Egypt has fifty-one public non-university institutions, of which 47 are 2-year Middle Technical Institutes (MTI) and 4 are 4-5-year higher technical institutes (HTI). Most of the 111,500 students enrolled in MTIs in 1998/99 were in nonindustrial or technical streams.  After a steady increase in enrollment prior to 1996/97 there has been a slight decrease in 1997/98.MTIs total 30,039 in 1988/89 compared to 79,031 in 1997/98.

Egypt has one of the world's largest higher education systems. By 1999-2000, about 1.5 million  full time students and 250,000 part-time students were attending Egypt's twelve state universities and their seven branches. Growth in enrollment is expected to continue roughly at 5-6 percent per year until 2009. Entry to university in Egypt is based on the results of the School Certificate and is highly competitive. Admission is controlled by the Placement Bureau of the Ministry of Higher Education. An average mark of 70 – 75 percent is required and some university faculties suck as engineering and medicine may demand average grades of 90 percent. And undergraduate degree may take from four to seven years depending upon specialization.

Quality

The student/teacher ratio at the primary level is 23.0 and 17.1 at the secondary level, compared to the WEI (World Education Indicators) mean ratios of  26.6 and 21.7.  The surplus of teachers is not reflected in these figures but is a serious concern.  In addition, many teachers are not qualified with specific skills. Rectifying this calls for in-service training of current teachers at low cost as well as teacher rationalization. In 2003, the MoE,  with support from the European Union launched the Middle Management Training Project which provided training and professional development for 50,000 public school managers.  

Earlier this month, President Mubarak pledged that his government would reform the educational system, saying that "international criterion in education should be followed up in order to increase integration with the foreign world..." This is consistent with Egypt's participation in the  international Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) for the first time in 2003. The study, which measures trends in eight grade students' mathematics and science achievement will be released in December, 2004. Unofficial results indicate that Egypt performs better than Chile and several other Arab countries.

Graduates of middle technical institutes (MTIs) often have difficulty finding employment: over sixty percent remain unemployed for over two years after graduation.  The poor quality of training graduates receive leads employers to hire higher technical institute (HTI) graduates or graduates from engineering schools in their place.

At the university level, academic staff are unmotivated, underpaid and lack experience.  Undergraduate teacher are often graduate students, who lack expertise. Since 1975, Egypt has had a mandatory training program  for academics seeking promotion from lecturer to assistant professor of three to four weeks but no other teacher training is required. Teaching salaries are low and  not linked to performance.  Most academics supplement their income by giving private tutoring lessons to their students - the proportion of students taking private lessons in 1997/98 was more than 51 percent of the total, including students of relatively poor socio-economic background.  This moonlighting results in a high rate of absenteeism. There are no mechanisms such as merit pay to recognize good performance and staff are not accountable for their time or productivity as long as they are present in their assigned lectures.

Egypt's twelve universities have a total of two hundred, separately maintained libraries. These facilities are not well-maintained and stock is outdated.  All universities are connected to the Egyptian University Network (EUN) with the SCU acting as a hub. The SUC in connected to the Internet and serves as the Internet Service Provider.  However,  no research material is available through the EUN.

President Mubarak recently declared that an independent monitoring body would be would be created to monitor accreditation of new institutions and enforce quality standards.  Draft legislation will be introduced in the next parliamentary session (Al-Ahram, September 2004).  This is a reaction to the quality of education offered by several private universities being questioned. In 1997, the faculty of medicine at the Sixth of October University was closed because it had enrolled 104 students when it lacked an adequate teaching hospital and qualified teaching staff. Citing concerns about lower standards of education in private universities, the Physicians' Syndicate declared  it would only recognize diplomas from doctors who graduated from public universities. This decision was challenged by private universities which won a legal judgment against the Syndicate.  

