Educational reform needs to be put at the top of the agenda with the government telling parents and students what is in store, writes Samia Farid Shihata* When the Minister of Higher Education, Dr. Hani Hilal, assumed his post about seven months ago, he was asked on television, "What is your vision for higher education in the coming years?" To the surprise of his questioner, and to many viewers, his reply was something to the effect that his task was not to formulate a vision, but to implement a plan that was already there. This answer would have been convincing had the Minister followed with an exposition of what exactly the reform plan he was going to continue to implement entailed. After numerous subsequent interviews and statements by the Minister, the Egyptian public still doesn't know much about the government's plan for higher education reform. This doesn't mean that there is no plan. It's just that those in the know don't seem to want to tell us what it is. We, the citizens are supposed to simply trust our officials when they tell us that they have a plan and everything is going on schedule. We are not given the chance to see the big picture, let alone voice our views about it. We simply have to wait for the beginning of every school year to find out what the minister du jour has in store for us this time around. In any case, there is no need to get too worked up, since it is likely that the changes will be reversed the following year. It's all part of the plan! So, as is the case for many issues, the best way to obtain information is to turn to international organizations, which make information widely available to the general public. Knowing that the World Bank had been involved in supporting educational reform in Egypt, I turned to the Bank to try to find out what's going on. Surprisingly, I was struck by the large number of projects in the education sector that were being supported by the World Bank and the European Union, as well as other donors such as UNESCO, USAID, CIDA, among others. The World Bank alone has provided Egypt with no less than fifteen loans in support of education reform programs covering the gamut from pre-kindergarten, to basic education, to vocational training and higher education. The Bank also prepared a voluminous Education Sector Review, in October 2002, entitled, " Progress and Priorities for the Future. " The report points to the existence of a number of long term reform frameworks (including a 20 year secondary education improvement strategy and a 17 year higher education reform plan), that were prepared by a large number of Egyptian and international experts. So why do we feel that we seem to be going around in circles? Why do we feel that the reforms are piecemeal, haphazard and ineffective? The changes implemented obviously don't add up to an overall reform strategy capable of catapulting Egypt into a qualitatively higher plane of development. For a reform strategy to be successful, it must have broad public support. For this support to be sustained, the public must know the general parameters of the plan, be convinced of its fairness and effectiveness, and be informed about its stages of implementation. Most importantly, progress must be objectively measured and those responsible for implementation must be held accountable. Turning to the World Bank Education Sector Review of 2002, which is certainly worth reading in detail, here is a summary of the report's conclusions: Four main challenges need to be seriously addressed in order for Egypt to attain its educational goals. Foremost among these is to improve the quality of schooling from primary to university level to create the knowledge and problem solving skills needed in a modern society. This should be done by changing teaching practices, modernizing curricula, and creating the feedback loop between secondary and higher education institutions and employers. A second challenge is to strengthen management of educational institutions by decentralizing decision-making and promoting accountability while making sure to provide managers at all levels with the information they need to take informed decisions. A third challenge is to increase efficiency by reducing overstaffing (over half the staff employed by the Ministry of Education are administrative personnel, not teachers), introducing new financing mechanisms at the higher education level, and giving managers increased autonomy in internal resource allocation. The fourth challenge is to improve equity by expanding early childhood education programs for the poor, by reducing private education costs borne by poor families and by better targeting higher education subsidies. While officials could argue that they are already implementing these recommendations, such an answer is less than satisfactory. As noted earlier, as the stakeholders, we need to be given sufficient information on the reform plan and to hold people accountable. We must candidly assess the progress that has been made so far and formulate a more ambitious, bold and comprehensive reform plan that deals head on with the difficult issue that we have been skirting around. One such issue is the myth that education is free. In fact, no less that 40 percent of total education expenditures (8.8 percent of GDP in 2000) was private not public spending. Private tutoring made up the largest component of household education expenditures, even exceeding spending on tuition and fees in private institutions. The relative burden of these costs in relation to income is significantly higher for poorer families, of course, thereby undermining the concept of equal opportunity which public education is meant to guarantee. Furthermore, it is worth noting that, as a share of GDP, total spending on education (public and private) in Egypt far exceeds the averages of countries of the OECD, which begs the question of how effectively and equitably this money is being spent. To conclude, it is time for a major overhaul of the system. There is no more time to lose if we are to give our young generation a fighting chance to compete in the knowledge- based world of the 21st century. * The writer is an Economic Consultant
