Reforming Education: Between Welfare and Free-‐Market Systems Abd Allah ‘Irfan Assistant Professor, Business Administration Department College of Commerce, al-‐Azhar University Reforming Education: Between Welfare and Free-‐Market Systems Egypt in the Transitional Phase: Experiences from Welfare States (A Workshop) Abd Allah ‘Irfan Assistant Professor, Business Administration Department College of Commerce, al-‐Azhar University Arab Forum For alternatives think tank seeks to perpetuate the values of scientific thinking in Arab societies, and is working to address issues of political, social and economic development in the framework of the traditions and rules of scientific, away from the language of incitement and propaganda, in the framework of respect for political contexts and social systems, as well as universal human values. It is working to provide space for the interaction of experts, activists and researchers interested in issues of reform in the Arab region, governed by scientific principles and respect for diversity, is also keen Forum to offer policy alternatives and the potential social, not just hoped for the decision maker and the elites of different political and civil society organizations, in the framework of respect for the values of justice and democracy. For this purpose the AFA seeks to develop mechanisms to engage with local, regional, and international institutions interested in change and reform. In this phase, the AFA is focused on three major areas: policy analysis and public institutions, transitional phases and democratization, and social movements and civil society. The AFA is a limited liability company (Commercial Registry No. 30743) These papers are published on a non-‐periodic basis and are the product of an internal seminar; they do not necessarily express the views of the Arab Forum for Alternatives or partner organizations. CONTENTS Introduction Private Tutoring The Risks of the Perpetuation of the Current System The Challenge of the Future Current Contradictions Decentralization and Collaboration Dedication To the one whose eyes followed me in Tahrir Square, entrusting me with the responsibility. I struggled to ignore his gaze, until the day Mubarak stepped down. I looked at him and tears sprung from my eyes. I later learned that he was among the crowds. He was one of my students. -‐ Dedicated to the unknown martyr INTRODUCTION The educational system in Egypt suffers from both qualitative and quantitative problems. The quantitative problems include lack of funding, inadequate numbers of teachers and schools, and the increasing inability to meet demands for education given its growing importance and relevance to a successful life. Qualitative problems include the poor distribution of already meager resources, the deterioration of the educational and moral qualifications of teachers, and under-‐equipped schools that do not allow for a quality education. These qualitative and quantitative issues have given rise to massive problems, including increasing primary-‐school dropout rates, student illiteracy (sometimes even among high-‐school students), rising real costs coupled with declining educational quality, and a thriving parallel educational system, both vertical and horizontal. As a result, private and international schools have spread, and private tutoring has been institutionalized, becoming a fully formed parallel informal system with all the economic, social, and cultural ills this entails. These observations are confirmed by local and international studies. In 2012, Egypt ranked 113 in the Human Development Index, compared to Denmark at 16 and Germany at 9. Education rankings mirror these numbers. For example, expected years of schooling in Egypt is 6.4 years, compared to 11.4 in Denmark and 12.2 in Germany. Human Development Index indicators (2012)1 Country Denmark Egypt Germany Turkey Rank Life expectancy at birth 16 113 9 92 78.8 73.2 80.4 74 Expected years of schooling (children) 11.4 6.4 12.2 6.5 Mean years of schooling (adults) Per capita share of GDP 16.9 11 15.9 11.8 34.347 5.269 34.854 12.246 In another indication of the weak performance of the educational system, 43.6 percent of the population is illiterate, compared to to 0 percent in Germany and Denmark. High illiteracy rates are caused by 1 http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/EXTWDRS/ EXTWDR 2012/0,,contentMDK:22999750~menuPK:8154981~pagePK:64167689~piPK:64167673~theSitePK
:7778063,00.html high dropout rates in primary school, in addition to the general weakness of the educational system and its inability to meet its objectives; indeed, illiteracy exists in both the primary and high school levels. This is further confirmed by Egypt’s overall rank in the Global Competitiveness Report, where it comes in at 96t out of 142 countries; it is ranked 96 in health and education conditions in the primary stage, 92 in the development of high school education, 107 in internet access in schools, and 132 in the quality of math and science teaching. All these indicators demonstrate the poor outcomes of the existing educational system. Educational indicators, Human Development Report 20122 Country Denmark Germany Egypt Turkey Literacy rate Schooling Student to (%) Primary Secondary High