the importance of education is stressed in almost all the speeches delivered by His Excellency President Mubarak. In a speech published in Al-Gomhorira daily newspaper on 16,17 Sept. 1993. His Excellency president Mubarak said:
"Education and its progress is our path and gate to the New World map. Education is the cornerstone of our national security in its broad context, covering economy, politics, our intellectual role which precedented other nations and which leads to stability, development and welfare. Education as such is our way to local and international competition"
In another speech of His Excellency President Hosney Mubarak on 23 Sept 1999; he focussed on the objective of social policy in Egypt which supports the umbrella of social security to protect the individual, provide care for the family and guarantee the rights of limited income classes; in the context of a world of unprecedented quick changes and development. This philosophy identifies economic and social policy in Egypt; in the context of a number of axes, the most important of which is concerned with education. It says:
" More attention has to be given to modern education which is the centre of our future In Ancient Egypt the child's world was not as clearly separated from the adult's as it tends to be in modern Western society. As the years went by childish pastimes would give way to imitations of grown-up behavior.
Children would more and more frequently be found lending a hand with the less onerous tasks and gradually acquiring practical skills and knowledge from their elders.
By precept and example, parents would instill into them various educational principles, moral attitudes and views of life. Thus from a tender age they would receive their basic education in the bosom of the family. For girls, this was usually all the schooling they would get, but for boys it would be supplemented by proper training in whatever line they chose, or was chosen for them.
Education, of course, covers both the general upbringing of a child and its training for a particular vocation. The upbringing of boys was left largely in the hands of their fathers, that of girls was entrusted to their mothers. Parents familiarized their children with their ideas about the world, with their religious outlook, with their ethical principles, with correct behavior toward others and toward the super-natural beings in whom everyone believed. They taught them about folk rituals and so forth.
Educational principles are summarized in a number of ancient Egyptian treatises now commonly called the Books of Instruction. The advice given in them was designed to ensure personal success consonant with the needs of the state and the moral norms of the day.
Truth-telling and fair dealing were enjoined not on any absolute grounds, but as socially desirable and at the same time more advantageous to the individual than lying and injustice, whose consequences would rebound against their perpetrator. The Books of Instruction contain rules for the well-ordered life and elements of morality that include justice, wisdom, obedience, humanity and restraint____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
They mostly took the form of verses addressed by a father to his son as he stepped into his shoes or started to help his aging parent. Similar admonitions were delivered by a king to his heir. Most of these books were compiled by senior officials: humbler scribes, like Ant, only played a part in later times.
Many copies were made of these Books of Instruction, since they also served as teaching texts in the schools for scribes. Seven complete and five partial texts have survived, while the existence of others is known from fragments. The one which appears to be the oldest is by the celebrated, vizier, architect and physician to the 3rd-dynasty pharaoh Djoser.
This text has not survived, but is mentioned in the Harper's Song in the tomb of King lnyotef. Another is the Instruction Compiled by the Noble and Royal Prince Hordjedef for His Son. The two authors of these very ancient books were held in such esteem as to be deified. Of other educational treatises perhaps 3 the most important is the Instruction of Ptahhotep, City Administrator and First Minister during the reign of His Majesty Djedkare Isesi, Ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt during the 5th dynasty. The following passages deal with the art of 'elegant and effective speech'.
You should only talk when you are sure you know your subject. He who would speak in council must he a word-smith. Speaking is harder than any other task and only does credit to the man with perfect mastery ...
Be prudent whenever you open your mouth. Your every utterance should be outstanding, so that the mighty men who listen to you will say: "How beautiful are the words that fly from his lips"
Nevertheless Ptahhotep rates fair dealing higher than learning: You may tell a wise man from the extent of his knowledge, a noble man by his good deeds.
In contrast to the hierarchic structure of Egyptian society in those days, this injunction to respect the opinions and knowledge of simple folk has quite a democratic ring:
Do not boast of your knowledge, but seek the advice of the untutored as much as the well-educated.
Wise words are rarer than precious stones and may come even from slave-girls grinding the corn.
Ptahhotep urges his readers to exercise justice and warns against intriguing for self-aggrandizement, bribery, extortion of debts from those unable to pay and insatiable accumulation of property. His manual abounds in concrete advice on how to behave in various situations - at banquets, in the exercise of high office, towards friends, wives, petitioners, paupers and so on.
