CAIRO - After the Egyptian revolution, families and those concerned with the education system began to rethink reforms after long periods of instability and changes implemented by Mubarak's ministries changes at the expense of families and students, but without a tangible, positive impact on education. "In Egypt there are 24,000 schools, 1.2 million teachers, 17,000 private and governmental universities and institutions with a budget estimated at LE37 billion. They have failed to reach their targets and develop the education system," said Hassan Shehata, a professor of education at Ain Shams University, to the Egyptian Gazette. According to experts, the culture of learning is still in dire need of expansion among different strata of Egyptian society. Many Egyptians study only to pass their exams and not because they're interested in their subjects, which reduces competition among students and weakens their ability to think creatively. Education in Egypt is highly affected by widely spread poverty and a middle class that got its degrees for the wrong reasons. In 2005, 61-70 per cent of students had private tuition and spent huge amounts of money just to pass their exams. A study, conducted by UNESCO on educational equality in the world's 16 most populous countries, placed Egypt in the middle range in terms of equity of primary and secondary enrolments across all governorates. But when the wealth component is added to educational attainment, the result is not very encouraging. There are significantly higher enrolment rates in wealthier regions at both the primary and secondary levels. This confirms that more efforts are needed to reduce the wealth gap in educational attainment, according to the report. Human resources personnel concur that many degree holders are totally unqualified. Henry Amankwah, a manager at an international marketing company, said: "I was really quite shocked when I interviewed university graduates. They had good brains but their studies were useless." Egypt also has a shortage of skilled and semi-skilled workers, but an abundance of low-skilled labourers. Even if there were high-skilled workers available, their quality of training was poor. This is mainly a problem for small and medium sized companies and large public industries working in ‘protected' domestic markets. The average gross production per worker is lower than in other North African countries like Morocco and Tunisia. As a result of the spread of private universities and paid governmental education, students without the legal requirements to enter university can complete their higher education by paying certain fees, locally known as el-Gama el-Maftuha (Open University). But is imposing fees and opening universities to everybody the solution for improving the education system? Experts have different views on whether the obstacle is a lack of financial or mental abilities. Mona el-Shorbagy, the Deputy of the Arabic and Translation Studies Department at the American University in Cairo (AUC), said: "I am against offering free education to everyone. Those who want higher education should pass an admission test. Education should stop at a certain level of high school or vocational training, in case the student has low grades." She told this newspaper that places of learning all over the world had admission tests ��" they were not accessible to everybody. "All the basics should be improved, teachers need to be trained properly and the whole culture of education changed," el-Shorbagy added. "Nowadays, university classes are too big, which makes communication between professors and students very difficult." She hoped also that all universities, public and private, should implement controls and monitoring systems to make sure that students really attended their courses. According to el-Shorbagy, free education and scholarships should only be offered to excellent students. "Skills in creativity, crisis management, thinking and solution development are new subjects that should be explored in our educational systems, and not how much the student can learn by heart to pass the exams." Prof. Shehata of Ain Shams University believes that the culture of education needs to change at all levels. Shehata says that education has to be life oriented and not simply a means of getting a degree. On the other hand, the revolution has a big impact on many areas, including education. Demonstrations and protests by professors and students continue at Cairo University, demanding a new dean, whose election should be based on qualification and not political affiliation. "There still has not been any change in the Faculty of Education curricula," Shehata added. According to him, education in Egypt needed the involvement of all sectors, whether public or private. "Education is not only the State's responsibility. Businessmen and NGOs should cooperate to improve education in view of a better future.”