school teacher ratio 100 100 66.4 90.8 98.6 103.6 101.1 99.3 118.4 101.7 67.2 82 77 28.2 38.4 13 27.2 Probably the most catastrophic byproduct of the educational system is private tutoring, which affects the entire society, both vertically and horizontally. Its impact extends to all domains—social, economic, and even political. Despite the gravity of the situation, no serious attempts have been made to understand and solve the problem. PRIVATE TUTORING Although the Egyptian educational system faces numerous, complex problems, private tutoring has the most detrimental impact, financially and culturally, on Egyptian families, and it undermines the educational qualifications of graduates at all stages of education. Despite the seriousness of the problem, explanations of it—and as a result proposed solutions—often reduce it to a moral issue—to wit, the greed of teachers—which must addressed by the enforcement of existing laws. Yet, even assuming that laws can be strictly enforced against all 2 http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/national/asiathepacific/timorleste/Timor-‐
Leste_NHDR_2011_EN.pdf offenders, it would not end the problem due to the complex reality that gave rise to it. Private tutoring is a symptom and reflection of structural problems in the Egyptian educational system, all of which could be reproduced in similarly dysfunctional systems anywhere in the world. Naturally, therefore, any attempt to treat the symptom in isolation without considering the actual structure that produced it will end in failure. Private tutoring is a product of a complex confluence of quantitative imbalances in the educational system, compounded by cumulative qualitative problems that resulted from failed attempts to rectify the quantitative imbalances. A Short History of Private Tutoring In the past two decades, private tutoring has become rampant. Prior to this, it was the exception, although there were always students who needed extra instruction to cope with school due to low educational attainment or personal circumstances. In the past, Egyptian schools provided top educational services. Teacher training was of good quality, and students’ interest in education was high. Schools contained theaters, athletic facilities, and laboratories, all of which sharpened students’ skills and nurtured their talents. Egyptian universities boasted some of the best professors and students, as universities were the site of profound debates and lectures and the most cutting-‐edge experiments. This was the state of Egyptian education before the introduction of universal education; albeit the lack of needed resources to restore the general equilibrium that created the earlier and better system. The ratio of students to teachers neared the international average, which permitted good relations between students and their teachers. Such relations foster communication, debate, and conversation, all of which are prerequisites for the development of a creative, critical, open mentality, which was characteristic of the generation that graduated during this period. Another significant imbalance in the system is the decline in education spending per student. The massive increase in student enrollment was not coupled with additional spending, leading to reductions in supplies and spaces for libraries, laboratories, schoolyards, athletic facilities, and open spaces. Instead these funds were used to build educational facilities in schools and universities. Education spending in Egypt 2000–20123 Year Expenditure on education as % of GDP 2000–1 2001–2 2002–3 2003–4 2004–5 2005–6 2006–7 2007–8 2008–9 2010–11 2011–12 6.13 6.48 5.29 4.97 5.09 4.41 3.91 3.94 3.90 3.5 3.3 Expenditure on pre-‐
Expenditure on university education as university education as % of GDP % of GDP 3.68 2.45 3.76 2.72 3.92 1.36 3.45 1.52 3.37 1.72 3.21 1.21 2.79 1.12 2.63 1.31 2.85 0.85 Education spending in selected countries4 Country Egypt International average Percentage of GDP 3.3 4.5 EU average Average in capitalist countries Average in mid-‐income countries Average in low-‐income countries Germany 5.2 5.1 Country Middle-‐high income Middle East and North Africa Tunisia Morocco 4.1 US 5.5 Denmark 8.5 4 4.6 Percentage of GDP 4.5 4.6 7.1 5.6 As a result, the average classroom size swelled in both schools and universities, reaching 70–100 in some schools and up to 5,000 for some university classes in commerce and law. The number of teachers did not grow at the same pace, precluding the older style of teacher-‐student communication that stirred constructive debate. 3 Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education: http://www.egy-‐mhe.gov.eg/ 4 Taqrir al-‐itijahat al-‐iqtisadiyya and al-‐istiratijiyya (Report
on Strategic Economic Directions). AlAhram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. Cairo, 2011, p. 64-65. Initially, teachers struggled with the demands of the massive increase in enrollment, but attempts to facilitate discussion were fruitless due to the difficulty of managing debates in such large classrooms, which led to wasted classroom time. As a result, teachers redesigned their lesson plans to focus on lecturing and covering the curriculum in the designated time period. Distribution of schools by classroom density5 Classroom Percentage density of total schools 18