The spiritual high-point in this genre is reached in the Instruction of Amenemope at the end of the 2nd millennium BC, some of which is closely comparable with passages in the Old Testament Book of Proverbs. It includes, for example, this call for justice and forbearance toward the poor and widows:
Do not move the boundary-stone in the field nor shift the surveyor's rope; do not covet a cubit of your neighbor's land nor tamper with the widow's land-bounds.
Covet not the poor farmer's property nor hunger after his bread; the peasant's morsel will surely gag in the throat and revolt the gullet
If the poor man is found to owe you a great debt, divide it three ways; remit two parts and let the third stand. That, you will see, is the best way in this life; thereafter you will sleep sound and in the morning it will seem like good tidings; for it is better to be praised for neighborly love than to have riches in your storeroom; better to enjoy your bread with a good conscience than to have wealth weighed down by reproaches.
Never let a powerful man bribe you to oppress a weak one for his own benefit. There is a similar foretaste of Christian morality where Amenemope urges consideration toward the afflicted:
Mock not the blind nor deride the dwarf nor block the cripple's path; don't tease a man made ill by a god nor make outcry when he blunders.
In the surprisingly developed moral code revealed by these excerpts, virtue will be rewarded for reasons that can be summarized as follows: behave justly toward your god, your king, your superiors and your inferiors too; in return you will enjoy health, long life and respect.
When judging the dead, god will deal with you in accordance with your past conduct. Those you leave behind, too, will be glad to acknowledge your good deeds by reciting life-giving words and by bringing gifts to ensure you life eternal ... The supreme aim of the Egyptian moral system was to help maintain harmony and order in the world created by god and maintained by the king.
Alongside the inculcation of general rules of morality there was, of course, formal vocational training. Young men did not usually choose their own careers. Herodotus and Diodorus refer explicitly to hereditary callings in ancient Egypt.
This was not in fact a system of rigid inheritance but an endeavor, as one Middle Kingdom stele puts it, to pass on a father's function to his children. Several other sources confirm that this happened with the consent of the king or his plenipotentiaries. Thus we find throughout Egyptian history a tendency for even the highest offices to remain in the same families.
Towards the end of the Middle Kingdom, for example, there was a virtually dynastic line
of viziers, and in the Ramessid period the offices of the supreme priests of Amun were
passed on from father to son. It was in any case common practice for an official to take on
his son as an assistant. so that the succession became more or less automatic. This was
also the implication of joint rule at the royal level. A son was commonly referred to as 'the
staff of his father's old age', designed to assist him in the performance of his duties and
finally to succeed him. Even if the Instructions of Ant declare that 'offices have no offspring.
From an early age they would be going out to the fields, boys and girls alike, to lend a hand in simple tasks like gathering and winnowing the corn, tending poultry and in time cattle, and so forth. Fishermen, boatmen and others would also take their young folk along with them for practical experience.
Pictures of craftsmen at work, on the other hand, rarely show children present. There is one of a boy handing a leg of meat to a butcher; other examples show a lad helping an older man to smooth down a ceramic vessel, and a boy playing in a row of musicians. In the army youngsters were used as grooms and batmen.
Writings of the Roman Period contain some interesting data about the training of weavers and spinning-girls. A test was probably given at the end of the apprenticeship. At this time weavers usually sent their children to be taught by colleagues in the same trade. The master undertook, if he failed to get his pupil through the whole course, to return whatever payment the father had advanced for the apprenticeship.
Kingdom each scribe taught his successor - usually his son - individually. From the First Intermediate Period onwards there is evidence of whole classes run for trainees in this field. In the New Kingdom they existed in the capital city of Thebes (there was one in the Ramesseum, for example, and a second purportedly at Deir el-Medina) and in later times such institutions were run at other centers too. These were not of course true schools in the sense of independent bodies with full-time teachers. All major offices such as the royal chancelleries, military headquarters and the
The ancient Egyptians nevertheless held education in high regard and saw it as a privilege. A few talented individuals without formal schooling still managed to acquire sufficient knowledge to shine in their own field. And there were of course plenty who tried, as everywhere, to compensate for their lack of education by intriguing or currying favor in high places - sometimes as Just as in modern times, children in ancient Egypt imitated adult behavior. The vast difference lies in the fact that in Egypt, more often than not, the children were learning their eventual trade or occupation by that very imitation. As they grew older, children took on more of the tasks on the farms, the workshops, the vineyards, and acquired practical skills and knowledge from their elders.
