Al-Ahram: A Diwan of contemporary life (551)
Testing times
School examination results were so poor in Egypt in 1934 that Al-Ahram took the entire educational system to task. Professor Yunan Labib Rizk writes what the paper discovered
Early summer in Egypt was once marked by a specific rite. Newspaper vendors would call out, "Exam results! Exam results!" and students or their parents would rush out to buy that vital morning's edition. This would happen on three occasions, with the posting of the elementary, preparatory and, finally, secondary school graduation examination results. Generally, the news tended to be good for students of government and parochial schools, and disheartening for students of private schools or what were then termed community or free schools. In 1934, however, students of the some 300 community schools that existed at the time were in for a greater disappointment. In some instances, no results were posted next to the names of their schools. Worse, the newspaper flatly announced: "No-one passed".
Naturally, such grim news prompted Al-Ahram commentaries on the deplorable state of education in the community schools. Even in those that were spared those couple of words of condemnation, the newspaper observed, the pass rate never exceeded 25 per cent, adding that the situation could be described as nothing less than disastrous.
Al-Ahram went on to suggest that such dismal examination results were the product of two different kinds of laxness. The first pertained to the internal examinations process in these schools which regulated how students progressed from one grade to the next. "Theoretically, a student entering a free school is at the same level as one entering first year preparatory school as both would have had to pass the final year elementary school examination. Were instruction in the free schools as competent as it is in government schools, their students would have been able to qualify for secondary school three years later. However, this is precisely what does not occur. While most final year preparatory students in government schools graduate after their first sitting of the exam, students at the free schools continue to fail one year after the next until, by some fluke, they finally manage to overcome the obstacles."
The reason for this was that the examinations that the community schools set for their own students were either too easy or too leniently marked. "As a result, students progress to levels for which they are not actually qualified. Then, when the time comes to sit for the general examinations which are set by the Ministry of Education, there comes the shock, firstly for the students who had not been sufficiently prepared for the tests and then for their schools when the examination results are announced."
The second form of laxness pertained to the admissions procedures. "Free schools accept anyone who has failed in government schools. In fact, not only do they admit students who were unable to qualify for the second stage of secondary school in government schools, they admit those who failed to qualify for the equivalent level in other community schools."
Al-Ahram not only continued to comment on the plight of the free schools over the coming weeks, it also opened its pages to concerned readers as well as to members of the staff of those institutions, some of whom shared the general consternation, whereas others sought to defend their schools.
Other newspapers were not quite so balanced. Misr, for example, launched a vehement offensive. In one article, it proclaimed that the standards of education in community schools were unparalleled, even in the kuttabs, the traditional religious primary schools. "It would be unjust to call these organisations, in which thousands of students are enrolled, schools or institutes. Such names are alien to them regardless of their pretences, for students who would not ordinarily pass examinations succeed and students graduate to higher classes in spite of their lack of qualifications. It would seem more appropriate to call them playgrounds where the young can pass their childhood and adolescence."
In a second article, Misr apportioned a large part of the blame to the Ministry of Education inspectors charged with overseeing those schools. "Their visits to the schools are announced beforehand and, therefore, lack the element of surprise. The visits are also far too short, rendering it impossible for the inspectors to fully assess the system and standards of education in those schools, the attendance and absentee rates, the average number of students per class, and whether there are deficiencies in hygiene and moral care, or in intellectual and spiritual upbringing, or both."
Al-Ahram took pains to present both sides of the story, as well as to diagnose the problems and offer possible means to remedy them. Perhaps the two articles it published by Mohamed Attiya El-Ibrashi, a professor in the Faculty of Letters at the Egyptian University, present a reasonable survey of the opinions of the many who wrote on this issue.
In his first article, appearing on 15 August 1934, El-Ibrashi suggests that a sign bearing the phrase, "No-one passed," should be posted prominently above the doors of those schools. "Perhaps then people will not fall into the trap of these institutions that give no thought to their students and their future, to the strains on the parents who do everything in their power to scrimp and set aside sufficient money for the education of their children, or to the people to which these parents and students belong. Rather, what is foremost in the minds of these schools is how to up enrolment figures while keeping salaries as low as possible, and how to get as much funding out of the government and how to increase student fees and expenses, and how much profit they can make out of the sales of textbooks, stationary and food for those poor students."
