Egypt moves to license $2.3bn private tutoring industry

Private tutoring centres, which constitute a multibillion-pound industry in Egypt, are due to receive long sought-after licences from the government, the country’s Education Ministry has said.

It's a move that proffessionals say could shake up the national provision of education, where there's been a shortfall of state funding - something admitted by the government.

Though they were frequently vilified and banned by former education minister Tarek Shawky, who was replaced in an August cabinet reshuffle, private tutoring centres proved difficult to get rid of, leading the ministry’s new leadership under Reda Hegazy to make them official.

Mr Hegazy spoke out in favour of such centres during a plenary parliamentary session on Tuesday night while laying out his plans to incorporate them into the sector over the next academic year. He said the ministry had decided to “accept reality” and bring private centres into the fold.

Large class sizes, low teacher salaries, shortages in funding for public schools and a lack of availability of educational resources over the decades have made Egyptian parents and pupils favour private tutoring centres over public schools.

“When they said that they were closing private centres last year and fining them all that money, me and a lot of parents were worried for our children’s education,” Noura Ahmed, 41, a mother of three tells The National. "Public schools are really not viable and I want my kids to be educated so they can find employment later. But the ban didn’t really happen so that was a relief.

“My eldest daughter goes to school once or twice a week whenever there is a lesson by a proficient teacher, but mostly she just attends classes at a centre.”

Despite being banned last year in a large-scale crackdown, private tutoring continued unhindered. A testament to how integral such centres are to the Egyptian education system is the EGP 47 billion ($2.38bn) these centres receive in fees from learners each year.

Because their operations were largely unregulated in the past, the government gained little in taxes from the massive profits made by private centres, an error the ministry is trying to rectify by making them official.

Ms Ahmed, whose 16-year-old daughter is a second-year high school pupil, explains that unlike public schools, private centres give parents and pupils much more agency over the material being taught and take more steps to ensure exams are passed.

She points to the disparity in funding between public schools and private centres as one of the main reasons she opted to send her children to the latter. Where public schools are in a severe state of disrepair, private centres often use the latest technology for education.

“I took my daughter to a class at a private centre one time and I was shocked to see the sheer size of the room, there must have been around 1,000 chairs,” Ms Ahmed says. “The room was segmented into four sections, each with a dedicated huge plasma screen television. The teacher was standing at the front of the classroom with a microphone and a camera that would transmit his image on to the screens.”

A lack of trust in public school teachers also drives the massive success of private tutoring centres in Egypt.

“Last year was my first in secondary school and the material was much more difficult than the year before. But on the first day of school, I arrived to find that the same teachers from my preparatory stage were going to be teaching me that year,” explains Ms Ahmed’s daughter, Manal, saying that it became quickly apparent that her teachers did not know the more difficult secondary school curriculum well enough.

The National also spoke to Naglaa Abdel Moneim, the owner and manager of a large private tutoring centre in Giza. She says the reason why centres have become a necessity is because the country’s curricula need updating and that they are simply too difficult for people to learn without external help.

“The problem is undoubtedly the curricula," she says. "They need urgent streamlining. If parents had faith in the curricula or their children’s ability to understand it, they would not pay to have their children receive extra private classes. But they know that if they don’t the child would most likely fall behind and have a more difficult time getting employment later.”

Low teacher salaries in Egypt have also contributed significantly to the popularity of private tutoring centres. Teachers at public schools almost always conduct private sessions because of how profitable they can be.

“I don’t really blame the teachers," Ms Ahmed says. "I clean houses for a living so I understand how tough things can get when you are unable to make money. These teachers make next to nothing working at public schools and they have families and children to take care of, so it’s understandable that they give more attention to their private tutoring sessions.”

However, this creates a conflict of interest that eventually makes it impossible for students to get a good quality education without taking private lessons, Ms Abdel Moneim explains.

Ms Ahmed says that her younger son’s teacher repeatedly claimed he was failing, which turned out not to be true. She said the teacher misrepresented his level and repeatedly recommended that he be enrolled in her private lessons.

Private schools

However, the potential for profit does create more competition inside tutoring centres that ensures the best teachers are employed, according to Ms Abdel Moneim, who worked as a teacher at a public school for 20 years before dedicating herself to her tutoring centre.

On the other hand, she concedes that the financial motivation has also made many private teachers help pupils cheat in their exams to ensure they pass and subsequently return to the tutoring centre the following year.

“Teachers aren’t celebrated in Egypt and socially speaking the profession is looked at as inferior," Ms Abdel Moneim says. "So in their efforts to lift their families out of poverty, the less scrupulous teachers will act unethically to make profit.

"These are the decisions of a few bad apples, but by and large, I think private tutoring is beneficial."

After an incident this month where a staircase at a school in Giza collapsed, killing one girl and injuring 14 others, the country’s education sector came under intense scrutiny. The incident was blamed on the pupils stampeding up the stairs, however, critics have highlighted that many of the country’s schools are in urgent need of renovation.

As the country attempts to grapple with an economic crisis which has dried up funding for many of its sectors, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi says reliable electricity, roads and sufficient food supplies have been given a priority over education.

“We as people, as regular citizens on the streets, would not have stomached the consequences of placing the country’s entire limited resources on education,” the president said.

Shady Zalata, the official spokesman for the Education Ministry, phoned in to Akher El Nahar, a talk show on a private television network on Wednesday, explaining that the licensing for private tutoring centres should not be seen by Egyptians as a failure on the ministry’s part, but instead formalising them into the country’s education system.