Along with the skills also came moral attitudes and views of life. Parents instilled their ideas about the world, about folk rituals, their religious outlook, their viewpoints on correct behavior toward others, and toward the deities.
Some of these ethical principles can be found in the so-called Books of Instruction, or Wisdom Literature. The advice given in these texts may have been addressed by elders of Education in Ancient Egyptthe royal, noble and scribal classes to younger men of those same classes, but surely their concepts were familiar to all levels of Egyptian society. Truth-telling and fair-dealing were offered as social desirable and more advantageous than lying and injustice. Justice, wisdom, obedience, humanity and restraint were offered as components of the well-ordered life.
These texts also served as teaching texts for the schools of scribes.
Formal vocational training also existed along with scribal and at-home teaching. An official took on his son as an assistant, so that the son would have "on the job" training and the succession become almost automatic.
Young men did not usually choose their own careers, instead, they very often followed in the family trade or profession, even up to the highest offices in the land, with the blessing of the king, of course. Towards the end of the Middle Kingdom, for example, there was a virtually dynastic line of viziers, and in the Ramesside period of the 20th Dynasty, the offices of the high priests of Amun were passed on from father to son. By the end of the New Kingdom, officials began openly claiming their right to take over their fathers’ jobs, and this led to the sale of offices.
Education in Ancient EgyptThere were exceptions to the profession by heredity, as for example when a man had no son to follow after him. But adoption was often used to ensure property inheritance and funerary provisioning, as well as succession in the profession.
The king was the only one who did not personally tutor his children. Senenmut, the vizier and royal architect for Hatshepsut, and a man named Idu at Abusir, were such royal tutors. The princes and princesses learned literature, mathematics, writing, and grammar.
Girls from less lofty families learned how to manage a household, and how to sing, dance and play musical instruments. These last would be important if the girl took on temple service as a singer or musician.
Education in Ancient EgyptThe children of farmers and fishermen had even less formal education. They learned how to sow, glean, and harvest, tending poultry and cattle, make nets and catch and prepare fish. Children were often included in scenes of harvesting, fishing, or caring for cattle.
Craftsmen must have taken on children to learn the skills needed for ceramic, faience, and metalworking, or of sculpture and painting, but of all the paintings that depict the craftsmen in their workshops, it is rare that children are shown. There is documentary evidence, however, about the schooling of sculptors and painters. The inscription of Irtisen initiated his eldest son into his art. An artist had to be familiar with the conventions of representation, proportion, posture, and symbolism. Sherds from Deir el-Medina and other places back to the 3rd Dynasty have survived which show evidence of a learning artist attempting to carve a human face and features, and the deities.
Artists, draftsmen, sculptors, all had to be literate. They had to convert texts written on papyri and ostraca into hieroglyphs on temple and tomb walls, and inscribe them on statues, requiring knowledge of both scripts. So craftsmen and scribes had to master reading and writing, in hieratic and in hieroglyphic. A 19th Dynasty textbook, now called Papyrus Anastasi I, was used for teaching the geography of Asia and arithmetic sums in a military context. Foreign languages were not taught as a rule, nor were religious texts and rituals. Physical education may only have been taught to princes, since references are made to the physically weaker scribe. Yet in the story of Truth and Falsehood, the boy was "sent to school and learnt to write well, He practiced all the arts of war and surpassed his older companions who were at school with him." These arts of war might include riding a horse, guiding a chariot, the use of weapons
Students did their arithmetic silently, but they recited their texts aloud until they knew the texts by heart. Then they attempted to write it down, either from a teacher’s model or from memory. Students most often used pottery sherds or limestone fragments called ostraca to practice their writing skills, though they did on occasion use and re-use papyrus sheets that had already been used before them.
There is evidence that at least on one occasion, a girl had been taught reading and writing. A 20th Dynasty letter from a man to his son says, "You shall see that daughter of Khonsumose and let her make a letter and send it to me." More evidence from Deir el-Medina indicates female literacy. Several letters on ostraca were addressed to, or sent by, women. Since the content of some of these letters regarded feminine matters, it is unlikely the sender or recipient sought out a scribe to read or write the letter. Tomb paintings of women occasionally show scribal artifacts under their chairs: the palette, the scribal kit and a papyrus roll.