In spite of this impassioned introduction to his article, which he felt compelled to write out of his dedication to the cause of education and his concern for the students' future, El-Ibrashi maintained that the schools should still be kept open. After all, "they have contributed to the elimination of illiteracy."
In his second article, appearing a week later, on 21 August, El- Ibrashi listed the shortcomings of "the schools of such pitiful success rates". They engaged teaching staff on the basis of candidates' willingness to accept lower than average salaries rather than on the basis of criteria of professional competence. Students were allowed to progress to higher grades without the necessary qualifications and new admittances were placed in the class they wanted rather than the class suited to their level of education. As a result, classrooms were not only overcrowded but there was also a broad disparity in students' abilities and educational levels.
Teachers themselves were overloaded with classes, which was perhaps one reason why they paid overdue attention to form rather than the actual task of imparting knowledge and developing students' ability to think on their own with appropriate guidance when necessary. Both teaching and administrative staff were too lenient with students who did not do the work expected of them and in correcting the work of those who did. Such laxity was prompted by the fear that students would drop out if the pressure was too great, but the result was rampant negligence, disrespect for the teaching staff and chaos.
El-Ibrashi confessed that the community schools shared some of the problems of government schools. These included too many subjects on the curriculum, insufficient or inadequate teaching materials and a gross deficiency in laboratory and other facilities.
Following his diagnosis, El-Ibrashi offered a "prescription" for remedying the illness. Above all, he advised that the law on free educational institutions be applied to the letter and that only technically qualified individuals be allowed to serve as administrative heads of those schools. Secondly, the schools should strive to engage the most competent teaching staff as possible and be prepared to offer set salaries that would not be cut off during the summer holidays. Ministry of Education funding for these schools should only be disbursed after ascertaining that teachers obtained their agreed upon salaries in full. Thirdly, each free school should adopt an immediate target of bringing their success rate at examinations set by the Ministry of Education up to a minimum of 50 per cent of their student bodies. Towards this end, schools and their staff should strive to implement the recommendations of Ministry of Education inspectors after a full and thorough inspection process. Fourth, school administrations should draw sharper age and ability boundaries between the elementary, preparatory and secondary school levels so as to ensure greater homogeneity among students within each level, and, finally, they should create sufficient scientific laboratory facilities for their students.
El-Ibrashi's analysis elicited considerable response from Al- Ahram readers, who albeit tended to focus on a single item among the many problems he mentioned. Reform aimed at improving the working conditions of the teaching staff in the free schools, they said, was the key to improving the quality of instruction. Representative of this opinion was the writer Hanna Khayyat who condemned the "abominable tyranny" under which these teachers suffered. One of the more deplorable practices of the owners of the schools was "to make a verbal agreement with a teacher that he would receive a salary of, say, LE5 per month for eight months and then have him sign a form testifying to his receipt of double that amount over the entire year. This form they then submit to the Ministry of Education in order to obtain the stipulated funding."
Another contributor, Farag Gibran, described another type of exploitation. "While teachers in government schools have a class load not exceeding 24 hours in elementary school and 20 hours in preparatory and secondary school levels, teachers in community schools have class loads of 32 hours in elementary levels and 30 hours in preparatory and secondary levels. And this does not include the extra tuition classes they are sometimes compelled to give."
A reader signing himself, "An ardent advocate of good education," added to the bleakness of this portrait by listing the iniquitous conditions in the contracts offered to community school teachers. A new teacher's first month at work is regarded as training. The school has the right to fire teachers at will on the grounds of inappropriate behaviour whether on the premises or not. The contract also claimed for the school the right to withhold a month's salary as a guarantee for good performance.
In response to this onslaught of criticism, many community school owners, as well as their teachers, fought to defend themselves. A teacher at Wahbiya Secondary School in Alexandria held that the fault for the poor examination results lay first and foremost with the students themselves. "It is no secret that a high proportion of the student body of these schools, particularly in their upper levels, consists of students who had been expelled from government schools for having failed their exams repeatedly or for misconduct. In addition, the frequent transfer of a student from one school to another must inevitably affect his state of mind, which is frequently another cause of failure. Finally, high absentee rates towards the end of the scholastic year are undoubtedly another factor that contributes to the overall results."
