Egypt’s school education investment potential has always been massive. A June 2024 UNICEF paper said the country’s “student age population” in 2025 was 32.5 million. If they were a country, it would be the sixth-largest among MENA’s 19 nations.  

Meeting the academic and vocational demands of such a large market has proved difficult. “The quality of education [in Egypt] remains a major challenge,” said UNICEF. “Many schools have poor infrastructure, with around one in five school buildings unfit for use … More than half of the students in Egypt do not even meet the low benchmark in international learning assessments.” 

During AmCham Egypt’s April Investment Conference, local and international education experts highlighted the massive opportunities, crippling challenges and paths to success.

Investment potential?

At the event, Carina de Miranda, IFC’s Global Sector Lead for Education, said Egypt should be an education investment magnet, as adding about 1.9 million newborns yearly “ensures solid long-term growth prospects.”

Such a large market also means education programs can be “scaled easily,” said de Miranda. “Egypt needs scalability more than anything to make [education] affordable and accessible.”  

Another advantage for Egypt is “private sector participation is low, and there are opportunities to take over from the government as well as operate in one of the many underserved areas nationwide,” she said. 

The opportunity is not only in building schools. The IFC executive highlighted the need for teacher training and infrastructure, especially in Cairo, Giza, and Qalyubia. Another opportunity is designing, printing, publishing, and distributing non-government education books, Ahmed Wahby, CEO of Egypt Education Platform (EEP), a digital education services provider, said at the conference.

Capitalizing on those prospects has allowed investment firm EFG-Hermes to “raise $150 million to build and acquire [local] schools,” said Co-CEO Karim Moussa. “Our portfolio now includes 23 education facilities, [a publisher of non-government school books] and a bus transportation company.”

Egypt’s classroom shortage is fueling those education investment opportunities. “There is demand for whatever we build,” said Moussa. In 2024, the deficit reached 250,000 classrooms.

African investment firms also are looking at Egypt. Nadia El Tawil, Investment Officer at AfricInvest Group, said the investment firm moved to Egypt after opening academic and vocational schools in Ghana and Tunisia. 

Egypt, unlike AfricInvest Group’s two previous investments, also targets African students from outside Egypt seeking education in English and French. “Instead of traveling outside the continent to get quality education, students travel to Egypt,” said El Tawil. 

Complicated sector

Though there may be abundant local opportunities, El Tawil noted they are not lucrative. “In countries like Egypt, the government needs private investment in education to accommodate a development angle,” she said. That means “accepting lower profit margins and ratios to ensure community benefit and financial feasibility.”

To counter the resulting business risk, AfricInvest Group adopts a “continental view,” where “one country’s risk is mitigated by investment in another, more promising nation,” El Tawil said.  

Another complication in Egypt is that “for decades, institutional education investors focused on Greater Cairo, [which is] only 20% of the potential market,” said Ahmed Soliman, managing director of LS Investment Office outside Cairo, during the conference. 

Challenges of investing in other governorates include a “lack of land supply, the high cost of necessary infrastructure, and [residents’] noticeably lower purchasing power compared to those living in [Greater] Cairo,” said Soliman. 

He also cited bureaucracy and crippling legislation: “In most cases, it could take months or even years to get a license.”

Vocational education faces even bigger challenges. “In Egypt, it is only sustainable when [an operator has] two or three schools,” said Dina Ghabbour, chair of the board of trustees of Ghabbour Foundation for Development. 

That is because the government doesn’t allow vocational training providers to charge tuition fees. “We fund 85% of the investment in vocational training courses,” Ghabbour said. Secondly, private companies offering vocational training can’t tap into the government’s budget for such education. 

“That money would enable us to invest more, which is critical because the up-front investment cost is huge as training facilities need equipment, machinery, spare parts, and other expensive items,” she said.

Ultimately, she stressed that private sector vocational education in Egypt is possible if supported by profit-generating establishments that don’t expect direct revenue.

Overcoming those challenges will open the door to massive opportunities. “We have huge demand and insane opportunities in vocational training,” Ghabbor noted. “We have a dream and a plan. Our ‘dream’ is to build 200 vocational schools. Our ‘plan’ is to raise funds [to stay afloat] and change policies.”  

Success formula

Finding success in Egypt requires a significantly large and diverse geographic and sectoral footprint supported by continual innovation.

A case in point is CIRA Education. It owns 11 education brands in 12 of Egypt’s 29 governorates, spanning nine nursery branches, three universities with 31 faculties, and 30 schools offering six education systems. The number of enrolled students is more than 62,000 for the 2024/2025 academic year. 

Meanwhile, its “innovative offerings tap into unmet demand in underserved locations,” said Ahmed El-Kalla, the company’s non-executive director. One example is digital schools that target remote and overseas students. His aim is to create a digital platform that “connects all pockets of excellence in the region … to scale them.” 

Their approach has translated to profits. In April, CIRA Education reported 40% year-on-year revenue growth in the second half of 2024. 

The next step for CIRA Education is seeking regional opportunities, noted El-Kalla. Wahby of EEP labeled Egypt “a regional [education] hub” for GCC countries and Africa. 

The opportunity in GCC countries arises from their “underdevelopment in curricula accreditation,” Wahby said. “Egypt is a regional pioneer with a lot of experience with accreditations from various countries and in various education systems.”

Another advantage is in “designing and constructing purpose-built schools,” Wahby said. “We have been working with the education ministry on smart and efficient designs. The GCC is just starting.” He also noted Egypt’s experience and cost advantage in managing school administration operations.

In Africa, while their French education may be superior to Egypt’s, they lag in British and American curricula and accreditation. “We can enter this part of the market because of our long experience with those two systems,” Wahby said. “We have [a lot of] teachers with significant knowledge of those systems.”

For the next few years, Saudi Arabia is expected to be a prime destination for education investments. “The updated Saudi Vision 2030 puts human capital development at the center,” Alaa Tolba, senior director of investment management at Saudi Egyptian Investment Co., said at AmCham Egypt’s Investment Conference, “The focus is on high-quality, scalable, yet differentiated concepts.”

Their strategy is “yielding results as King Saud University ranks among the top 100 universities worldwide,” Tolba said. “This reflects [the country’s] drive to have a globally competitive workforce.”

Making money

For Moussa of EFG-Hermes, local education investments face temporary yet crippling challenges from “high interest rates [24% at press time], uncertain exchange rates, lucrative treasury bills, and high inflation [13.9% at press time].”

Under such circumstances, “school investors’ and operators’ profit margins must be at least 30% annually to make it more feasible than investing in treasuries,” he said

To get private equity firms interested, “for [at least] five years, education establishments must double [their profits] every two years,” Moussa said. “That is very hard in education, which makes talking to investors [abroad] very difficult.” 

This article first appeared in June’s print edition of Business Monthly.