Egypt falls from global education rankings: Education Minister

Egypt recently fell from global education rankings, according to Education Minister Tarek Shawky.

“Our education system is not satisfactory and is not up to scale with the country’s labor market,” Shawky said this week during the first plenary session of the Education Conference, organized by Cairo University and Akhbar Al-Youm Foundation.

Shawky explained that 88 percent of the ministry’s budget is spent on salaries for its 1.7 million employees; consequently, the remaining sum is not adequate to sustain the sector’s development.

“We have inherited various problems in the education sector from teachers, as well as parents which has resulted the entire system being flawed,” he said, adding that the country’s poor education system has killed curiosity and creativity in young people.

Shawky added that the education system over the past 30 years has really damaged a generation.

“Students are frustrated because they are not sufficiently educated to grasp competitive jobs after they graduate. It’s not their fault, it’s the way they were taught. We did not give them the right skills to compete in a very tough world. It’s a shame we didn’t prepare them for that,” the minister explained.

Shawky has been generally skeptical regarding Egypt’s ability to continue providing free education, yet he cites fears about the sector’s privatization.

“The question now is who will spend money on the country’s education? We have to know how much money we have, how many students this money can provide a free and good education for, and how we will get the rest of the money,” he previously said in an interview with Al-Nahar channel.

He added that education in Egypt is not free, as some people might believe; many families’ money is spent on private tutoring and private universities.

“Education is a product that has a certain cost. We have to see how long the state can afford free education for,” he said.

Source: Egypt independent