Currently, MUST (Misr University for Science and Technology) is challenging a complaint filed against it by Government alleging that in the 2003-04 academic year it illegally registered more than seven hundred students in its faculty of pharmacy, considerably more than the four hundred and thirty it was permitted. MUST is contesting the legality of an amendment to the original 1992 law which placed no limitations on enrollment.

Governance

The Ministry of Education is responsible for all K-12 schools in Egypt- a total of 36,332 private and public schools with over 15 million students in 2004.
The ministry's staff includes 799,000 teachers as well as 300,000 officials and administrative employees.  The university sector is governed by the Supreme Council of Universities (SCU), chaired by the Minister of Higher Education (MoHE), and is supposed to function independently of the ministry.  The SCU takes all major decisions regarding admission levels and standards, curricula, recruitment of faculty, budget allocation and the establishment and assessment of academic standards. The  non-university sector is governed by a similar body with the same chairmanship. Al-Azhar, an Islamic university, is not under the administration of the Ministry of Higher Education.

Finance

The government is responsible for offering Egyptian population free education at all levels. Overall expenditure on education as a proportion of GDP has grown from 3.9% in 1991 to 5.9% in 1998, a level equal to the OECD average.  Of that amount, twenty-eight percent was allocated to higher education. While expenditure on education as a proportion of the GDP has grown from 3.9 percent in 1991 to 5.9 percent in 1998 this increase has not kept pace with the growth in the student population, resulting in a decrease in per-student resources. During the 1990s the real resources per student in higher education provided by the government dropped an average of eight percent per year, effecting both the quality of instruction and educational facilities.  

At the university level, financial resources are limited to government funds, student enrollment fees, funds obtained from centers of excellence established in some institutions for offering community services and/or research and consultation jobs, and funds obtained from joint research activities. Institutions have very limited authority over internal reallocation of resources among budget categories.

Private Sector

In 2000/2001, the highest rate of participation is at the pre-basic stage, where it accounted for thirty percent of schools, forty-seven percent of classes and forty-eight percent of students. At the secondary education level, the participation of the private sector ranks second with twenty-two percent of schools, ten percent of classes and nine percent of students and at the university level,  private sector participation is twenty percent.  

All six for-profit universities (October 6 University, the International Academy for Media Science, Open Learning Center Cairo University, German University in Cairo, L'Universite Francaise d'Egypte, MSA University and King Institute) were established after 1996.  In 2000, there were 18 private universities still waiting for official authorization.

In his September 2004 speech, President Mubarak stated that to "deepen the feeling that that the educational process is basically a social one requires promotion of private and non-profit sectors and the civil society's role in providing the infrastructure needed for education and its management within the framework that would realize national objectives and is subject to the uniform criteria of education in Egypt. This includes the establishment of national and private universities, model cooperative schools and other educational establishments that would promote education integration in the ongoing development and modernization movement in the society".  He did not offer further details as to how Government would encourage private sector participation.

Legal Framework

A new law in 1992 and a presidential decree in 1996 allowed for the establishment of Egypt's first four private universities. In 2002, the government amended articles in the executive statute governing the private institutions, toughening admission requirements and rules on the appointment of university presidents and boards of trustees and a new private universities council was established to supervise them. This council has the same powers over private institutions as the governmental universities' higher council which supervises public higher institutions, making it responsible for the operation of the institutions and assessing performance of private universities.

Articles of Interest

 The Christian Science Monitor reports on the conflicting results of American studies on whether students will perform better either in charter schools or in private schools made accessible by vouchers and whether choice of schools is something which should be promoted. Professor Hank Levin, Director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education (NCSPE) at Teachers College, Columbia University disagrees, "I don't think the debate should be choice or no choice. I think that's absurd. It's how we do choice." See the entire article by Teresa Méndez at:  http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0907/p12s01-legn.html For more information on the NCSPE visit their website: http://www.ncspe.org/