There was no set length for schooling One high priest named Bekehnkhonsu recalls that he started school at age five and attended for 11 years, the last few of which he was in charge of the King’s breeding stable. At age 16 he was then appointed a wab priest. Four years later he began to progress up the temple hierarchy until after 39 years he was appointed High Priest, retaining that office for another 27 years.
Another high official named Ikhernofret states that he became a courtier when he was twenty-six, after being educated as a foster-child of the king.
During the Old Kingdom, there is no evidence that any formal schools existed, except perhaps at court. Princes taught younger princes, and favored youths were tutored with the king’s own children.
In the Middle Kingdom the first indication of a house of instruction appears, on the tomb of Kheti, a nomarch at Asyut. He urges every scribe and every scholar who has been to school to behave properly when passing his monument ad to speak an offering formula for the deceased. The writer of the so-called Satire of the Trades in the 12th Dynasty brought his son to the school for scribes at "the Residence" of the King near el-Lisht. The author, named Khety, gives himself no rank. Perhaps he was a common man who found a place for his son at this elite school.
During the New Kingdom there were at least two schools in Thebes, one in the Mut Temple, the other at the back of the Ramesseum. There may have been a third near the Valley of Deir el-Medina, where Prior to the nineteenth century, the ulama and Coptic clergy controlled Egypt's traditional education. The country's most important institutes were theological seminaries, but most mosques and churches--even in villages--operated basic schools where boys could learn to read and write Arabic, to do simple arithmetic, and to memorize passages from the Quran or Bible. Muhammad Ali established the system of modern secular education in the early nineteenth century to provide technically trained cadres for his civil administration and military. His grandson, Ismail, greatly expanded the system by creating a network of public schools at the primary, secondary, and higher levels. Ismail's wife set up the first school for girls in 1873. Between 1882 and 1922, when the country was under British administration, state education did not expand. However, numerous private schools, including Egypt's first secular university, were established. After direct British rule ended, Egypt adopted a new constitution that proclaimed the state's responsibility to ensure adequate primary schools for all Egyptians. Nevertheless, education generally remained accessible only to the elite. At the time of the 1952 Revolution, fewer than 50 percent of all primary-school-age children attended school, and the majority of the children who were enrolled were boys. Nearly 75 percent of the population over ten years of age was illiterate. More than 90 percent of the females in this age group were illiterate.
The Free Officers dramatically expanded educational opportunities. They pledged to provide free education for all citizens and abolished all fees for public schools. They doubled the Ministry of Education's budget in one decade; government spending on education grew from less than 3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 1952-53 to more than 5 percent by 1978. Expenditures on school construction increased 1,000 percent between 1952 and 1976, and the total number of primary schools doubled to 10,000. By the mid-1970s, the educational budget represented more than 25 percent of the government's total current budget expenses. Since the mid-1970s, however, the government has virtually abandoned the country's earlier educational goals. Consequently, public investment in new educational infrastructure has declined in relation to total educational expenditures; about 85 percent of the Ministry of Education's budget has been designated for salaries.
From academic year 1953-54 through 1965-66, overall enrollments more than doubled. They almost doubled again from 1965-66 through 1975-76. Since 1975 primary-school enrollments have continued to grow at an average of 4.1 percent annually, and intermediate school (grades seven through nine) at an average of 6.9 percent annually. The proportion of the population with some secondary education more than doubled between 1960 and 1976; the number of people with some university education nearly tripled. Women made great educational gains: the percentage of women with preuniversity education grew more than 300 percent while women with university education grew more than 600 percent. By academic year 1985-86, about 84 percent of the primary- school-age population (more than 6 million of the 7.2 million children between the ages of seven and twelve) were enrolled in primary school. Less than 30 percent of eligible youth, however, attended intermediate and secondary schools. Because as many as 16 percent of Egyptian children were receiving no education in the 1980s, the literacy rate lagged behind the expansion in enrollments; in 1990 only 45 percent of the population could read and write.
