Despite repeated efforts in recent decades to improve the quality of education in Egypt by adopting international practices, little, if any, success has been achieved. More often than not, adopting even the best international education practices can tend to overlook some of the characteristics of the Egyptian educational system that are deeply ingrained and resistant to change. Policies are often implemented without a deep understanding of the local conditions and contexts, and are largely done so in isolation from one another. The consequence of this has been a disoriented and malfunctioning education system. By historically situating education policy in Egypt, however, we can better understand the underlying reasons behind such failure where one educational strategy attempts to take over another. For education reform to be successful, policies need to take into account domestic contexts while providing the enabling environment including the right processes, resources and mechanisms.
<h3 style="text-align: left;">Understanding the international transfer of educational policies</h3>
There is a general consensus in the field of comparative education that identifying positive aspects of educational provision &lsquo;elsewhere&rsquo; can serve as useful lessons at &lsquo;home&rsquo; (Phillips, 2009; Beech, 2006). However, the concepts that deal with the transfer of education policies are complex. In fact, the process of transfer takes place at different points along a continuum (Ibrahim, 2010; Phillips &amp; Ochs, 2004). At one end, the transfer of education policy is enforced (such as those which occurred during colonial rule), and this is called &lsquo;&lsquo;lending&rsquo;&rsquo; of educational policies. On the other end, the foreign model is voluntarily adopted (seeking financial aid or technical assistance from international agencies for example), and this is referred to as &lsquo;&lsquo;borrowing&rsquo;&rsquo;. In reality, however, due to the increased ramifications of globalization, these transfers take place with varying degrees of voluntarism and coerciveness, depending on the context, time, and place (Phillips &amp; Ochs, 2004). Furthermore, the coercive aspects of such transfers, especially when the two parties are asymmetrical in power, are sometimes masked by the adoption of apolitical, technical, and neutral terms such as &lsquo;&lsquo;knowledge sharing&rsquo;&rsquo;, &lsquo;&lsquo;best practices&rsquo;&rsquo;, and &lsquo;&lsquo;bench-marking (Ibrahim, 2010).&nbsp;
Since the transfer of education policy is a complex process that involves the interaction between social structures and institutions, the transfer of these policies must be understood by performing different levels of analysis before they are adopted or applied. Analysis at the macro level help in understanding general trends, ideologies, and structural changes. This type of analysis mainly deals with the international context to determine the strengths/weaknesses that might influence the policy. On the other hand, a micro-level analysis focuses on the national context and focuses on the social, cultural, political and economic aspects that can influence educational policy adoption. In a globalized world, it is worth noting that not implementing a specific program in a certain country does not imply that the transfer has not taken place. Rather, the transfer of ideas is present within the political discourse that emerges from a much larger flow of ideas within, and between, the local and the global. Hence, while policy makers may rely on global examples in legitimizing reform or obtaining funding, the time between policy talk, policy action, and policy implementation plays a significant role in the transformation of these borrowed policies and practices.&nbsp;
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">A brief history of Egyptian education policies</h3>
There have been continuous efforts aiming at reforming the education system in Egypt. However, the current education system in Egypt is a product of inappropriately-adapted historical transfers that attempted to spread a modern education without seriously reforming some of the system&rsquo;s most deeply-rooted shortcomings (Ibrahim, 2010). The current system is defined by diverse and incoherent characteristics, such as the divide between secular and religious education, the adoption of an extreme version of French centralization, the implementation of a deformed version of British inspection, the questionably &lsquo;&lsquo;free&rsquo;&rsquo; education, and neoliberal principles of privatization and active-learning pedagogies. Such characteristics can easily be traced back to repeated efforts to reform the education system since Muhammad Ali&rsquo;s era. Thereafter, each strategy has tried to abolish one another without addressing the underlying characteristics that hinder the emergence of a high-quality education system. To elaborate on how these characteristics came to exist, it is worth briefly reviewing the Egyptian education system&rsquo;s main milestones.&nbsp;
When Muhammad Ali came to power, he sought to reform and renovate the education system in Egypt by introducing a system based on the French model. However, the renovation clearly created a division between modern secular schools and the traditional religious educational institutions. With Khedive Ismail&rsquo;s rule, Muhammad Ali&rsquo;s grandson, the division grew even wider; three types of schools existed side by side: western schools for foreigners and the Egyptian elite, modern schools in urban centers, and the kuttab (traditional Islamic Quran schools providing elementary levels of education) for poor Egyptian children (Ibrahim, 2010). Under Khedive Abbas I, Ali Mubarak, the director of the government education system, aimed to spread education to villages and small cities. Regardless of intention, however, his policies actually deepened pre-existing divisions. In the main cities, schools provided modern curricula and foreign languages, while village schools delivered only basic elementary subjects. When the British colonized Egypt in 1882, they focused their efforts on countering French influence and quelling the Egyptian nationalist movement supporting education reform at the time. Hence, British authorities dismantled various attempts to spread the benefits of education throughout the country, and modern education returned as an option limited to foreigners and privileged Egyptians.&nbsp;
Following the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, Gamal Abdel Nasser proclaimed the right of every child to free public education, as one of his socialist policies. Although this right had been enshrined in the Egyptian Constitution of 1923, it was never put into effect. Despite such expansion, expenditures on education were limited due to the enormous outlays for the military, thereby negatively impacting the quality of education. With Anwar Sadat&rsquo;s open door policy, the role of education as a social equalizer began to diminish. Importantly, international organizations, such as USAID and the World Bank, began to support the Egyptian government financially during this period (Ibrahim, 2010). By 1980, Egypt became one of the primary beneficiaries of US development aid programs and the international donor community played a pivotal role in shaping Egyptian policy, including in the education sector.&nbsp;
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Current implementation of international education policies</h3>
Since the 1990s, Egypt has been signing and conforming to international conventions to enhance its education outcomes while adopting &ldquo;best practices&rdquo; and &ldquo;knowledge sharing&rdquo; models. Undoubtedly, a lot of improvements have taken place on the quantitative front (such as expanding education to the hard to reach areas with net enrollment rates for primary stage reaching 96.9%, reducing the dropout rates for primary school between 2016/2017 to 2017/2018 to 0.4%, and the rate of transition from the primary to the preparatory stage between 2017/2018 to 2018/2019 was 99%) (<a href="http://emis.gov.eg/Site%20Content/book/018-019/pdf/ch5.pdf">Ministry of Education, 2019</a>). However, measuring the quality of education through learning outcomes, such as <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/timss/">TIMSS</a> scores, is extremely narrow and unsatisfactory. In 2015, Egypt ranked 49 out of 50 countries in reading for 4th graders in TIMSS, 34 out of 39 countries in mathematics for 8th grade students, and 38 out of 39 countries in science for 8th grade students.
