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Egyptian Education System
Egyptian Education System
Education is overseen by a number of central government
bodies,
including the Ministry of Education (MOE) and
the Ministry of Higher Education. The MOE supervises
preschool and elementary and secondary education.
Steered by the High Council of Pr-University Education,
it is responsible for national examinations, curricula,
the development and provision of textbooks,
teaching materials, and other matters.
Higher education at both public and private institutions
is overseen by the Ministry of Higher Education,
which supervises the Supreme Council of Public
Universities, the Supreme Council of Higher
Institutes, and the Supreme Council of Private
Universities—bodies which
coordinate policies
between institutions, provide quality control,
and
approve new HELs and programs.
Chaired by the Minister of Higher Education,
these councils are made up
of the presidents of all
institutions within their respective sectors.
In addition, there’s a National Authority for Quality
Assurance and Accreditation in Education (NAQAAE), an
autonomous body under the prime Minister that accredits
academic institutions and programs.
Egypt has an extensive education system that outstripe
all others in the
Middle East and North Africa, and
where even tertiary education is
free.
The compulsory primary education program
follows kindergarten at age 4.
Primary school that begins at age six takes
6 years and
preparatory school another 3.
During this introductory phase pupils may enroll at
state, religious or private schools by choice.
Sector Composition
The education system is divided into four levels:
pr-primary, KG ages four to five; primary, from six
to 11 years; secondary, from 12 to 17 years; and
tertiary education, from age 18 onward. Education
is compulsory from ages six to 17.
According to the latest data from CAPMAS, there
were around 1.4m students enrolled in pr-primary
education, 12.2m at the primary level and 8.9m at
the secondary level in the 2018/19 academic year.
Net enrollment rates for
the same year sat at
approximately 24.4% for pr-primary, 97% at the
primary level and 82.5% at secondary.
While dropout rates are low in
Egypt, UNESCO
reported that around 77,500 children and 221,000
adolescents were out of school in the 2018/19
academic year. UNESCO
figures also show that
the literacy rate among citizens 15 years and
older
sat at 71.2% in 2017. The rate was highest for the
15-24 age group, at 88.2%.
The government also operates a number of religious
schools, known as Al Azhar schools. These offer a
curriculum similar to secular schools, but with an
emphasis on Islamic values and the Quran.
According to CAPMAS, the 2018/19 academic year
saw some 1.7m students
enrol in Al Azhar schools,
which numbered 9420. These schools had
170,000
teachers that year, and class sizes averaged 29
students across all levels.
Primary Education
Middle Education
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Al-Azhar University
Vocational Education
Dr. Reda Hegazy
Education Minister
Egypt’s
Education Minister Reda Hejazy said that a
new bifurcated education
system will be applied for
high school students as of the next academic
year,
a step that aims to improve the pre-university stage
of education.
The
new system aims to allow science students to
acquire "sufficient"
scientific and mathematical
knowledge before applying for their
preferred
university majors, noted Hejazy, adding that this
step is
meant to enhance students' levels of
understanding up to international standards.
For decades, students of the third grade of the high
school stage,
known locally as Thanaweya Amma,
have been divided into three branches –
literary, natural sciences, and mathematics.
The minister added that the education ministry
is expected to amend the
curricula for some
subjects to make them compatible with the new
system and avoid burdening students.
Egypt
has recently modified its the decades-old
Thanaweya Amma system in
several ways, most
notably the examination styles, in a step aimed at
gauging students’ critical thinking skills and ending
the culture of memorizing for exams.
The new system was implemented for the first time
in the 2020/21 academic
year, with non-standardized
models provided for all divisions.
The passing rate, as a result, dropped significantly,
ending the
phenomenon of students obtaining full
marks in their senior year of high school.
The
average grade in the Thanaweya Amma exams
in the recently concluded
2020/2021 academic year —
which was attended by roughly 650,000 students
—
was 74 percent, a significant decrease from the 81.5
percent of the previous year.
The new strategy lowered the minimum grades
required for admission to prestigious public faculties
for the first time in years.
Dr. Reda Hegazy
The Minister of Education discusses the mechanisms
for implementing the Ministry's plan for school
activities for the academic year 2022-2023
