The International Day of Education is marked on January 24 every year. The Egyptian constitution recognizes education as one of the fundamental human rights. This right is enshrined in Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.”

The Egyptian constitution also emphasizes the importance of education in Article 19, which states: “Every citizen has the right to education with the aim of building the Egyptian character, maintaining national identity, planting the roots of scientific thinking, developing talents, promoting innovation and establishing civilizational and spiritual values and the concepts of citizenship, tolerance and non-discrimination. The state shall be committed to upholding its aims in education curricula and methods, and providing education in accordance with global quality criteria. Education is obligatory until the end of the secondary stage or its equivalent. The state shall grant free education in different stages in state educational institutions as per the law.”

However, education in Egypt has been facing major problems for years, the most serious of which is the shortage in teachers and classrooms. The shortage is estimated at 250,000 classrooms and 655,000 teachers.

Teachers and infrastructure are the cornerstone of any educational process. This accumulated shortage is one of the key challenges in the educational process in Egypt, among other issues including outdated curricula and the lack of essential development of teachers' capabilities, in addition to school dropout rates, school violence and other chronic problems.

Education issues and crises stem from a bigger issue, which is spending and the size of the financial allocations specified for education in the public budget each year. Despite the reaffirmation of the importance of the state's commitment to the percentage stipulated in the constitution - which sets at a minimum of 4% of the budget to pre-university education that is meant to gradually increase until it reaches global rates - the government allocated 1.7% of GDP to education in the 2024/2025 budget.

Egypt is committed to the Sustainable Development Goals 2030. Goal 4 of these targets education, obligating states in its text to: “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” Thus, quality education is essential  for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

It is important to increase spending on education so that the state and society can develop the educational system in a comprehensive manner, to provide quality education to students, which is a human right and not a privilege nor is it a favour rendered to citizens.

Expenditure on education in Egypt and Arab countries (% of GDP):

[Djibouti 2018, Lebanon 2020, Qatar 2020, UAE 2021, Egypt 2024, Kuwait 2023, Saudi Arabia 2023, Comoros 2022, Oman 2022, Mauritania 2023, Tunisia 2023, Morocco 2023, West Bank and Gaza 2021, Algeria 2023, Bahrain 2022, Jordan 2022]

The Egyptian constitution set a minimum of 4% that allows the government to spend on education effectively. This includes spending on building schools, hiring teachers and training them well and continuously in the latest teaching methods and modern educational curricula.  In addition to allocating salaries adequate for living conditions, and providing quality and advanced education without discrimination to all. Despite the constitution's emphasis on the importance of adhering to the rate of spending on education and giving the government an exceptional opportunity for a period of three years to reach the 4% limit in the 2016/2017 budget, the percentage allocated in the budget has been below the constitutionally stipulated rate for ten years (2014-2024). Spending on education hit 1.7% in the 2024/2025 budget, down from 1.9% in the 2023/2024 budget. Egypt’s rate remains the lowest among all Arab countries. This has negatively affected all aspects and outputs of the educational process in the country.

The graph shows the extent to which Arab countries are invested in education through their spending on it. According to the latest World Bank data, Tunisia came on top of North African countries, with 6.7% of its GDP spent on education in the 2023 budget, followed by Morocco with 6% in 2023, and Algeria with 5.6% in the same year. They are followed by the West Bank and Gaza in the 2021 budget with 5.4%, followed by Saudi Arabia with 5.1%, and Kuwait with 5%. Egypt, meanwhile, sits at the bottom with 1.7% in 2024, equalling Lebanon's expenditure on education in the 2021 budget.

