Education in Egypt: Access, Gender and Disability – Part 1 Access
Revolution in Egypt has brought many fluctuations and challenges for its people. The educational system, as we have learned from previous posts, is a product of multiple factors. Leaders have changed regularly and as they’ve done so, political, economic and educational ideologies have shifted as well. Population growth has impacted the reach of governmental education funding, while other influences, such as religion or international education providers have filled the gaps and created new forces in the system. The privately funded education system, which includes private tutoring, is running side by side the state-run, dilapidated system. With this as our backdrop, we will very briefly consider the ethnic make up of Egypt, then explore educational matters of accessibility, gender equality and living with disabilities in Egypt. We look in detail at the average Egyptian’s access to private education, which is deepening the economic disparity among Egyptians issues related to gender inequality education, which is persistent, and the theory and practice of disability policies.
First a note on the ethnic landscape of Egypt: It is argued that between 91% and 99% of the inhabitants of Egypt are Egyptian. (Lewis: 2011) They are by far the largest ethnic group, however there are subtleties in language classification that are quite complex. Because other topics garner much more debate, public attention and criticism, especially in light of Egypt’s revolution, language will not be further addressed in this study and we will consider access to education.
Quality, private education is available to Egyptians if they can pay for it. The private system, with better teaching resources and spacious, well-kept schools, offers education that is far superior to government-funded schools. Access to quality jobs is easier with private school degrees as graduates are considered “better prepared” for the job market. (Loveluck: 2012) With a somewhat broken public education system that is quite fragmented, lacking a working, honor driven holistic governmental plan, issues like equity, gender equality and disability education are perhaps not given the highest priority in day to day matters.
Let’s consider who can afford private education in Egypt. Compare the average Egyptian salaries on the chart below to the cost of private education from three English language private schools operating in Cairo, Egypt.
Now take a look at a cost comparison of three private English schools in Cairo.
Based on the comparisons, we see that the tuition for the New Cairo British School for the 2011-2012 year was the equivalent of $18,298.91 US dollars, or $127,483.00 Egyptian Pounds.
See the graph below listing common salaries. It appears that the survey was conducted by use of the data from the 429 people who responded to this web site. The data crosses multiple professions, and shows minimum and maximum salaries for all cases listed, along with mean and median salaries from the respondents. (Salary Explorer: 2012)
2011-2012 Data Multiple Professions
Annual Salary (429 cases)
converted to USD
Minimum $ 1893.00
Mean $ 11,708.17
Median $ 8604.94
Maximum $ 43,045.01
Annual Salary by profession
Accounting and Finance professional
$9421.92 USD
Teacher
$3,372USD*to $22,297.25**
Real Estate & Development Professional
$43,045.01
Median Cost of Private Education $11,192.00***
The School cited in the statistic: Canadian International School of Egypt
(* Loveluck: 2012, **Salary Survey: ***2012,ebookbrowse, CISE: 2012 )
It is clear that the average Egyptian would have trouble paying for private education and is therefore forced to attend government schools. Their education is considered of “lesser quality”, resulting in fewer job opportunities.(Loveluck: 2012) According to a recent World Bank Report focused on Egyptian Youth in one of the highest poverty stricken areas in Egypt, “Private tuition is the single largest expense faced by households with children in school. Neither young people nor their parents feel that they are allowed any role in improving the quality of teaching, and this lack of community involvement appears to be one of the main reasons for the deteriorating quality of public education.” (World Bank: 2012)
We can therefore conclude that the current system is perpetuating economic inequality, but echoing the ideas of Egyptian MIIS student Fatema Talaat Fouda, perhaps we should not have different expectations in systems that promote the free market. (Fouda: 2012)