Its an old piece of news about the parlous state of Egyptian primary education based on a 2014 Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) but worth mentioning again because the mothers of Egypt are now making an issue out of crowded school curriculum, class sizes etc. http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent ... schoo.aspx. More recent revelations of leaking of exams to those prepared to pay must also have been very anger making as well as confirming the view that there are fundamental problems with the management of the system. Good on the mothers for standing up. Imagine their anger if they knew how bad things really were. Its also a story worth mentioning because newer research from another study confirms the 2014 findings.
The 2014 news was Egypt has the worst or near worst primary education system in the world according to the Global Competitiveness Report but had done better on other international rating scales back in 2007.
Commentary on the 2014 rating is at http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/10/17/egy ... care-less/.
Another, more recent and confirming view is the 2015-16 World Economic Forum report, which has Egypt at 139th for primary education and second worst in the world. The secondary and tertiary systems according to this report seem to be in the same ballpark. This poor result contrasts markedly with the results for similar low-income countries like Morocco. So being poor doesn't mean you must be ill-educated.
http://reports.weforum.org/global-compe ... d=GCI.A.04
Egypt’s main resources are its people so educating them poorly is bad economics as well as being unjust because if your workforce isn’t internationally competitive on skills then business and jobs will move elsewhere. Its also really bad politics.
Interestingly its expenditure on education, whilst very low by international standards, is ranked much higher in the world than its educational performance which probably means that the education system is badly managed and wasteful given its poor results. https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... 6rank.html More money on its own may not be the answer. Getting rid of 50,000 bureaucrats could be a good first move and force a whole lot of middle class Cairenes to get a real job. There are some stats, which I cannot confirm from official sources, which state that there are more jobs in 'managing' education system than jobs in the classroom. So much command and control - so little work. The savings could be put back into poor classrooms.
Given the low ranking of the education system compared with the rest of the world even radical reform and increased resources now would only start to have positive results decades hence. Politicians looking for short-term survival don’t generally make long term investments – so we will see. How much time is left. A particular concern for future employment is that current technology education is especially poor.
A balanced, clear and brief newspaper article on the general state of Egyptian education by Patrick Werr is at: http://www.thenational.ae/business/econ ... ing-system .His Facebook page, which logs all his articles, is: https://www.facebook.com/patrick.werr. He is a resident alien of over two decades.
Clearly the above simplifies the complex problems in Egyptian education - poor salaries, mad curriculum, under investment, obsession on exams, bad teachers etc. My point is that other, poorer countries do better with less and more money/salaries, on its own, into this broken system might not produce good results.
There are also serious cultural problems which inhibit educational development and will not be solved by more money/teachers. These problems begin with a rote learnt approach to life , a near absence of skepticism in the broader community, a religious rejection of a lot of modern science and a distaste for critical thinking. (Some of these criticisms could also be made of western teaching/education). There is also outright prejudice and snobbery with a recent Egyptian high court judge saying that no peasants son could be a judge. Its almost Louis XVI time. On a positive note Chinese education has moved well beyond rote learning and propaganda in two or three decades and it made this change whilst being a much poorer society than Egypt. It still does not produce Nobel prize winners - but is a lot better than under the (greatest killer of all time) Mao. Others have revolutionized their education, and with little money.
Please don't respond with posts about Egyptian Nobelists (in science). Read first about where they were educated and employed although I am happy to confirm their paternity.
Posts saying its all a western/Zionist conspiracy against brave Egypt will get a polite response but will need to explain why the situation gets worse, not better and not the same..
