Cairo -
Over the past week, Egyptian society has been preoccupied with the issue of the difficulty of the curriculum for the fourth grade of primary school. Although the issue appears to be simple and very local, the amount of preoccupation with it on social networking sites has been remarkable, especially with the recurrence of education crises in light of new policies that the government says are aimed at development, While opponents say it is a failed experiment.
Over the past days, despite the presence of many important political and economic issues, it was interesting that the most prominent issue for many was the issue of the fourth grade curriculum and its difficulty, and parents' complaints about this difficulty, as videos of mothers' complaints have gained widespread and wide follow-up.
Despite the great preoccupation with the issue of the difficulty of the curriculum and the arrival of the matter to the Egyptian Parliament, the government responses were not at the level of the uproar, as they first seemed to want to ignore the matter, but the continuation of complaints prompted the Minister of Education, Tariq Shawky, to comment, which was shocking as he described what was being raised about the difficulty The curriculum prescribed to young children was merely "shaken videos and meaningless plays," and he mocked parents and demanded that they develop a curriculum for their children.
We demand the withdrawal of all fourth-year books and a return to the old curriculum, and we will not give up our right.
— Roka Adel (@RokaRehan) November 7, 2021
Unfortunately, the fourth-grade curriculum in all subjects is greater than the students’ abilities..
This curriculum will bring a positive result
for 5% of students only and destroy 95%.
This is not fair or an educational system, so
where are the sane people who save our children.. pic.twitter.com/96iTfFhW4f
- Coincidence from Upper Egypt (@ Huda74007028) October 8, 2021
Entering the new fourth grade curriculum, graduating directly from medicine or engineering 😡
I entered and whoever can take me out will release me...
Curricula fight students 😏
— 𝓡𝓪𝓶𝓪𝓭𝓪𝓷 𝓖𝓪𝓱𝓻𝓸𝓭 (@10oc10) September 22, 2021
Complaints and crying
The roots of the story go back to the beginning of the school year, as the students’ complaints about the difficulty of the fourth-grade curriculum began, and Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper, last October, reported the complaints of a number of parents who demanded that the curricula be simplified, that the fillings be removed and that difficult information be deleted, especially since their children were Away from regular studies for two whole years due to the Corona pandemic.
Parents' complaints were repeated about the exaggerated amount of information - in their opinion - that is required to be taught to children this year, and some of them mentioned detailed numbers that show the large size of the lessons.
And last week, videos of students and their mothers began spreading, including complaints and distress about the difficulty of the curriculum, and a video clip of a student crying because of the difficulty of the curriculum garnered wide sympathy from the pioneers of communication sites, and also a video clip of one of the mothers confirming the negative impact of the fourth-grade curriculum, which led to an increase in the spread of lessons Privacy and its high price, instead of achieving the ministry's goal of eliminating it.
"By God, I don't understand a need." A student complains of the difficulty of the 4th grade curricula, demanding that they be modified pic.twitter.com/1mlfjmtGt0
- Al Jazeera Egypt (@AJA_Egypt) November 10, 2021
A woman says that the fourth-grade curriculum has caused the price of private lessons to increase from 30 pounds to 120 because of its difficulty instead of eliminating it pic.twitter.com/rTWePopVJS
- Al Jazeera Egypt (@AJA_Egypt) November 8, 2021
48 Science lessons
60 Math lessons
19 Studies lesson
30 Arabic language lessons
30 English language lessons (Connect)
25 Religion lessons other than Connect Plus, which has not yet been published and new materials have been added.
— Pursediyah Ahlawiya (@Reemomhanen) November 10, 2021
Parliamentary uprising
With the government's lack of response to their complaints, parents turned to parliamentarians to help them. A large number of MPs submitted requests for briefing and interrogations to the Minister of Education regarding the difficulty of the fourth grade curriculum, which local newspapers described as a "parliamentary uprising against the Minister of Education."
In a telephone interview with the "On My Responsibility" program broadcast on the "Echo of the Country" channel, Representative Freddy Al-Bayadi said that the fourth-grade curriculum had caused a societal problem, and that he had received thousands of complaints because of the difficulty of the fourth-grade curricula for students.
Al-Bayadi described the application of developing the fourth grade curricula as catastrophic, considering that the amount of information and materials taught by the student is very large, and the total number of pages studied by the student in all subjects amounts to 2049 pages in only one academic “term.”
expert opinion
It was natural for curriculum experts to give their opinion on this popular issue. The professor of curricula and educational sciences at Ain Shams University, Mohabbat Abu Amira, said that she had seen the mathematics curriculum for the fourth grade of primary school, and she believed that it was not correct for the student to obtain a book and curriculum consisting of more than 300 pages in this age group.
In an intervention with the "Echo of the Country" channel, the Academy drew a paradox - according to its opinion - that the student who did not take any exam for the past 3 years is now required to take 3 exams, and this is difficult at this age stage, and also indicated that the class teachers The fourth primary is not qualified or trained enough to teach this curriculum, and some of them even evade the explanation.
The professor of curricula and educational sciences considered that the new curricula should have been tested before being generalized, noting that this is the method used in the largest and most advanced countries.
On the other hand, the educational expert, Alaa El-Gendy, defended the Minister of Education, and said that the fourth-grade curriculum is not difficult, describing the objections to the curriculum as “a fabricated process to disrupt the development of education, which is being carried out by the Minister of Education under the guidance of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi within the framework of Egypt’s Vision 2030 ″, as described.
Al-Jundi told the announcer who hosted him that he was ready to explain a unit of each of the 15 subjects to the fourth grade students in just 3 minutes.
Sudden response from the minister
The Egyptian Minister of Education, Tariq Shawky, who has become synonymous with causing controversy among Egyptians thanks to his decisions regarding the educational process, surprised everyone by denying that there was any problem in the curriculum of the fourth grade of primary school, noting that many people talk about curricula without knowledge, refusing to circulate curricula through the media. And communication sites, denying the existence of any change in the curricula of the fourth grade from previous years.
The Minister of Education attacked the parents' distress over the difficulty of the curriculum, saying that "extracting information from social media, poor videos, distress, and all these plays are meaningless."
Shawqi mocked the parents' demands to amend the curricula, calling on each father to compose a curriculum for his children "as long as they are involved in this way," noting that the current talk about the difficulty of the fourth-grade curriculum will move to the fifth and sixth grades as the exams approach.