The charter school program California Charter Academy in Oro Grande, California, one of the largest in the United States, collapsed this month leaving 6,000 students with no school to attend this fall. Jack O'Connell, the California superintendent of schools, said in an interview that a majority of the state's 537 charter schools were making a solid contribution to public education but that the state must apply "tough love" in regulating them, "to keep this kind of near-bankruptcy and chaos from happening again".  See the article in the September 17, 2004 edition of the New York Times by Sam Dillion. http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/17/education/17charter.html

A Florida law that allows students at failing public schools to attend private religious schools at taxpayers' expense is unconstitutional, a state appeals court ruled Ausut 16, 2004.  The 2-1 decision by the 1st District Court of Appeal upholds a ruling by a trial judge saying the state constitution forbids the use of tax money to send youngsters to religious schools despite a the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2002 which ruled such uses of tax dollars do not violate the separation of church and state required by the U.S. Constitution.  See the entire story at: http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/08/16/florida.vouchers.ap/

In Singapore this year there have been over three hundred complaints against private schools to date. The Ministry of Education has no plans to regulate or monitor the industry, believing instead that accreditation will raise industry standards.  While schools can  be deregistered by the MOE this has rarely happens.  See the entire September 2, 2004 article in The Straits Times online at: http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/storyprintfriendly/0,1887,270484,00.html

The China Daily reports on some ongoing problems with the education system, including unfair competition between State schools and private schools, corruption and poor regulation.  Despite these difficulties, there are now at least 10 times more places than there were 10 years ago, and the number of China's students has increased from 3.41 million in 1998 to 11.08 million in 2003. See the story online at: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-09/10/content_373329.htm

The corporatization of universities is exposing them to a growing threat of litigation as students demand that institutions deliver on their promises. Writing in the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, Professor Bessant explores the effect of competition policy and the Trade Practices Act on universities. She concludes that "the use of this Act, and specifically the misleading and deceptive conduct provisions ... and the anti-competition conduct provisions, is a pertinent issue for students who have been progressively disenfranchised while simultaneously bearing a disproportionate burden [in the form of fees] for government cuts to university funding." See the July 21 article by Dorothy Illing online at: www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/ story_page/0,5744,10194411%255E12332,00.html

There are some of the 1,200 registered private colleges in China which are trying increase enrollment. According to reports, there are many tricks being applied by college leaders, including shortening the real names of the school, omitting words like "special" and "vocational" to make them sound more like regular public colleges or not disclosing that they cannot grant diplomas like regular public schools. These unlawful practices are degrading the reputation of China's private education. See the entire story online at: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-08/07/content_362973.htm

In Malaysia, the education ministry has always practiced an open door policy with the members of the private education sector, says Dr Parmjit Singh, managing director of Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology (Apiit).  However, he says the country is lacking an education blueprint and strategy. This strategy should address how Malaysia can attract foreign students by offering high quality programs while streamlining the application and visa process. See the story online at: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2004/8/15/education/8656508&sec=education

The Dubai-based Global Education Management Systems (GEMS) has eased its way into the UK by buying up cash-strapped existing schools. Known overseas for offering a distinctive brand of no-frills, low-cost private education aimed at parents unable or reluctant to pay top-end fees for "country club" style facilities. Gems hopes to tempt UK parents dissatisfied with the state system and can afford the £5,000 a year tuition.  Gems wants to build 20 of its model mid-market schools on greenfield sites, acquire another 25-30 schools and have 120 schools under its management within the next five years. It also has its eye on Germany and the ten new EU accession states. Under a Conservative administration it would be eligible for state cash which would hand parents vouchers worth around £5,500 annually to spend at the school of their choice providing they did not top up the fee.  See the August 17 article in The Guardian at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1284393,00.html

Parents in Zimbabwe expressed differing views on regulation of private school fees by the  Ministry of Education, Sport and Culture.  While some find it difficult to find the money for fees and welcome restrictions, others are concerned about the cuts the schools will be forced to make and the drop in quality.  Private schools are solicit for donations from parents provided these donations are voluntary.  See the story in The Herald (Zimbabwe) online at: http://allafrica.com/stories/200409071472.html

