Friday March 29th, 2024
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Egyptian Government Moves to Ban Unauthorised Private Tutoring and Shut Educational Centers Down

Failing to adhere would lead to hefty fines and even prison sentences.

Staff Writer

According to a statement by head of the Education Ministry's press department Ahmed Saber, the ministry is preparing a bill to criminalise private lessons and close down all tutoring centers in Egypt. The bill states that unauthorised teachers and centres will be fined and could even see jail time.

Though the closing of private education centers was already discussed in the past, however pushed in the backdrawers, the issue was brought back to the forefront after a video of a tutor using offensive language towards her students at a private tutoring school in Alexandria went viral, according to Saber.

He added that the incident is now under investigation, and that the foul-mouthed tutor will possibly face work suspension.

In Egypt, private tutoring centers have essentially “replaced” schools, with high school students leaving school early to go these centers and get the education that they don’t receive in public school. Unlike most other countries, where private tutoring lessons are provided to deal with challenges faced at school, extra lessons in Egypt are meant to fill in for the inadequacies of the Egyptian education system.

High school students often attend school until 12 PM so that they can be marked present and go attend private lessons or go to tutoring centers. Many schools don’t even expect full attendance from the students anyway.

The private lesson phenomena has become so intense that teachers have become sort of like entrepreneurs, competing with each other to get students to attend their extra classes at private tutoring centers that they rent out.