Next Saturday is the official "back to school" date. Amira El-Noshokaty considers the price of education Click to view caption Summer is over and the school bells are ringing. This is the time of year that parents work themselves up into a frenzy debating the quality and price of everything from school uniforms to pencil cases -- not to mention exorbitant school fees. "My son's school uniform is very expensive, in view of its quality," said Wissam El-Beih, a doctor and mother to seven- year-old Omar. The private language school that she sends Omar to insisted on a specific shop from which the students should buy their uniforms. "Last year I paid LE45 for the school's green t-shirt. After the first wash, the collar and sleeves turned yellow," El-Beih told Al-Ahram Weekly. El-Beih is not the only parent out there complaining about high prices and poor quality. Everyone seems to be griping about the increase in prices and schools' stipulation of specific shops. Among other things, some schools even insist that students' socks carry their official badge, which makes rejecting their shop of choice an impossibility. In the view of Manal Hussein, assistant manager at a bank and mother of two, its not the quality of the uniform that's the problem -- she thinks it has improved -- it's the ever-increasing school fees. Hussein pays LE5,000 each school year for her third-grader son, Ahmed, who attends a private school. This year she has been asked to pay auxiliary fees of LE100 and another LE500 for "school construction" (fees that have become a regular part of the bill at Egyptian private schools). Aside from school fees, the school uniform costs an additional LE800. All of this in a country where education is claimed to be "free". In 1944, a government led by the Wafd Party passed a bill that made primary education free. In 1950, then Minister of Education Taha Hussein was adamant about upholding that principle. Hussein, one of the founding fathers of "the Egyptian enlightenment", coined the phrase that echoes to this day: "Education is like water and air", a birthright that should be provided free to all citizens. He pressed successfully for legislation making secondary school education free as well. But university education was to remain the domain of the well- off until 1962, when, under Gamal Abdel- Nasser's socialist regime, university tuition was waived. Driven by the ideals of the 1952 revolution, the Egyptian Constitution stipulates to this day that the government provide free education up to and including the university level to all citizens. But the public schooling system, poorly funded and increasingly crowded, began to buckle. The changes began in 1979 when the Ministry of Education entered into competition with private sector schools and began creating "experimental schools". The new schools offered a higher standard of service, featuring improved language education and better-equipped classrooms at a cost. Parents who wanted their children to go to these schools had to pay comparatively substantial tuition fees, the schools being publicly run but only partially subsidised. As time passed, the government schools became overcrowded, and the low salaries of teachers gave rise to the practice of private lessons. Those who could afford to turned to private schools that typically offer a second language and far less crowded classrooms, but with substantially higher fees. And then there is the added cost of all the accessories now associated with a modern education. School bags on wheels, pinafores with shiny silver buttons and pink heart-shaped geometry sets bearing pictures Barbie. These among other "back to school musts" are scattered on both sides of Haret Al-Yahoud at the Al-Moski market place, famous for its range of goods and cheap prices -- shopping heaven for the lower middle classes. "I come here every year to buy school supplies for my children," explained Hassan Said, a doctor whose two children attend a private language school. Said pays an annual average of LE100 for each of his sons stationary alone. "That is in addition to the school uniform that increases every year by LE40 to LE50," he told the Weekly "I came here to buy school uniforms for my two daughters," said Nadia Gomaa, who works at a clinic. Her daughters' government schools do not insist on a specific shop for the uniforms, and since Gomaa is a single mother to five she needs all the price breaks she can get. "The whole uniform costs LE30," she said with relief. The buyers at Al-Moski are satisfied in general. "The prices here are the same as last year," pointed out Umm Mohamed as her youngest boy Amir was trying on a blue school shirt, the prices for which range between LE8 and LE15. For her, the school budget must stretch to include the LE32 government school fees, private lessons and a school uniform that usually costs around LE60 -- almost double the cost of tuition. Parents tend to buy their daughters the more expensive uniforms while they give their boys the cheapest, the argument being: "Boys ruin things faster than girls." The ramifications of mounting education costs are dire when you consider that according to the 1997 National Survey of Adolescents the most common reason for never attending school -- as cited by the children themselves -- was economic; namely, the inability of families to cover costs. These findings were supported by other government surveys that indicated that school fees, reintroduced in the 1980s, in addition to private tutoring, school uniforms, stationary supplies, daily allowance, non-Ministry text books and other school fees were a key consideration when it came to low income families enrolling their children in school. Across town from Al-Moski, where a set of six pens is sold for LE1, is the "Back To School Market", an annual event held at the Cairo International Fair Grounds from 2 to 20 September and organised by the Ministry Of Supplies and Foreign Trade which attempts to redress the situation. "Prices here are cheaper than the stores," Mahmoud Othman told the Weekly as his daughter was trying on her first school shoes: black leather for LE25. The Back To School Market is held in five halls, hall number three designated for goods sold at special discount rates. Ezz El-Said is among those whose merchandise, the all-important school bag, is on exhibit in that hall. "Here we sell the school bags at prices starting at LE10," said El-Said who added that it was possible for him to reduce his prices because the state does not charge much for the stall. "Here the government charges us LE100 per metre, while in the other halls, they charge LE500." But at the end of the day, he conceded that as long as he was selling in large quantity it did not really matter if he reduced his prices down. Everyone agrees that education is an essential human need; unlike air and water it is a rather expensive one.
