determine a child’s future. The importance of these scores in this system cannot be underestimated. Many will begin working in unskilled labor due to the lack of quality education in poor or rural areas, and could still be functionally illiterate by international standards. Others will go to vocational schools, preparing for a specific trade. These schools are not highly regarded for producing students ready to face the current demands of the workforce. Depending on the success of his or her scores, or the ability of his or her parents to pay for education, a student will either have the opportunity to go to university (state funded, state funded religious or private). In the secular universities, they will be divided into groups for the study of medicine and engineering or the humanities. For private university acceptance, students must not only be able to pay for the education, but also meet narrow criteria as defined by the school. For example, the New Cairo British International School will not accept more than 50% Egyptians in their school, and in years where applicant numbers are significantly higher than available seats, priority is given to British citizens, who have some affiliation with Shell Oil, as the company has donated significant funding to the school. With multiple private institutions promoting their own philosophies and cultures, a broken state system, rising unemployment, illiteracy, and poverty, Egyptian education is in desperate need of reform. Without an overarching government plan for the growth of the nation, multiple influences are impacting the fabric of Egyptian society. The country is grappling with its future on a grand scale, and education is merely one aspect of it.

For education specifically, analysts are very concerned about the emphasis on test taking, memorization, tracks, and university admissions policies. These practices have bred a general tendency toward a workforce lacking in “soft skills” such as critical thinking, problem, solving, and working together in teams. This is the topic of many educations forums today. Interestingly,in the midst of all of this chaos, revisions to texts are a high priority. In March of 2012 the MOE made public plans to remove 20% of sections from existing texts as they promoted the Mubarak regime’s successes. (Loveluck: 2012) They will also need to make mention of themselves, as Mohamed Morsi’s Freedom and Justice Party did not exist when textbooks were last printed. It was formed in 2011 by members of the Muslim Brotherhood after Mubarak’s fall.

Today, parts of the education sector are thriving, mainly where citizens can pay for their schooling. Other parts, typically available to the less fortunate, are caught in a broken system. But despite the current educational climate, the revolution has brought hope to many. A teacher recently interviewed in Egypt noted that for the first time students were finding their voices in expressing dissent, and the discussions of the political climate were happening between classes. She noted that this is something that never would have taken place before the revolution. (Kamal: 2013) We can only hope that the conversations will continue and that this new chapter in Egyptian history will bring reform not only to education but many other aspects of life as well.

Project 2 Sources:

Fahmy, Amina, Salehi-Isfahani, Djaved, Dhillon, Navtej, Brookings Institute, “Egypt’s Education System: Parents and Students Emerge as a New Force for Reform, Oct. 1, 2008.

Fakhouri, Hani, Ph.D, Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan, Flint, Michigan. Middle East Today newsletter.“The Chronic Dilemma of Egypt’s Educational System”, Sept. 10, 2010.

Hartmann, Sarah, “The Informal Market of Education in Egypt. Private Tutoring and Its Implications”, Gutenberg Universitat Mainz, Institut fur Ethnologie und Afrikanstudien, Arbeitspapiere Nr. 88, 2008.

Ginsburg, M., Megahad, N.(2011) Globalization and the reform of faculties of education in Egypt: The roles of individual and organizational, national and international actors. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 19 (15) Retreived by MIIS Fall 2013, from http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/795

Chatham House, MENA Programme: Meeting Summary, “Education in Egypt”, Jan. 2012.
http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Middle%20East/0112egyptedu_summary.pdf

Loveluck,Louisa, Chatham House, Background Paper, Education in Egypt: Key Challenges, March 2012.

Sohby, Hania (2012): The De-Facto Privatization of Secondary Education in Egypt: a Study of Private Tutoring in Technical and General Schools, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 42:1, 47-67.

New Cairo British School, http://www.docstoc.com/docs/48383561/NEW-CAIRO-BRITISH-INTERNATIONAL-SCHOOL

Currency conversions: http://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/
Ajami,Fouad, Foreign Policy, “The Arab Spring at One: A Year of Living Dangerously.March/April 2012. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137053/fouad-ajami/the-arab-spring-at-one

Bard,Mitchell,Jewish Virtual Library, “Egypt Makes Peace with Israel”, The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, 2013. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/peace_with_Egypt.html

Kamal, Aya, email interview by Paula Larink, translated by Fatema Fouda. April 2013

Fouda, Fatema, interviewed by Paula Larink, April 2013

~ by Paula Larink on April 9, 2013 .