Egypt’s education was once a right, now a ransom

I had promised to continue speaking about education in Egypt. That promise came rushing back with the tragic accident that claimed the lives of 18 young bright women in Egypt.

Among them was an engineering student, another from the Faculty of Arts, and a third enrolled at the Higher Institute of Nursing. All of them were still pursuing their education. Their fatal journey was primarily an effort to earn money for their studies, then for their dowries—the expected contributions towards their future marriages.

These were beaming hopeful faces, now adorned in black ribbons. Joining them on their final journey was the young driver Adham Mohamed Anas, 22 years old, preparing to marry one of them, but they both died together.

Only weeks earlier, another driver had been killed while trying to steer his burning fuel truck away from a gas station, sacrificing his life to save hundreds. Between these two tragedies, yet another driver was hospitalized while attempting to steer a leaking diesel truck away from crowded areas.

People die chasing their livelihoods—seeking food, healthcare, and education. As the poet Mohamed El-Sayed put it “He strung his years on the wind’s frail thread—all for a crust, a drop of medicine.”

Meanwhile, others live among kilograms of gold and billions that have become routine numbers, summering along the coast of fancy beach mansions on the Mediterranean, attending celebrity concerts with ticket equal the lifetime earnings of one of these young casualties.

Some in that elite class, even own farms that rely on young women like those who perished while on their way to fatten someone else’s fortune. These were smart, determined students in public education, proving their merit, yet still finding themselves forced to work, and work again, just to pay for what’s supposed to be free government education.

And then what?

What if that engineering student—whom her family said went to work to afford her tuition—hadn’t died?

Had she lived, she would have struggled to find work in a job market rigged in favor of the privileged, who would then go on to earn even more in a multinational firm. Poverty breeds poverty, and money begets more money.

The thief becomes a Pasha, basking in respect, adorned with titles of virtue and philanthropy. The poor, meanwhile, are blamed: Why have children? Why send daughters to hard labor? Why do they resent the noble billionaires?

Where we were, and what we’ve become

Today we find poor girls working in the harshest conditions to cover the costs of their supposedly “free” public university education—burdening families that can barely afford textbooks and handouts. Yet in earlier times—despite far greater class divisions—education was free and didn’t deepen the gap.

I don’t believe in the myth of a “golden age,” and I’m not bragging when I say Egypt was the first country in the world to establish a school and library—“Per Ankh.” Nor am I here to narrate the history of education in the style of a comedy film.

As the poet Al-Mutanabbi said:

Those before us bore this world’s weight,

Its thorns pierced them as they pierce us now.

They left it, hearts gagged by its gall,

Though some, at times, sipped fleeting sweetness from its cup.

 

Still, I believe in progress. That’s the nature of things. If we begin with the arrival of Mohamed Ali in Egypt and his need for educated citizens trained in modern Western methods to serve his projects, we find that he did not come to a cultural wasteland. Hundreds were already enrolled at Al-Azhar, which not only offered free education but also fed and housed students, who often came from the kuttab local Quranic schools that cost no more than a loaf of bread and an egg.

So when Mohamed Ali set out to reform education, he wasn’t sowing seeds in barren soil. He built higher education institutions that drew their students from Al-Azhar, also offering food and housing. Top students were even sent abroad on fully funded scholarships with monthly stipends—covered entirely by the state.

His first project? The School of Engineering in 1816—the same school that, over two centuries later, would enroll one of the casualties from the Menoufiya accident. The inspiration for founding this school, according to historian Al-Jabarti, was a man named Hussein Shalaby Agwa, who invented a machine for hulling and whitening rice. Mohamed Ali rewarded him and built the engineering school to train more “Engineer Husseins” for his state.

In other words, Mohamed Ali not only found a nation hungry for education, but one brimming with talent that spurred him forward. Egyptians have never been lazy or stupid. What we’ve always been branded with—rightfully or not—is poverty. And that, despite the wealth of our land, has never been our fault.

The first person to found a girls’ school was Pope Cyril IV, who died in 1861. His school accepted both Muslim and Christian girls. Teachers came from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, England, and Italy. It was part of the Church’s charitable work—charging no fees and even providing meals.

The first government-run girls’ school came in 1873: El-Sania School (also known as Al-Suyufiyya). Its first graduating class in 1900 included none other than writer and intellectual Malak Hifni Nassef.

Education for rural girls was taken up by Nabawiyya Musa—the first Egyptian girl to earn a baccalaureate degree, and the first female principal of an Egyptian primary school, a role previously restricted to the British.

This is how Egyptian education grew and thrived—reaching the highest levels. Nowhere in its history do we find parents bearing such immense costs that their children die on the streets while trying to afford tuition.

Then came the occupation, planting the seeds of tuition-based education in a push to graduate more bureaucrats for its own purposes. That’s why the 1923 constitution guaranteed free primary education, but secondary and higher education remained fee-based and reserved for the sons of elites and senior officials.

Until Taha Hussein—then Minister of Education—voiced his cry that we still hold onto today: “Education is like water and air.” He pushed the state to make secondary education free. Then came the 1952 revolution, which extended free education to the university level.

But it wasn’t just free—education also had quality: strong curricula, well-trained teachers, free meals, and programs that nurtured patriotism and pride in local culture while embracing global awareness. Students graduated from public schools fluent in English and French—without sacrificing their mastery of Arabic.

That was before we arrived at today’s Egypt, where private school owners hoard gold bars under their floor tiles to keep them safe from the gaze of the poor—and where continuing your education requires parents and students to suffer so much that we now count martyrs among those who pursued learning.