What the government has in store for education investment and spending in FY 2023-24:Last week, Planning Minister Hala El Said laid out the government’s sustainable development plan for FY 2023-24 in an address to the House of Representatives, while Finance Minister Mohamed Maait presented the draft state budget for the upcoming fiscal year. The sustainable development plan — which the ministry issues every year to work towards Egypt Vision 2030 — covers planned government spending on several key sectors, including education, infrastructure, the green economy, and manufacturing.

Education, higher education, and scientific research spending accounts for 23.1% of the EGP 3 tn planned for spending next year, with some EGP 691.5 bn earmarked across these three areas. That figure is c.24.5% higher than the government’s spending budget for these areas in FY 2022-23.

Focus on plugging teacher shortages continues: The upcoming fiscal year’s investment budget largely picks up where the current fiscal year’s budget will leave off — with a chunk of spending going towards plugging shortages of teachers and classrooms across the country, according to a Planning Ministry statement. Spending on educators’ wages is also set to come in at a total of EGP 2.99 bn, according to the state budget. The budget expects to see the government hiring 13k additional teachers annually, at a cost of EGP 1.4 bn per annum, according to the document Maait presented to the House of Representatives last week.

REFRESHER- Why are there shortages in the first place? Egypt’s K-12 teachers generally face a host of challenges, including low salaries and a lack of necessary qualifications, research has shown (pdf). Teacher training is especially challenging, as the education system often values academic prestige over the practical skills that would help teachers become better educators.

And there’s spending going towards building out education infrastructure: The government’s sustainable development strategy for the upcoming fiscal year aims to construct and develop 14k classrooms, according to El Said’s statement to the House of Representatives. The strategy will also look to improve the quality of K-12 education across 39 classrooms, comprising 823 classrooms, including 31 Japanese schools, five schools for gifted students, and three state-run international schools, the minister said. As for higher education, the strategy plans to prepare and outfit 16 civil universities, including El Galala University, El Alamein University, King Salman International University, and New Mansoura University.

Tablets are getting more investments: The strategy plans to improve the educational sector’s infrastructure quality by offering 700k tablets and 1k smart screens to schools and students in the public education system. Tablets and electronic exams were a crucial component of former Education Minister Tarek Shawky’s plan to overhaul Egypt’s K-12 education system, which was modeled in part after the education systems of Japan and Finland. The sustainable development strategy statement does not specify how much the government expects to spend on the new tablets. The Education Ministry had tapped Samsung back in 2018 to supply 1 mn educational tablets for that academic year under a USD 240 mn contract.

What we’re not sure of: How much of these allocations are going towards scientific research. A big hindrance for our research landscape has been a lack of funding, as we’ve previously reported. Global rankings for our universities are typically held back by more scientific research output.

Your top education stories for the week:

  • An electronic portal for higher education equivalency certificates is now available in Egypt.
  • Education spending will increase by19% to EGP 229.9 bn in FY 2023-2024.
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