10–30 students 72
40–50 students 9
60–100 students Another flaw in the system is seen in preparations for examinations. When school and university classrooms were small, the teaching process was grounded in critique and debate, and exams evaluated learning efforts by testing students’ comprehension and soliciting critical thinking. Teachers were able to spend time on analysis and critique, and exam results reflected students’ comprehension. This type of exam was a natural barrier against private tutoring given the unpredictable nature of exam questions, which were intrinsically unsuited to rote study and memorization. On such exams, clichéd answers were a sign of rigidity and lack of creativity, which meant a lower grade. In the beginning there was some resistance from teachers. It ultimately proved futile, however, in light of the huge numbers of students. Teachers spent long hours marking exams, at times weeks. A massive increase in the number of exams and increased teaching burdens made it impossible to perform a meticulous, honest, and critical reading of exam papers for evaluation. It became necessary to facilitate the process for teachers to ease their work loads, but this meant simplifying exam questions and answers. This was fair in part, since students should not 5 “Capital Investment in the Education Sector”, Egypt Public Expenditure Review October 2005. The World Bank, p. 6. be tested on skills they have not been taught. We only reap what we sow, after all. Along with the simplification of exams, teaching itself was transformed into a predictable activity. Students therefore felt no need to attend the classroom lessons. A private tutor could do the job instead, providing the expected exam questions and their answers. In fact, students began objecting to questions that required additional thinking, or questions that were only indirectly or ambiguously related to the curriculum. Another significant aspect of the problem is the decline in teachers’ salaries, which were not adjusted to keep up with the high levels of inflation in the 1980s and 90s. Private tutoring therefore became an important alternative to compensate for falling incomes, especially considering the concomitant decline in teaching due to large classrooms and underequipped schools. These developments took place over several generations, and at least one or two generations of teachers are now accustomed to private tutoring, demonstrating how deeply the phenomenon has affected the lifestyle and teaching methods of instructors, let alone students. The educational system also reflects the mismanagement of the Ministry of Education and its inability to find imaginative solutions to these problems, even assuming that the ministry fully understands the complexity of the issue. Taken together, all these issues have combined to seriously erode the educational system and weaken the ability to monitor it, including increased classroom density (caused by higher numbers of students and fewer teachers), the decline in education workers’ income, the simplification of the curriculum and exams, and the lower quality of teacher training. THE RISKS OF THE PERPETUATION OF THE CURRENT SYSTEM Political risks: • Risks related to identity: the fragmentation of the educational system produces individuals of different cultural backgrounds who do not share a basic common view that ensures harmony and understanding and transforms difference into enrichment and diversity. This deepens multiple types of polarization, exacerbating other social and economic fissures, all of which lead to more divisiveness and ever-‐worsening political and social polarization. • Risks related to citizenship: unfairness and inequality, caused by dropping out of school and the spread of private tutoring, creates a challenge for the marginalized and impoverished segments of society, denying them their political and social rights. These citizens are deprived of the ability to be integrated into political, economic, and social systems due to illiteracy or low-‐quality education. Thus are generations of individuals deprived of their political, social, and economic rights. • Democracy-‐related risks: private tutoring engenders an individualist outlook that is focused on self-‐interest and selectivity, a matter which contrary to the values of coexistence and respect for the public order and public interest. It instead instills values of factionalism, and a tendency to favor the private over the public sphere. This further deepens social and political fluidity, and weakens capacities for agreement, tolerance, and respect of others ’rights and potential, all of which lie at the heart of democratic, republican, constitutional values. Moreover, such values in the administrative and economic spheres tend to justify corruption, favoritism, and the misappropriation of public funds. These risks are embodied in the destruction of the values of team work, coexistence (as a student can choose the teacher and the group he or she will study with, and the time to do so), respect for one’s elders (as symbolized by the teacher), and disdain for the public sphere (as the school simultaneously symbolizes all that is public, detrimental to creativity, and