Omar Samir

This policy recommendation paper is part of a project between the Arab Forum for Alternatives and the Swiss cooperation office Egypt, entitled “Public Policies and Social Justice”, where parallel education and the phenomenon of informal privatization of education in Egypt, or what is known as private lessons, represent a real crisis that has eluded many. A phenomenon affects Egyptian families, overburdens their families and contributes to enhancing disparities according to the different physical capacities to spend from the pocket on education. This paper seeks to search for some solutions and strategies. Mechanisms to reduce the phenomenon of private lessons within the mechanisms of the development of education in Egypt in the context of the search for more just educational policies.

In this context, the paper discusses the main reasons for the spread of the private tutoring phenomenon. This paper is due to a complex spending crisis that includes inadequate and unequal distribution of public spending on education, while the number of students in the different stages of pre-university education is increasing by 15.5% in 2017/2018. Than in the 2013/14 academic year, which means that pre-university enrollment rates are improving, the number of classes in the same period increased by only 5.1%, which means more classroom overcrowding and dissatisfaction of students and their parents with the level and output of education. .

It then analyzes the impact of this phenomenon on justice and rooting inequalities, where private lessons play a vital role in promoting inequalities, as it is available to the rich people. It transform education for a commodity of different degrees of quality, as well as reinforcing the disparities between dozens of teachers of private tutors and hundreds of thousands of less privileged colleagues In utilizing them, as well as disparities between the provinces in the distribution of student densities.

The paper presents historical Egyptian and international experiences in dealing with the crisis, such as the Egyptian experiences such as Port Said governorate, which has the best human development rates and the best teacher rate for each student and the low-density border governorates where the problem of private lessons does not appear. The experience of Malaysia and Brazil in promoting equality and fairness in access. On education, the experiences of some Gulf countries in targeting the achievement of strong international indicators in the field of education.

The paper presents some strategies to address the crisis, including targeting the reduction of educational intensity of classes by increasing the number of schools and teachers or the proper utilization of available schools and the distribution of students efficiently within three periods by specific criteria. That can contribute effectively to reduce the crisis of private lessons by losing the need when the densities do not increase in the classes for 25 students. As well as the strategy of the gradual integration of the system of private lessons in the educational system, with the adoption of self-learning distance in advanced stages.

The paper recommends that constitutional ratios for spending on education should be adhered, managed efficiently as a prerequisite for initiating any of the development strategies. It argues the need to target the reduction of student densities, improve wages and optimize the use of schools to reduce the phenomenon of private lessons in preparation for its elimination.

Full version of the paper is available at Dar Al Maraya for Cultural Production, 23 Abdel Khaliq Tharwat Street, Downtown, Cairo, and at Arab Forum for Alternatives office in Beirut, West house 3 Building, Jane Darc, Hamra St., Beirut, Lebanon. For an Arabic synopsis: afalebanon.org/?p=8095