Sources: 

Arab Republic of Egypt, Presidency of the Republic, Egyptian Constitution, Articles 19 and 238, https://shorturl.at/9IH7Y

World Bank Group, Government expenditure on education, total (% of GDP), https://shorturl.at/yoeh7

May Qabil, 2024/2025: Debt interest budget.. Austerity for us, profits for creditors, EIPR, 11 August 2024, https://shorturl.at/oOgxB

Classroom shortages and the problem of school periods:

[Full day, two periods, afternoon period, morning period]

The shortage in classrooms in Egypt is a deepening crisis that is clearly related to the  failure to allocate the necessary financial resources to education in the public budget. This problem causes high student densities within existing classrooms, with a shortage of up to 250,000 classrooms. This is due to the low rate of classroom construction in Egypt, where the total number of classrooms built by the government during the previous ten years (2014-2024) reached only 127,450, although the World Bank indicated in 2022 that Egypt needs to build 117,000 classrooms during the years from 2022 to 2027, so that the density rate may reach 45 students per classroom.

In addition to this significant shortage, there is a big problem represented in the multiplication of school periods, as school buildings are operated for more than one period throughout the day. For example, schools may operate a morning period for primary school students, and an afternoon period for preparatory or secondary school students. The multiple study periods system affects the overall educational process, as it reduces the study hours allocated to students in the school, and also negatively affects the opportunities for educational and student activities.

The graph shows the distribution of schools according to school periods, with 51% of schools operating during the morning period only, while only 40% operate on a full-day basis (for a given class), 5.6% operate during the afternoon period, and 2.5% operate on a double-period basis. 

Sources:

The Ministry of Education and Technical Education, the annual statistics book for education indicators and statistics for the academic year 2023/2025, https://shorturl.at/eZs8y

EIPR, spending on classrooms, https://shorturl.at/7Lwka

World Bank Group, Egypt Public Expenditure Review for Human Development Sectors, https://shorturl.at/VzuT2 

Violence in schools

Violence in schools is one of the major problems facing the education sector in Egypt. It is widespread across all school sectors, whether public or private, and co-relates with a complex and overlapping set of problems. It is not isolated from all forms of societal violence. Violence is prevalent at all school levels, urban and rural, whether it occurs among students or at the hands of others.

Students are the most impacted and harmed by violence, since they are the weakest link in society. The school environment is supposed to be safe for all, and should repel all forms of violence, enhance tolerance among its members, and be ready and responsible for the rehabilitation of individuals who practice violence by activating the role of social and psychological workers in schools.

The Minister of Education's Decree No. 591 of 1998 prohibits the use of violence against students, and the first school discipline regulations were issued in 2015: defining the duties and responsibilities of all parties to the educational process. However, many still consider violence a means of discipline at school, according to a UNICEF report on violence against children in Egypt, in addition to the psychological and physical violence prevalent among students in Egypt. An estimated 7 in 10 students in Egypt are subjected to corporal punishment at school, and more than one in three students experience harassment.

This is reflected in the school dropout rate and its impact on the national economy, as Egypt loses about 7% of potential income as a result of students dropping out of the educational system.

Sources:

National Council for Childhood and Motherhood, Eliminating Violence against Children in Egypt, National Strategic Framework, February 2018, https://shorturl.at/xlk77 

UNICEF, Violence against Children in Egypt, January 2015, https://shorturl.at/QExDF 

Dropping out of school

[Preparatory, primary]

Dropping out of school is defined as children at school age not attending school or leaving it before completing all the educational stages. According to the education ministry, approximately 60,000 students dropped out of the primary and preparatory school stages between 2022/2023 and 2023/2024. Such statistics highlight the importance of studying the social and economic conditions and the reasons that push families to withdraw their children from schools.

According to the 2017 Egypt census report issued by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), 84 million of the population were at school age (4 years and above) at the time, 30 million of them finished primary, preparatory and secondary stages, 25.5 million were still enrolled in schools, 6 million dropped out, and 22.5 million did not attend school at all. This last figure is very high and must be placed at the centre of policy making. These figures need to be constantly updated, and clear and practical plans need to be developed to address the drop-out phenomenon, as ignoring it constitutes a violation of the principle of the right to education, which is a human right. Dropping out of school hinders any attempt at progress and development in society and contradicts Goal 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals, which states: “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

The 2017 Egypt census report mentioned several reasons for dropping out or not enrolling in schools, foremost of which was student unwillingness, which hit 37%; followed by family unwillingness, 18.9%; financial conditions, 17.8%; repeated failure, 9.2%; marriage, 6.3%; difficulty in going to school, 5.2%; work, 2.3%; plus other reasons such as the death of a parent and disability.

