Cairo -

Over the years, the phenomenon of private tutoring has spread in Egypt and has become closer to a scourge that the authorities are fighting, yet it remains and is expanding, and parents spend huge amounts of money on it, often referring to the poor state of education and their children's need for academic excellence to help them achieve their educational and living dreams.

And after the resort to private lessons decades ago was done timidly and teachers offered it in secret, education has become like a commercial commodity as private tutoring centers were set up and there were promotional advertisements and teachers competed among themselves, this one called himself the “giant of chemistry” and that. Physics legend" as well as "biology dinosaur", "mathematics genius" and so on.

Similar to a previous controversy raised by the demand of content makers in Egypt about a month ago, to go to the tax authority to “open a tax file,” a new controversy erupted on social media, against the background of the Ministry of Finance’s request for private tutoring teachers and centers to go to the tax authority for the same purpose.

Within this controversy, the circle of Egyptians’ ridicule expanded, especially in view of the drafting of the publication that the ministry placed on its official Facebook page, where it addressed teachers with these nicknames that they used to call themselves as a way of publicity and promotion.

In this context, the official website of the Egyptian Tax Authority quoted its head, Reda Abdel Qader, as asking for anyone who conducts private lessons, whether associations, halls, apartments, or by teaching through electronic means, to “notify the tax authority of this and open a tax file for the activity, at the latest, at the latest.” A month from now (published November 3rd).

The unusual method of the Ministry of Finance from an official page affiliated with a government agency prompted some to comment, expressing their skepticism at first about the page’s affiliation with the ministry, before they noticed that it was a documented page, while others mocked what they considered a method similar to the methods of comic pages, and inappropriate for a government ministry page.

As a kind of irony, others found in the ministry's publication an attractive method, which will prompt the reader to whom he addressed the letter to hurry and register with the tax authority.

This did not prevent others from taking the matter seriously, as activists considered that this decision is only in the interest of the government represented by the Ministry of Finance, while the student and his guardian, in addition to the teacher, are harmed. Others also denounced the method as carrying a kind of cure and challenge.

Others criticized the state’s keenness to collect taxes, even from those whose actions it had previously criminalized and considered them to be in violation of the law, as one of the pioneers considered it “stupidity” from the state, while another questioned whether it is expected to target drug dealers and the like in the future, and demand that they open their tax records as well!

And you think that the legends of chemistry, the giants of physics, the Number One Math and the Emperor of geology will pay taxes out of their pocket?

Hao... you remain a fool.

Lessons fees will increase at least 20%.

— Great Eagle 𓆎𓅓𓏏𓊖 (@EagleShery) November 3, 2021

It seems that the level of ridicule and widespread disapproval with which the pioneers of social networking sites received the ministry's publication, as ignoring the previous perception of the state's illegality of private lessons activity, prompted it to add a later, confirming that the notification and opening the tax file "is not a legal basis for legalizing the conditions of private tutoring centers." .

On the other hand, this did not prevent some from celebrating this decision, who see in the segment of private tutoring teachers and the owners of the centers that they provide, high-income earners who must be equalized with other taxpayers, while others justified their targeting despite their lack of legalization that the role of finance It is the achievement of the public right and has nothing to do with the legal status of the person it is targeting.

Others considered that what is required of the state is to eliminate the phenomenon of private lessons, and they appealed to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to work to end "this phenomenon that corrupted education and burdened the Egyptian family," according to a publication of one of the interactors.

From time to time, the crisis of private lessons in Egypt emerges as a negative phenomenon that burdens parents, while the government launches campaigns from time to time to target them, but this did not prevent its increase despite the severe consequences that await teachers and center owners, such as referring the teacher to a disciplinary trial and stopping him from attending school. Work, closing centers and disconnecting utilities such as electricity and water.

The Minister of Education, Tariq Shawky, had estimated the bill for private lessons, at a meeting of the Small and Medium Enterprises Committee in the ministry in 2018, at about 111 billion pounds annually (equivalent to 7 billion dollars).

The minister had expected about 4 years ago to eliminate the phenomenon of private lessons once the curricula were developed, and said in televised statements on December 20, 2017, that there is no place for private lessons in Egypt in 2020, which has not been achieved so far.

The phenomenon of private tutoring represents an insomnia for the state, parents and students, to the extent that the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (governmental) places it among the most important indicators of income, expenditure and consumption research for the year 2019-2020.

The research revealed that the average annual expenditure of the Egyptian family on education amounted annually to about 8850 pounds, 12.5% ​​of the total of the republic and 15.7% in urban areas, or about 12829 pounds, compared to 9.2% in the countryside, or about 5720 pounds (a dollar equals 15.7 pounds).

School expenses account for 38.6% of the total volume of family spending on education, while booster lessons account for 28.3%, books and school supplies 11.3%, transportation expenses for 9.6%, and clothes and bags 7.2%.