Unable to overcome some of the ingrained characteristics of the Egyptian education system, reforms such as active-learning pedagogies, decentralization, and the use of technology, among others, have met little, if any, success. The deeply-rooted traditional methods of teaching and learning, coupled with high class densities, poor infrastructure, low status of teachers, and an examination system based on memorization are some of the driving forces behind such failures. As such, education reforms in general, have been highly contested and resisted by various interest groups. The recent educational reform, that promotes the heavy reliance on technology in teaching and learning, is a vivid example. Despite its current under capacity and inefficient inputs for a quality educational process, the Ministry of education continued to pursue this policy assuming that education reforms function in a vacuum. However, as a recent OECD report notes:&nbsp;
&ldquo;While the potential of ICT [Information and Communication Technologies] in education is huge, the problems, challenges and constraints Egypt is currently facing mean that undue focus on, excessive funding of, or overconfidence in ICT to engender the desired reforms in teaching and learning are not warranted since ICT will not replace the core business of teaching and learning&rdquo; (<a href="https://www.oecd.org/countries/egypt/Schools-for-skills-a-new-learning-agenda-for-Egypt.pdf">OECD, 2015</a>, p. 134).
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Rethinking policy implementation</h3>
It is important to understand and emphasize the importance of reforming an education system in context, rather than transferring policies in a vacuum. Local conditions and priorities help to explain why policies are borrowed (externalization), how they are locally modiﬁed and implemented (re-contextualization), and what impact they have on existing structures, policies and practices (internalization) (Crossley, 2019). Hence, an increased sensitivity to context, in multiple forms and at all levels, is important for deepening our understanding of the nature and complexities of education and for improving the chances of successful policy implementation. Additionally, it is critical to adopt a bottom-up approach of engaging and listening to direct beneficiaries and stakeholders in improving the education process. Hence, an enabling environment including the right processes, resources and mechanisms is essential for a progressive educational system.&nbsp;
<hr>
References
<ul>
<li>
Beech, J. (2006). Redefining educational transfer: International agencies and the (re)production of educational ideas. In J. Sprog&oslash;e &amp; T. Winther-Jensen (Eds.),&nbsp;Identity, Education and Citizenship &mdash; Multiple interrelations&nbsp;(pp. 175&ndash;196). Frankfurt, Germany: Peter Lang.
</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
Ibrahim, A. S. (2010). The politics of educational transfer and policymaking in Egypt. Prospects, 40(4), 499&ndash;515.
</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
Crossley, M. (2019). Policy transfer, sustainable development and the contexts of education. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 49:2, 175-191, doi: 10.1080/03057925.2018.1558811
</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
OECD. (2015). Schools for Skills &ndash; A New Learning Agenda for Egypt. Retrieved from <a style="color: #000000;" href="https://www.oecd.org/countries/egypt/Schools-for-skills-a-new-learning-agenda-for-Egypt.pdf">https://www.oecd.org/countries/egypt/Schools-for-skills-a-new-learning-agenda-for-Egypt.pdf</a>&nbsp;
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<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
Phillips, D. (2009). Aspects of Educational Transfer. In Cowen R., Kazamias A.M. (eds) International Handbook of Comparative Education (Springer International Handbooks of Education, vol. 22). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer Netherlands.
</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
Phillips, D., &amp; Ochs, K. (2004). Researching policy borrowing: some methodological challenges in comparative education. British Educational Research Journal, 30(6), 773-784. doi:10.1080/0141192042000279495b
</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2006). The Economics of Policy Borrowing and Lending: A Study of Late Adopters. Oxford Review of Education, 32(5), 665-678.
</li>
<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2014). Cross-national policy borrowing: understanding reception and translation. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 34(2), 153&ndash;167.
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<li style="font-size: 10pt;">
Steiner-Khamsi, G., &amp; Waldow, F. (2012). Policy Borrowing and Lending in Education. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
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</ul>

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