Why education has become a burden on the Egyptians?

Doaa Abdel Latif-Cairo

It was not in the imagination of the young Mustafa Farouk that his educational past will control the educational future of his children, all private schools that he wanted to enroll his daughter rejected his application on the grounds that the father is an average qualification and required to obtain a university degree.

Mustafa's suffering is not limited to him alone in the educational system in Egypt, with the beginning of each school year, many parents resort to social networking sites to raise their concerns about the school season and the problems they face.

There are many problems faced by students and parents between admission tests in private schools and high costs, poor educational curricula that do not keep pace with the global curriculum, in addition to the small number of classes in public schools and the lack of control.

According to the latest report issued by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics last March, there are 52,664 schools in Egypt, of which 45 thousand and 279 government schools and 7358 private schools.

Private education
At the beginning of each school year, parents are wishing to enroll their children in the private schools that citizens have attended in recent years.

Of concern is the conditions set by schools to enroll students under the name of the admission test, as well as the high tuition fees, which reach the maximum craziest to 450 thousand pounds per year (about 27 thousand dollars).

Pupils' acceptance tests include questions that are not suitable for children as young as three, such as asking the child about colors in English.

If the child passes the admission test, his parents may be standing in the way of inadvertently attending school.For example, some schools reject a student on the grounds that his parents are separated, that the father and mother do not have a university degree, or that the parents do not speak English or French.

The journey of suffering with private schools does not end when the student and his parents pass the entrance exams and pay the expenses, but extends to financial exhaustion through the list of school requirements.

Najla Gamal, a mother of three children attending private schools, says that at the beginning of each year, the school requires it to buy books, pamphlets and pens of certain types and shops that may cost around 2000 pounds per child.

In addition, Najla buys detergents and dry and wet wipes that her children will need in large quantities and hand them over to the supervisor, as well as the cost of trips that are forced to involve her children.

All this does not prevent the private lessons that the three pupils attend. "Despite high school expenses, I have to take private lessons to improve the quality of my children," she told Al Jazeera Net.

public schools
Parents' concerns differ with government schools. Getting a seat in the classroom is a big challenge for them, leading to scenes of quarrels on the first day of school.

Last year, a third-grade pupil was killed on the first day of school in the northern Egyptian province of Dakahlia due to the struggle for a first-class seat in the classroom.

Public schools suffer from poor educational service for students, as international indicators show.

According to the index released by the World Economic Forum for 2017-2018, Egypt has lagged behind in the quality of basic and higher education.

Of the 137 countries, Egypt ranked 129th in the quality of education, 130th in the quality of science and mathematics education, 124th in the quality of school administration, and 119th in connecting schools to the Internet.

It also ranked 134 out of 139 in the primary education quality index during 2016-2017.

Anxiety season
For his part, said the educational expert Dr. Mohamed Fathalla that the start of the school year shifted from the season of joy within the Egyptian family to a season of anxiety, tension and fatigue.

Fathallah explained to Al Jazeera Net that the high educational expenses carried Egyptian families of poor and middle classes that do not increase their incomes by increasing the cost of living, burdens above what they suffer because of the economic situation in the country, adding that despite the free public education, the student needs school tools and clothes and means Daily transportation and private lessons are a burden on citizens' shoulders.

Faced with these burdens, schools do not provide a good educational service as Fathallah stressed, pointing to the density of classrooms and the lack of teachers and the lack of curricula to keep pace with global developments. "Last year the Ministry of Education failed to organize an electronic exam for students," he said.

These conditions warned the educational expert of the repercussions, and said that poor families will not bear these burdens, and may resort to some of them do not educate their children or forced to work to cover their tuition fees contrary to the rights of the child.

It is noteworthy that the education budget for the year `` 2018-2019 '' amounted to 115.7 billion pounds (about 7 billion dollars), of which 89.5 billion pounds allocated to wages and compensation of education workers.

"Education in Egypt has become a waste of energy and pain for the soul," he concluded.

In the same framework, Professor of Education at Ain Shams University, Dr. Said Ismail Ali, commented on his Facebook page on the state of Egyptian education, saying that it reached a stage of bad situation did not reach for a hundred years.

Ismail Ali said the state is interested in building projects he called a "business economy" such as bridges and roads, while ignoring the human development economy based on providing a good educational service.

"Borrow what you want to borrow, fill the warehouses with the most powerful weapons and equipment," he said. "They have issued whatever laws you think provide security for the state. This will not be a solid stone in building the country."