Law Number 139 of 1981, which defined the structure of preuniversity public education, made the nine-year basic cycle compulsory. Regardless of this law, most parents removed their children from school before they completed ninth grade. The basic cycle included six years of primary school and three years of intermediate school. Promotion from primary to intermediate school was contingent upon obtaining passing scores on special examinations. Admission to the three-year secondary cycle (grades ten through twelve) also was determined by examination scores. Secondary students chose between a general (college preparatory) curriculum and a technical curriculum. During the eleventh and twelfth grades, students in the general curriculum concentrated their studies on the humanities, mathematics, or the sciences. Students in the technical curriculum studied agriculture, communications, or industry. Students could advance between grades only after they received satisfactory scores on standardized tests. The Ministry of Education, however, strictly limited the number of times a student could retake an examination.
Various government ministries also operated training institutes that accepted students who had completed the basic cycle. Training- institute programs, which incorporated both secondary and postsecondary vocational education, varied in length and provided certificates to students who successfully completed the prescribed curricula. Teacher-training institutes, for example, offered a five-year program. In the academic year 1985-86, approximately 85,000 students were enrolled in all training programs; 60 percent of the enrollees were women.
As of 1990, problems persisted in Egypt's education system. For example, the government did not enforce laws requiring primary- school-age children to attend school. In some areas, as many as 50 percent of the formally enrolled children did not regularly attend classes. There were also significant regional differences in the primary-school enrollment rate. In urban areas, nearly 90 percent of the school-age children attended. In some rural areas of Upper Egypt, only 50 percent attended. Overall, only half of the students enrolled in primary school completed all six grades.
The enrollment rate for girls continued to be significantly lower than for boys. Although increases in the number of girls enrolled in school were greater than they were for boys in the 1960s and 1970s, boys still outnumbered girls at every educational level. In 1985-86, for example, only 45 percent of all primary students were girls. An estimated 75 percent of girls between the ages of six and twelve were enrolled in primary school compared with 94 percent of boys in the same age-group. Girls' primary- school enrollment was lowest in Upper Egypt, where less than 30 percent of all students were girls. Girls also dropped out of primary school more frequently than boys. About 66 percent of the boys beginning primary school completed the primary cycle, while only 57 percent of the girls completed all six grades. Girls accounted for about 41 percent of total intermediate school enrollment and 39 percent of secondary school enrollment. Among all girls aged twelve to eighteen in 1985-86, only 46 percent were enrolled in school.
The shortage of teachers was a chronic problem, especially in rural primary schools. Under British rule, educated Egyptians had perceived teaching as a career that lacked prestige. Young people chose this career only when there was no other option or when it would serve as a stepping-stone to a more lucrative career in law. Despite improvements in training and salaries, teaching--especially at the primary level--remained a low-status career. In 1985-86, Egypt's primary and secondary schools employed only 155,000 teachers to serve 9.6 million pupils--a ratio of about 62 students per teacher. Some city schools were so crowded that they operated two shifts daily. Many Egyptian teachers preferred to go abroad, where salaries were higher and classroom conditions better. During the 1980s, the government granted 30,000 exit visas a year to teachers who had contracts to teach in Arab countries.
Higher education expanded even more dramatically than the preuniversity system. In the first ten years following the 1952 Revolution, spending on higher education increased 400 percent. Between academic years 1951-52 and 1978-79, student enrollment in public universities grew nearly 1,400 percent. In 1989-90 there were fourteen public universities with a total enrollment of 700,000. More than half of these institutions were established as autonomous universities after 1952, four in the 1970s and five in the 1980s. The total number of female college students had doubled; by 1985-86 women accounted for 32 percent of all students. In the 1980s, public universities--accounting for roughly 7 percent of total student enrollment--received more than one-fourth of all current education-budget spending.
Since the late 1970s, government policies have attempted to reorient postsecondary education. The state expanded technical training programs in agriculture, commerce, and a variety of other fields. Student subsidies were partially responsible for a 15 percent annual increase in enrollments in the country's five-year technical institutes. The technical institutes were set up to provide the growing private sector with trained personnel and to alleviate the shortage of skilled labor. Universities, however, permitted graduates of secondary schools and technical institutes to enroll as "external students," which meant they could not attend classes but were allowed to sit for examinations and to earn degrees. The policy resulted in a flourishing clandestine trade in class notes and overburdened professors with additional examinations. Further, widespread desire for a university degree led many students in technical institutes to view their curricula as simply a stepping-stone to a university degree.the children of workmen were taught.high as royalty. educational policy
