“The Current State of Education in Egypt, Between Development and Challenges Ahead”

The Canada Egypt Business Council, CEBC hosted a special dinner and a panel discussion featuring H.E. Dr. Ahmed Zaki Badr, Egypt’s Minister of Education as a keynote speaker in addition to Dr. Hossam Badrawi, Chair, Education Committee, The National Democratic Party, Dr. Hisham El Sherif, Member of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development moderated by Dr. Ahmed Sameh Farid, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Kasr Al-Aini.

Over 250 attendees from prominent ministers, ambassadors, and distinguished CEBC members and guests attended the event including H.E. Dr. Hani Helal, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, H.E. Dr. Safwat El-Nahas, President of the Central Agency for Organization and Management, Dr. Farkhonda Hassan, Secretary General of National Council for Women, H.E. Dr. Mostafa El Saiid, Former Economic Minister and H.E. Dr. Ibrahim Fawzy, Former Minister of Industry and other eminent guests.

The event entitled “The Current State of Education in Egypt, Between Development, and Challenges Ahead”, was prompted by the recent state of education in Egypt and the progress plans that have been tackled by the government of Egypt (GEO) to enhance that vital sector versus the growing demand for quality education services.
The CEBC Chairman, Mr. Motaz Raslan, delivered his opening remarks by briefly discussing the general state of education in Egypt. Mr. Raslan stressed on the sector’s influence over human development, spotting on the fact that education is the most important pillar to human development, as well as a significant measure to determine the degree of progress and development of societies. He added that the council has always been committed to address the challenges facing different stages of education specially the pre-university education.
He went on explaining that education is one of the major controversial issues in the Egyptian society, where the education system suffers a real crisis to the extent that the events of schools have turned to be a core subject in the newspapers. Mr. Raslan spoke about the widely spread negative phenomena as an evident of the weak level of education and of graduates, as well as the problems of tuition and external books in addition to aggressive behavior of students, noting that several actions need to take place in order to rectify the problem. He added that this phenomenon of modern Egyptian society requires a pause to return to Egyptian Education stature.
Raslan then highlighted the Ministry of Education’s role in developing the level of education in Egypt, through endorsing schools that are more effective, providing distinguished teachers at a high level of professionalism, expertise and technological education. “All these elements, he added, are indispensable to improving the education system in Egypt and most importantly of all is to replace the method of conservation and indoctrination, which is currently present in our curriculum of education to advanced curricula based on the development of the thinking process, applications and analysis.”
Praising the Minister’s background, Mr. Raslan briefly delineated the Minister’s professional career path; revealing his success and dedication ever since he held his Ph.D. in Computer Engineering and Automatic Control in 1986. He further added that H.E. Dr. Badr is as well a member in the Encyclopedia of distinguished intellectuals at Cambridge University, besides his previous teachings at many universities whether Egyptian, Arab or French ones.
Mr. Raslan then gave the floor to H.E. Ambassador Ferry de Kerckhove, Canada’s Ambassador to Egypt, who delivered his speech by commending the Minister’s commitment towards revolutionizing the Egyptian education system and restructuring its sectors which he views as a main contributor for boosting Egypt’s development. He concluded by paying tribute to the First Lady’s 100-schools project, where he believes that such movements can transform Egypt’s current Education system. “These reform attempts can advance Egypt’s education system to meet with the needed requisite levels and help build a high-quality education system in the future”, asserted the Canadian Ambassador.

H. E. Dr. Ahmed Zaki Badr, then started his keynote speech by underpinning the supportive measures taken by ministry of education in order to develop the current education system in Egypt to meet with the international levels. He further declared that the ministry is currently preparing developed indicators to measure the level of education in Egypt, and its position on global levels, pointing out that these indicators will be evaluating several educational elements, including absenteeism across all levels of education. He also stressed that these indicators come within the measures taken by the ministry to determine the comprehensiveness of the education curricula, the most important problems, the strengths, and weaknesses.

With regards to the future of education in Egypt, Dr. Badr touched upon several points. For instance he pointed out that among the measures tackled by the ministry is the process of standardized tests, a test conducted for students in specific age, usually fourth grade and second preparatory, then repeated the year to follow to determine the degree of scientific progress, weaknesses and improvements. “This will have a major impact, he added, in bringing about positive improvements in the performance rates of all students.”
Moving on the subject of current challenges facing the Education system, Dr. Ahmed Zaki Badr, admitted the existence of some problems and weaknesses in some aspects of the educational process, stressing the need to recognize this, in order to start a real development program. He further mentioned that 250 thousand teachers were trained during the last summer on the new curricula and the use of technology in the process of Education. In addition, he added that within the Ministry’s plan to develop the system of education is the curriculum review in collaboration with specialists and scientists, including Dr. Farouk El-Baz, Dr. Hisham El Sherif as well as the Arabic Language Academy.”
The minister finally added that more than 90% of the schools’ incidents that have been published in newspapers were not correct, and that all investigations proved to be incorrect, however, he acknowledged the existence of certain events and said this was a product of the society.
Dr. Hossam Badrawi, Chair, Education Committee, at the National Democratic Party, stressed that the education budget in Egypt does not comply with the policy of education, where 83% of which goes to wages and salaries. He also pointed out that the average amount spent on a student in Egypt is less than that spent on another in other regions. He further revealed that the volume of expenditure on tuition is estimated at 17 billion pounds, adding that we can take advantage of these funds in the development of the educational process when parents’ credibility in education is reached, to place a portion of these funds in the development of the sector.

Dr. Badrawi then gave the floor to Dr. Hisham El Sherif, Member of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development, who criticized in his speech the status of education in Egypt. He added that Egypt is ranked within the last ten countries in the world for ‮six consecutive years in terms of the quality of its education system, affirming the existence of a large gap between the level of Egypt’s educational system and other countries of the region. Dr. El Sherif finally stressed on the need for further developments in education through restructuring the map of technical education and trade along with the establishments of new schools that can absorb our growing population.
Dr. Ahmed Sameh Farid, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Kasr-Al-Aini, also echoed Dr. El Sherif remarks regarding the development of education in Egypt, stressing as well on the need to find a quick solution for the crisis of private lessons to take advantage of the $17 ‮billion pounds that are spent on private lessons. He finally pointed out that the Egyptian society would not thrive without an improvement in the quality of schools and instruction.
The Minister of Education together with the panelists proceeded to answer a lot of questions raised from the floor by audience on a number of topics touching on updating and modifying test questions in the examination system, IGCSE, international schools in Egypt, increasing the number of available nurseries, and investing in infrastructure to help build new schools and improve the quality of instruction, especially in remote areas.