worthless). This is inimical to the concept of the state, institutions, and society, and may help us understand numerous phenomena, such as the spread of chaos, corruption, factionalism, and informal movements. Economic risks: • Competence and creativity: an inefficient, incompetent educational system reduces future generations’ ability to produce, accumulate, and innovate, all of which lie at the heart of economic problems in Egypt. In addition, the lack of cultural homogeneity leads to misunderstanding and miscommunication in the workplace, whether between workers themselves due to difference in educational and cultural backgrounds, or between workers and their employers. This may impede production and limit productivity, efficiency, and competition. • Respect for the rules: the possibility of replacing the teacher and the school by buying an alternative undermines respect for social rules and instead empowers a culture of fraud, corner cutting, and dependency, all of which are detrimental to productive activities. • Knowledge and technology: an indifference to culture and modern pedagogy are another negative outcome of the existing educational system, engendered by students’ negative experience with their textbooks, curricula, and teaching methods. This impedes interaction with and the production of technology, which is needed to create a society and an economy centered on a culture of life-‐long self-‐enrichment. Cultural and Societal Challenges An educational system can enhance society by instilling homogenous, widely accepted values and ethics, which facilitate communication and a common understanding in all aspects of life. The perpetuation of the existing educational system brings with it the risk of social disintegration, promoting a pretense to knowledge, the evasion of responsibility, narrow self-‐interest, short-‐sightedness, and lack of discrimination in interpersonal relations, whether social (friendship and marriage), economic (work and partnership), or political (alliances). It also fosters divisiveness, nurtured by a chronic lack of trust. The system also places additional financial and psychological pressures on the Egyptian family, increasing the cost of education, the attention devoted to resolving education problems, and the time given to official and unofficial education despite its questionable quality. Indeed, an education in the current system does not necessarily lead to a stable job or bring returns on the material investment in it. The ever-‐increasing costs of education undermine middle-‐class life, threatening its benefits and roles. In turn, this produces frustration and tension due to fears of downward mobility and the inability to guarantee a better social status for future generations. THE CHALLENGE OF THE FUTURE The foregoing challenges and risks entail heavy burdens for families and business owners. Interestingly enough, there are no supporters for the current system, but no serious alternatives have been suggested. Indeed, the perpetuation of the current educational system is conscious mass suicide. Any hesitation or delay in initiating fundamental, innovative reforms will mean reproducing the same dysfunctional outcomes. This spiral of self-‐generated failure must be checked as swiftly as possible to ensure future opportunities for our children, who hopefully can compensate for our failures and impotence. Recommendations to Address Private Tutoring Clearly, all measures taken to resolve the problem must be integrated. We must pursue interventions on multiple levels to address the various constraints on the educational system. Therefore, short-‐, medium-‐, and long-‐term recommendations are offered below. Short Term Classroom density Alleviating overcrowded classrooms requires investments in the construction of schools and universities to reach international standards. A study conducted in 2005 recommended the construction of 10,000 schools (with an average of 12 classrooms per school) to ensure a density of 25 students per class. Since only 5,000 schools have been built since then, and bearing in mind the natural increase in the number of students, we currently need 15,000 new schools. In addition, we must build 55 universities to meet the demands of projected enrollment and reach a ratio of 1 university to every 1 million citizens Meeting these demands will ensure that each student has a proper share in laboratories, libraries, and green spaces, all of which will deepen students’ educational experiences and constitute an investment in this population cohort. Number of schools needed in 20056 Number of students per class To reduce student density To eliminate the two-‐shift system 40 35 30 25 1917 2554 3328 4080 1922 1922 1922 1922 To reduce student density in both shifts 0 481 961 1442 Full absorption Total number 1458 1667 1944 2333 5298 6623 8156 9777 Growth in the number of schools 2006–20117 Year Number of schools Number of new schools Number of new schools 2006–11 2006–7 40868 2007–8 42184 2008–9 43423 2009–10 44631 2010–11 45773 1316 1239 1208 1142 4905 Salaries The needs of schools teachers and university professors must be seriously addressed by guaranteeing wages that will ensure a dignified life. This should then be supplemented with an incentive