The principal of Nile Secondary School, also in Alexandria, agreed to the grievances concerning community school teachers, however, he stressed that this did not apply to all schools. At the same time, he argued that most community schools were pressed for funds and that they had to cut expenses so that they and their owners could survive. He complained that the Ministry of Education was very tight-fisted in the financial encouragement it offered community schools. Indeed, it had so reduced its subsidies to these schools that such assistance was now virtually nominal. "Whereas it had formerly allocated LE2 per student in elementary school, it now allocates no more than 40 piastres." Another reason for their financial difficulties was the stiff competition to attract students, which often compelled them to reduce tuition fees. Finally, these schools faced the constant threat of parents' taking their children out of the schools whenever teachers recommended that the students repeat a year.
The Nile School principal went on to caution against coming down against these schools with an iron fist. "As these schools exhaust their energies in their struggle to survive, they ultimately collapse one after the other; only government schools will remain. As these are incapable of absorbing all the students in the country, illiteracy will spread and morals will gradually decline, the result of which will be that prisons take the place of schools and the nation will descend to the earliest ages of darkness and ignorance."
Against the grim climate of concern and criticism that prevailed in the wake of the announcement of the results of the national school exams, the Ministry of Education decided to act. Its first move was to ask parliament to study a bill of law for regulating free schools. Its purpose for so doing was stated in a memorandum accompanying the bill: "There is not an area in Egypt in which these free institutes do not exist. Yet they are unrestrained by any restrictions or any supervisory body and their organisational constitutions are founded solely on the whims and impulses of their owners and founders." The danger of this could not be overstated, since "these schools have multiplied and spread so rapidly that they now contain more students than government schools."
Until now, the memorandum continued, the Ministry of Education had been very generous with the financial and technical assistance it offered to those institutes that accepted the ministry's guidance and supervision. "However, the ministry had no means to discipline those schools that failed to heed its advice other than to deprive them of all or part of their subsidies." Unfortunately, that punitive measure only made matters worse, for frequently the reaction of school administrations was to delay payment of salaries, resulting in the declining morale of the staff, deteriorating teaching standards "and other such consequences the price for which is paid by the innocent students". It was such considerations that had inspired the ministry to take action to curb the greed of some free school owners, "for the fact is that profit- making alone is what motivated them in founding their schools, rather than the desire to perform a public service or advance a lofty aim".
In order to justify its intent to intervene in the affairs of private schooling, the ministry cited the philosophy that inspired French law on education. Education was not a right that a parent could confer upon or withhold from his children. Rather, "every individual has the right to an adequate education and the government must prevent any form of monopoly that places control over this right in the hands of specific individuals or organisations to the exclusion of others... It is the duty of government to intervene in order to ensure that those who engage in the field of education do not aim solely to exploit children by taking advantage of the ignorance or lack of concern of their parents."
The memorandum then cited a number of precedents for government intervention in the affairs of private schools. An 1870 ordinance in Britain stipulated that all such schools had to conform to certain hygiene and safety standards, to sustain a satisfactory level of education and to possess an administrative system capable of ensuring the effective running of the school and the educational process. In Austria, the constitution provided for the freedom of education but reserved the government's right to directly administer or supervise education. Similarly, German law gave the government the right to monitor the performance of privately-owned educational institutions and to judge the competency of those who wanted to establish such schools or teach in them. Italian law was even more stringent in the restrictions it placed on private schools.
The ministry's memorandum then clarified the points it intended to introduce through the new bill, beginning with a definition of "Egyptian free schools". These were any fully or partially privately-owned institutes that prepared students for the examinations set by the Ministry of Education. "The presence of foreigners, whether in administrative, teaching or other capacities, does not in any way alter the Egyptian identity of these schools," it added.