Sources:

The Ministry of Education and Technical Education, the annual statistics book for education indicators and statistics for the academic year 2023/2025, https://shorturl.at/eZs8y

The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, Egypt census 2017, https://shorturl.at/zYwSk

The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, Egypt census 2017... The first electronic census, https://shorturl.at/zpWru 

The disqualification of teachers

The education ministry announced the first competition to appoint 30,000 teachers as a first batch of 150,000 teachers to be appointed over five years, in an attempt to ease a shortage of 655,000 teachers. Thousands of teachers took the exams set by the ministry at the Central Agency for Organization and Administration. A total of 28,000 teachers passed the exams, which tested the applicants’ educational and technical skills.

However, the teachers were surprised to learn that they had to undergo other tests at the Military Academy, tests that mainly included running, abdominal exercises and push-ups. A total of 11,951 teachers were disqualified because of what was described as their excess weight or failing to pass these tests.

EIPIR, representing a large number of disqualified teachers, filed lawsuits at the State Council (the administrative court) to challenge the disqualification decisions, citing the explicit constitutional and discriminatory violations related to the exclusion of teachers on the basis of weight and physical fitness. Moreover, some female teachers were disqualified for being pregnant or because they had recently given birth, which involves legal violations and blatant discriminatory practices.

The case had been pending for more than a year, and the report of the Board of Commissioners of the Administrative Court came in favour of the disqualified teachers, acknowledging their right to be hired and arguing that the disqualified teachers met all the conditions of the announced competition, passed the educational, mental and physical tests, and were supposed to be waiting for the final appointment decision to be issued. However, the administrative court dismissed the lawsuit in November 2024, simply arguing that the disqualified teachers did not pass the tests held at the Military Academy. The court ignored the Commissioners' report and did not comment on the explicit discriminatory features of the later testing process, or even the issue of the relevance of such tests to the education process. EIPR intends to appeal the ruling, emphasizing the need to stop such unconstitutional practices, and rejecting the consolidation and legalization of the Military Academy tests through  executive regulations that circumvent the constitution and law. EIPR further stresses the need to abolish these tests because they are simply useless in the course of educational development. It calls for the appointment of the disqualified teachers to ease the shortage in teachers, especially since they passed the tests set by the Central Agency for Organization and Administration - as argued in our lawsuit and in the Administrative Court’s Commissioners report.

Sources:

EIPR, After the Commissioners’ reports came in their favour, the Administrative Court examines appeals of the excluded teachers who passed the “30,000 teachers” competition, https://shorturl.at/knF8U

EIPR, On their World Day.. Teachers should come first, https://shorturl.at/4IcmA 

Consolidating the Military Academy’s role in the selection of teachers

Egypt is facing a shortage of 655,000 teachers, as a result of the government's suspension of public sector appointment for years, which has directly and cumulatively affected the educational process, resulting in classrooms without teachers specialized in many subjects. Moreover, teachers' salaries are the lowest among other public sectors, prompting many of them to give private lessons to improve their income.

While the government began to take positive steps by reopening the door for appointment through the 30,000 teachers competition, it established the Military Academy’s role in the selection of teachers after they passed the only formally-announced tests (the ones designed to measure their skills in teaching, classroom management and explaining scientific subjects.) Meanwhile, the Military Academy’s tests are focused on running, push-ups, abdominal exercises, balance, and physical assessment by a military panel.

Despite the irrelevance of these tests to the educational process, the government still insists on involving the Military Academy in the selection of teachers as a prerequisite for their appointment in the education ministry. This practice is being institutionalized after the Prime Minister issued Decree No. 165 of 2025, which consolidates the Academy’s role in the selection process.

Sources:

EIPR criticizes the cabinet's decision to establish Military Academy training in teachers’ tests, https://shorturl.at/xaK9t