system. Without a minimum wage to ensure human dignity there can be no serious talk about any reforms or new laws. A serious overhaul of the salary and incentive system is therefore in order. Exams New, far less predictable and rote examination systems are needed. Exams must be designed to foster individual difference and skills while simultaneously ensuring ease of marking. Technology can be used in both designing and marking exams. Medium and long term 6 Ibid. 7 Ministry of Higher Education year Book. Classroom density More funds must be invested in educational infrastructure and the expansion of schools and universities, in collaboration with civil society in the form of non-‐profit projects, until we reach the targeted ratio of 1 teacher to 15 students, instead of the current ratio of 1 teacher to 27 students, and two universities for every 1 million citizens. Training Teachers, Professors, and Administrators Teacher training must be seriously revised to equip teachers at the entry level and throughout their careers. Professional unions must also be empowered to provide a minimum level of training to their members. Suitability to Job Market Educational programs and curricula must be suited to the needs of the job market, by enabling civil society and the business sector to design educational programs and curricula, as well as exam assessment. In addition, better links to the industrial sector must be created through training and partnerships. All of the above is needed to ensure the continuous development of the educational process. Requirements of Reform Finance: the 2005 cost to construct a school was LE800,000–1.2 million. Considering inflation, a rate of LE2 million per school can be estimated, which translates to LE30 billion for 15,000 new schools. Assuming a cost of LE2–3 billion per university, LE137.5 billion is needed to build 55 universities to reach a ratio of 1 university per 1 million population, or LE362.5 billion for 145 universities, to reach a ratio of 2 universities per 1 million population. The ratio of universities to per-‐million population is over 2 in Turkey, 6 in the US , and 9 in Norway. Institutional governance: The relationship between the state and educational institutions must be reformed to increase social participation in administration and oversight. Institutions must be given more autonomy in administration and the creation of internal oversight instruments. This necessarily entails changes to the framework regulating the educational system in Egypt. Huge resources are needed to bring qualitative equilibrium to the educational system, paving the way for qualitative reforms, which are almost impossible to attain without quantitative reforms first. But does the general policy framework allow for such reforms? CURRENT CONTRADICTIONS The process of reforms faces numerous obstacles given existing political and economic contradictions, represented by repeated empty financial promises, reckless bets on the market, and severe centralization that stifles local initiatives, all of which cement the status quo and impede the potential for reform. Impossible Promises The contradiction in economic policies emerges from the fact that the constitutional and legal framework is based on a welfare state, while financial and administrative structures are geared to the free market. The state promises services, but cannot afford to deliver because of a regressive, low-‐rate tax system. This contradiction developed in the 1970s when the state shifted to free-‐market economic policies while preserving the archaic legal and institutional structures of the public sector. As a result, prices were liberalized, opening the door to foreign investment, in the hope that the market would replace the state. However, oppressive state interests feared that true economic liberalization would empower a new and broader range of actors. Not necessarily regime allies, they used this attempt at liberalization to empower a parasitic oligarchy as the state contractor, paid at market rates. This gave rise to corruption and the marriage of wealth and power, highlighting the failure of the old system and the need for a new one. In embarking on economic liberalization, the state withdrew from welfare delivery (education, health, and public investment) in an attempt to reduce its burdens, creating a gap between needed services and access to them, whether provided by the state or the private sector. The latter had no intention of replacing the state by expanding into these sectors. At the same time, the state restructured revenue-‐