According to the bill, school premises had to be located at a safe distance from swamps and dairies to prevent the spread of disease. Nor could they be situated near coffeehouses, entertainment halls or other establishments that were noisy, harmful to health or potentially dangerous. In the event that schools intended to accept both sexes, they had to have separate departments for boys and girls "to prevent the mixing of the two so as to safeguard their morals".
With regard to staffing, free schools could not as a principle engage anyone found guilty of an act that impugned his moral reputation or honour, who had been dismissed from government service on such bases or who had received a disciplinary ruling barring him from teaching.
The law would exempt from the latter condition teachers who had been previously dismissed from government schools but were currently in the employ of private schools. It would not be fair to apply this condition retroactively, the memorandum stated, for then these teachers would not be able to find another source of income. "They have already suffered enough from the taint upon their names in government service, although the ministry can take the precaution of monitoring their future behaviour more closely."
Under the new law, free schools would have to follow the Ministry of Education curriculum. Each school would also be required to draft a code regarding its financial operations, administration and conduct of the educational and testing processes. "It is possible that these codes vary from one school to the next in view of the local and individual circumstances specific to each school."
Clearly, the ministry was determined to address the contractual problems of free school teaching staff. The new law would provide members of the teaching staff with no less than a full year's contract. "To leave this matter up to the owners of free schools has proven to yield disastrous results. Teachers who do not receive their last month's salary or discover that part of their salary has been deducted after a full year's work gradually lose their interest in their work and, indeed, they may overstep the bounds of respect and obedience that they would be expected to show to their superiors."
In view of the fact that the supervision of the Ministry of Education would tax the administration of the schools and add to their expenses, the ministry pledged to significantly increase its funding allocations to these schools by the beginning of the forthcoming scholastic year. This will enable the schools to perform their mission adequately, the memorandum explained.
The last section of the proposed law pertained to disciplinary measures and possible means of appeal. Disciplinary measures for teaching staff were scaled from warnings to suspension to final dismissal. However, the law stipulated that the latter penalty could only be delivered by a disciplinary board created by the minister of education and consisting of the relevant supervisor, a chairman, a ministry inspector of education and a principle of a free school selected by the minister.
After parliament passed the new law, the Ministry of Education began to put it into effect. Its first step was to create a separate department for the supervision of free education. Ministry officials explained that there were twice as many privately-owned secondary schools and four times as many privately-owned elementary schools as those operated by the government. The current supervisory structures could not possibly accommodate that additional load and continue to perform its functions properly. It took some time but by the beginning of December 1934 the new department was in place under the leadership of a prominent educationalist and efficient administrator, Mohamed Rakha.
But hardly had Rakha assumed his duties than he had to contend with some difficult and peculiar situations. He had learned that, according to the reports of Ministry of Education inspectors, of 300 free schools, among which were 150 that had formerly been subject to ministerial supervision, would only be fit for operation after making significant improvements in their construction. According to the reports, some 20 schools were in too advanced a state of decay or did not meet the conditions regarding the location of their premises under the new law. As Al-Ahram put it, "A large number of buildings whose owners had the audacity to call 'schools' have suddenly vanished from the field." Stranger yet, one of the inspectors assigned to Rakha's new department reported that the headmistress of one of the schools he visited was illiterate.
In addition, although the new law was designed to safeguard the rights of teaching staff in the free schools, some of the current teachers still felt threatened. This led to the formation of the "Free Education Federation" to defend the rights and interests of those teachers in "all foreign and community schools in Cairo and Lower and Upper Egypt" who did not possess technical qualifications.
On the other hand, there was some positive feedback. Frequently, this took the form of announcements placed in the press by free school owners boasting of the continued status and prestige of their institutions. We have for example, "The eminent Professor Ibrahim Masiha, graduate of the Higher Teachers Institute, class of 1917", and owner of the National Federation Schools in Sabtiya. Masiha was proud to announce that his schools, "which have been working in the field of education for 34 years, welcome the new system of supervision and believe they meet all the conditions stipulated by the Ministry of Education". Still, one doubts that many of Masiha's colleagues shared his enthusiasm.
C a p t i o n : St Joseph College, over 100 years old, producing some of the country's best minds
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/696/chrncls.htm