Pre-University Education in Egypt at the Turn of the Second and Third Decades of the XXI Century

Abstract

The author analyzes the system of pre-university education in Egypt, which the Constitution of 2014 undertakes to raise to the «international level». To this end, the government has been reforming it since 2017, which is partly financed by a loan from the World Bank. The main directions of the reform include improving preschool education, improving the qualifications of teachers, changing the system of assessing students’ knowledge and strengthening the technical base of schools and colleges. Despite the first successes of pre-university education reform, it is still expanding mainly extensively, without significantly improving the quality of education of Egyptian students. The reason for this lies in the significant lack of public investment, which the government is trying to compensate by attracting private business, both national and international, to this area. However, this leads to increased inequality in access to education. In addition, even taking into account private investments, the amount of funding for pre-university education is still far from the 4% of GDP provided for by the Constitution. The main problems of pre-university education continue to be the unsatisfactory average level of qualification of Egyptian teachers, mainly due to their low wages, a large number of pupils in classes, as well as the weak material and technical base of schools and colleges. There are also significant differences in the territorial development of pre-university education in Egypt, as well as between its various stages and directions. Egyptian business continues to experience a shortage of qualified graduates of the secondary vocational education system, despite certain successes achieved in its development in recent years.