generating systems, reducing taxes to attract investment, which led it to reduce social expenditure to levels lower than the international average in even the most established capitalist societies. Herein lies the origin of the chronic crisis between state promises and state financial capabilities, embodied in a regressive, low-‐rate tax system This shift in state policies assumed that the market would be effective without state sponsorship of social services, and that low-‐quality education and health services would not affect productivity and innovation. It also assumed that a competitive market without monopolies was possible without government institutions administrated by professionally trained employees. All these assumption were shattered through the continuous crises of the Egyptian market, manifested in low productivity, lack of local and international competitiveness, and lack of product innovation. We must honestly face the fact that a solution lies in one of the following two alternatives: the wholesale adoption of the free market, which would preserve low tax levels without a promise to provide free services, or increasing revenue through the adoption of progressive taxation, with the state fulfilling its promises to provide high quality services without discrimination. Can we bear the implications of the first option, which would leave citizens to take care for themselves based on their purchasing power, amid high poverty rates, sharp income inequality, and profound health and educational problems? This seems unrealistic from an economic perspective, let alone the human, social and political dimensions of such a solution. Egypt cannot afford high rates of illiteracy and disease if it intends to be competitive in knowledge-‐based economic structures. High productivity and growth rates cannot be expected amid poor health and educational services. In this climate, an increase in the innovative capacities in the industrial sector—which would bring exceptional profits and spur economic growth rates outstripping rates of poverty and sickness—is not feasible. The human cost, of the first option, reflected in islands of wealth swimming in an ocean of poverty and disease, is also high. This human catastrophe is an intolerable insult to the dignity of all Egyptians, against which they revolted. Moreover, the expected social and political fallout would not promote stability or a prosperous market economy. Although the second option may seem risky from a traditional free-‐
market ideology that upholds absolute economic liberalization without state intervention, this ideology does not reflect the reality in established capitalist countries, such as the US and Germany. Primary schools in the US are funded by estate taxes and offer educational services free of charge to all. Education at all stages is state-‐funded in Germany as well. The outdated belief that high taxes and generous government spending deter investment and constitute economic disincentives must therefore be abandoned. The highest tax rate in Germany is 45 percent, 35 percent in the US, and 36 percent in Turkey, and these are some of the most attractive destinations for investment. Generous government spending on health and education ensures a population of active, productive citizens who enjoy a dignified life. Although wages in the US and Germany are among the highest in the world, investment still flows into these two countries to take advantage of the market, high labor productivity, research and development capacities, and technological advancements. The competitiveness of the Egyptian market must be built on the dignity of the Egyptian worker and his comparative advantage in education, productivity, and contributions to national and human welfare, which in turn must be based on a quality education and competent health and social systems. This can only be attained through high social spending funded by a progressive tax system that is both fair and swiftly implemented. Businesses much prefer employing a well-‐educated, highly productive worker with creative and innovative capabilities than an illiterate, lazy, dim-‐witted worker. Moreover, a genuine reform of the wage system will inhibit corruption, which will reduce operating costs for businesses. In turn, this promotes true productivity and discipline in government institutions, which will reduce the cost of Egyptian products, making them more competitive and generating more revenue to ensure growth and welfare for everyone. Education and the Market The second option above is further supported by the importance of state social services to ensure justice. The private sector will likely not invest in peripheral villages with high rates of illiteracy and disease, deterred by small profit margins. Therefore, the state should step in to ensure the delivery of quality services. The foregoing discussion engaged with the concept of the free market, but an essential question remains: is education a commodity? One in which sellers compete for families’ incomes? There is a serious need to consider the non-‐profit public sector, which could provide education and health services at cost without profit, or for reasonable profits that are then reinvested in maintenance and development rather than distributed to investors. Such social collaboration is widespread in Germany and Denmark, but not in Egypt, although the concept of endowment enjoyed broad currency and lay at the heart of the service sector in Egypt prior to its nationalization after the July 1952 Revolution. Decentralization and Collaboration The huge investment in education in Egypt requires steps toward decentralization and social collaboration, to empower local communities through innovative solutions and effective management of their resources in a way that successfully treats local problems. Empowering local investment systems such as endowments and non-‐
profit organizations will surely resolve the problem.