With more than 25 million students, Egypt has the largest educational system in the Middle East, yet the quality, effectiveness, and market value of education are still poor.
Consequently, the Ministry of Education and Technical Education began its Education 2.0 reform program in 2017 to shift teaching towards critical thinking rather than memorization to address these issues.
The U.S. and Egyptian governments have long partnered to improve access, to high-quality education. Starting in the 1980s, USAID helped make primary education accessible for all Egyptian children – with the greatest impact on girls’ enrollment – by building 2,000 schools and providing scholarships.
Since then, USAID and Egypt have promoted high-quality teaching and learning by training over 100,000 teachers and partnering with the Ministry to establish Egypt’s first science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) high schools, which serve 5,000 students annually.
*Pictures courtesy of USAID.