Publications

The June edition of the Pacific Economic Review includes a paper by Tsung-Ping Chung on "The Returns to Education and Training: Evidence from the Malaysian Family Life Surveys"  The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the private returns to education and training in the 1980s for a random sample of women in Malaysia. The author estimates a Mincer type earnings function, augmented by information on the women's training experience. The results indicate that there are positive and economically significant returns to education and training. He also investigates the determinants of training and find that training participation is positively related to educational attainment, while if women are credit-constrained they are significantly less likely to undertake training.  The article can be found in The Pacific Economic Review, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 103-116, June 2004 http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=551223

Belton M. Fleisher  of Ohio State University and Xiaojun Wang of the University of Hawaii at Manoa have recently published an article on  "Returns to Schooling in China Under Planning and Reform".  They estimate returns to schooling using a retrospective work history survey covering more than 4,000 workers over the period 1950 to 1994, with particular emphasis to the returns to schooling for workers who attended institutes of higher education and who graduated from college. They find evidence that schooling returns declined throughout the period leading up to the Cultural Revolution (CR), with returns for workers who did not attend college becoming negligible. For a paper copy of this William Davidson Institute working paper 704 go to: http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=566083

 Events


The World Bank and the IFC's Health and Education department were pleased to sponsor a regional symposium on Government and non-Government Participation in Education in Kuala Lumpur, 13-15 July 2004.  The goal was to discuss solutions for improving the quality of education and expanding the range of choices for students in East Asian countries.  Participants explored potential partnerships between public and private institutions and looked at examples of arrangements that have worked in various countries.  The symposium brought together 87 policy makers, regulators, providers, teachers, school associations and financiers from 14 countries and the World Bank Group.  The agenda as well as presentations can be seen on the EdInvest website:
http://www.ifc.org/edinvest/


As a follow-up event to its' International Investment Forum on Private Higher Education held in January 2004, the IFC's Health and Education Department launched a first in a series of live webcasts on the topic of student loans.  The broadcast featured speakers Michael Mann, President of RMIT International University Vietnam, Paula Darling, Chief Operating Officer of EduCap and Jean-Daniel, founding partner of edics.  The webcast can be seen through the LearningTimes website:
http://home.learningtimes.net/ifc?go=526358


Ron Perkinson of the IFC's Health and Education Department made the opening presentation at the Global e-Forum Roundtable Conference in Australia held August 3-6, 2004 which was attended by 130 leading professors and senior corporate training executives from around the world.  IFC set the scene for the conference by presenting on two topics - an 'Overview of Global Trends In Financing & Transnational e-Education' - and 'Relevance On-Line Delivery By Foreign Providers - Adapting Delivery To Local Markets'.
An abstract of the Conference as well as the presentation can be found on the EdInvest website http://www.ifc.org/edinvest/  For the program and additional information, see their website: http://www.eagenda.cc/

The 2004 Asia Pacific Co-operative Education Conference will be held in Auckland, New Zealand 1-3 December 2004.  The theme this year is Global Classroom:  Weaving the Threads of Knowledge.  The focus will be on co-operative education (or work-integrated learning) which provides an ideal platform for the development of the skills and capabilities required to meet these challenges. Ways to partner between governments, industry and the education sector will be explored.  See the event website: http://events.lincoln.ac.nz/ace/

Griffith University has joined with the University of Georgia in the USA; Cranfield University in the UK; Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and San Diego State University in the USA to co-host  the forthcoming e-Agenda 2004 - International Summit to be held in San Diego from December 12-14, 2004.   The e-Agenda 2004 events will expand the scope of  previous Roundtables  to a global forum to promote networking, discussion and collaborative opportunities.

Suzanne Roddis (send comments to edinvest@ifc.org )