Egypt is working to revive language-school PPP, but a plot shortage is holding up the second phase

Egypt’s effort to revive its public-private partnership (PPP) language schools is waiting on plots. The program built 24 schools in its first phase in 2019, but none of the schools planned for its second phase have made the Finance Ministry’s list of PPP projects to contract by year-end, according to a copy of the list we reviewed in October. Securing suitable sites with governorates and local administrative bodies is still underway, a government official tells us.

The second phase has been six years in the making, and was launched in October 2020, when the Education Ministry invited prequalification for 98 language schools. Last November, Finance Ministry Central PPP Unit Director Atter Hannoura described a smaller 54-school framework, with investor prequalification due by 1Q 2026. The target has since risen to 57 schools, he tells us, though that prequalification round has yet to take place, the official says.

The revival will start small. Rather than wait for sites for every second-phase school, the finance and education ministries are “changing the pace of execution, and starting with available plots before expanding gradually as new ones are secured,” Hannoura tells us.

Plots are what the state brings to the model, granting them on a 30-year usufruct, while the investor finances, builds, and runs the school (aimed at middle-income families) before it reverts to the Education Ministry. The first phase of schools opened under that model in 2020, Hannoura said in July, according to Al Mal.

The program lost some of its plots while it stood still. Progress stalled after “a string of economic changes pushed construction costs above the estimates in the tender documents,” the official tells us. In that time, some governorates moved plots earmarked for schools to other projects, while some administrative bodies in those governorates failed to hand over the sites they had agreed to provide, the official says.

The Finance Ministry aims to reach 800 PPP language schools by 2030, Hannoura tells us. The Education Ministry is targeting up to 600 schools under a separate partnership program, the official says, though it has not announced which schools that program covers.

The Education Ministry is studying handing more existing state schools to private operators to run under its rules and supervision, widening the model beyond the official international and German schools Emerald Education oversees so more private players can join, the official tells us. It handed the management of 33 official international schools, state schools that teach international curricula, to Emerald under a December 2025 agreement, keeping their annual fee increases capped at 7%. It was also reviewing offers for around 40 national schools, a government official told us in January, and no handover has been announced since.

One operator welcomes the proposal. “Operating existing schools could lower investment costs by sparing investors the price of plots, a heavy burden as prices rose and with limited space outside residential blocks,” Al Omran International Schools Group Chairman and Private School Owners Association member Saber Omran tells us. He describes it as an out-of-the-box idea raised about two years ago and says handing over complete schools “could help restore investor appetite for building new ones.”

Private School Owners Association Chairman Badawy Allam sees hurdles on both tracks. Handing over state schools could face practical difficulties and raise public concerns about how those schools are run and the services they provide, he tells us. For new PPP schools, state-set tuition and a fixed 30-year usufruct — compounded by rising construction costs — could make some projects economically unfeasible for investors, he adds. Investors have asked to extend that term to 50 years, a government official told us in December 2024.

A call for cheaper plots: Allam wants the state to offer school sites at low prices or at no cost under clear rules to lower investment costs. He’s also calling for a review of the General Authority for Educational Buildings’ requirements on per-student space and courtyards in residential blocks. Those rules are separate from the minimum plot size for private language schools, which the government cut to 1.2k sqm from 2.5k sqm in 2024. A review would allow more schools to be built and reduce class density, he says.