7 - 13 February 2002
Issue No.572
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 7 - 13 February 2002 Issue No.572 |
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Schooling focus
President Mubarak's recent review of the nation's educational strategy gave various directives, intended to reform the most problematic areas of Egypt's ailing education system. Nevine Khalil and Mariz Tadros report
Egypt's struggling state education system received special attention this week. President Hosni Mubarak held an extensive meeting on Sunday to review the country's school education strategy, as part of his wider series of follow-up meetings for various service sectors.
President Mubarak with students at the Mubarak City for Education
Minister of Education Hussein Kamel Bahaaeddin briefed the gathering, which included the prime minister and seven ministers. Bahaaeddin spelled out the country's national education plan for its 33,880 schools.
"The strategy must focus on building a healthy younger generation capable of independent thought," said Mubarak, who on Tuesday inaugurated the Mubarak City for Education (MCE) located at 6 October City. MCE is an integrated educational city which includes schools, playgrounds, teacher training centres, conference halls and internet centres.
The government's education budget for 2001/ 2002 was LE20.4 billion, a sum which is spread over 15 million students. There are concerns about the allocation of resources within this education budget, however.
How much of this money actually trickles through to benefit pupils? Official estimates indicate that a large proportion of the budget is spent on administrative salaries -- the ministry of education is Egypt's largest employer of civil servants.
There are also concerns that despite the steady increase in education expenditure, Egypt still lags behind many countries.
During the meeting, Mubarak described secondary schooling as a "critical stage." A rise in educational standards is required, he said, together with strategies to help alleviate the tensions surrounding the final phase of pre- university education. "This stage of education needs to be overhauled," Mubarak added.
The president asked that work groups be formed in Egypt's Ministry of Education, Parliament and Shura Council, and in the National Democratic Party (NDP) education committees. The work groups will be mandated to oversee the new reforms.
The groups will report back at the end of March, and feed their findings into an overall strategy for the reform of secondary school education.
So what exactly will come under the reformers' chisel? One report -- which was recently discussed in parliament and prepared by the head of the education committee, Hossam Badrawi -- recommended that the time needed to complete the thanawiya amma (high school certificate) be shortened from two years to one. The suggestion came among a series of recommendations, which targeted the problems caused by excessive reliance on private tuition.
Private lessons alone can consume a quarter of an Egyptian household's budget, said the report. Growing reliance on private lessons, it warns, has led to the "the marginalisation of the role of the school. It indicates a lack of trust by citizens in the educational system to play the role it ought to."
Nevertheless, private lessons are not the only factor behind the lack of trust in the educational system.
Despite the ministry of education's repeated assurances that the constitutionally guaranteed principle of free education will not be tampered with, everyday practices in schools continue to indicate the contrary.
Al-Ahali newspaper, mouthpiece of the leftist Tagammu Party, reported last week that a high- ranking ministry of education employee in Menoufiya gave instructions to schools in his governorate that the mid-year examination results of all pupils who failed to pay their school fees will not be announced. This came despite the central government's insistence that no school student will be penalised because of inability to pay fees.
According to the Human Development Report published for 1998, Egypt's education system is being increasingly privatisated. Private expenditure on education, according to the report, increased considerably over the period 1990-91 to 1996-97, with the poor bearing the greatest share of this increase.
"Our perspective and strategy must incorporate all the challenges and have potential for future generations to build on," said Mubarak. He called for the gradual elimination of multiple schoolday shifts (which take place due to the lack of classrooms to accommodate the large number of schoolchildren); the reduction of the number of pupils per classroom; a revision of currently heavy curricula; more emphasis on extra-curricular activities; and raising teaching standards.
The president urged that priority be given to schools in southern Egypt in terms of development and modernisation. Civil society should play a role in upgrading the quality of schooling, he said, adding that priority for the building of new schools should be given to deprived areas.
A report compiled by Karima Korayem, an economics professor at Al-Azhar University, indicates that while social spending on education may have increased on the whole, real investment per student has declined if population growth and the number of students enrolled are taken into account.
In practice, this means fewer resources for building new schools and repairing dilapidated ones. The ministry of education has built 11,228 schools over the past decade, at a cost of LE13.1 billion, and 2,000 more are planned. Nevertheless, many reports indicate that the budget has not been sufficient to build the required number of schools.
The consequences of under-investment are experienced every year. The press is full of reports of incidents when a window, wall or roof of a school has collapsed -- in some cases, leading to fatalities.
According to a report released two years ago by the National Centre for Sociological and Criminological Research and the Institute of National Planning, the education budget is LE20 billion short of what it should be.
The president also noted that primary education was "essential in forming the character of future generations," He said that vocational schools will also be the focus of reform through the activities of specialised work groups. Already, 38 schools and 800 factories are participants in the Mubarak-Kohl vocational school programme, which has so far trained 8,400 students in 18 vocations.
A revamp of the vocational school system is one of the main recommendations being made by the ministry of education, and vocational schooling has also been a focus of independent reports on schools in Egypt. Thousands of vocational school graduates join the ranks of the jobless every year -- statistics indicate that they suffer from the highest unemployment rate among all unemployed groups. The fact that the poor tend to be disproportionately enrolled in vocational schools adds to the misery.
Bahaaeddin presented Mubarak with the 2002-2007 education plan which aims to improve secondary and primary school education, as well as incorporating kindergartens into formal school education. The five-year plan has grand aims. It should raise the standard of scientific skills and training; upgrade education technology via the seven education channels; institute e-education; and provide a school computer for every 10 students.
Bahaaeddin's five-year plan pays special attention to female education, and hopes that by 2005 all girls will be enrolled in school. His plan may be challenged by the threat of an increase in school drop-out rates, which tend to be highest at the primary school level, specifically after the fifth grade of primary school.
He also plans to eradicate the 31.9 per cent illiteracy rate in the population by 2007, something that will require the education of 2.5 to 3 million people per year.
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