For more than half a century, without interruption, the crisis of Thanaweya Amma (the General Secondary school system, i.e. the public one) has dominated the scene as one of the clearest failures of Egypt’s education system—an ongoing dark comedy. True, the current Minister of Education, Dr Ahmed Zaki Badr, has made a difference in managing the education process with his strict approach and a relatively different way of thinking from his predecessors. His direction may well be the right one, although, in this chronic crisis, no one can say with certainty what is right or wrong anymore.
However, one must not forget that he is part of a government long accused of failing to improve education for decades. From a propaganda perspective, it makes sense for the government and its state media to shine a spotlight on any achievement made by the diligent minister, who is striving to resolve this age-old crisis. The image projected by the media portrays him as an unparalleled visionary leader, making everyone forget that he is simply doing what should be the basic responsibility of any minister in charge of a ministry that is habitually under fire.
At the end of last week, the minister visited Sohag governorate to monitor Thanaweya Amma exams there—a reasonable and expected move. However, education officials in the governorate sought to turn the occasion into yet another spectacle to fuel the government’s propaganda about the educational transformation supposedly unfolding under ‘the heroic minister’.
Officials gathered around a thousand primary and preparatory school pupils in Sohag, lining them up in formation outside the governorate’s headquarters to welcome the minister. The Directorate of Education in the governorate summoned these children from their holidays to grant them the honour of greeting him. They were left waiting for more than three hours under the scorching sun.
When he arrived, he ignored them and went straight inside to meet the governor. Left outside, the children moved towards a public fountain at the governorate headquarters, trying to shield themselves from the heat by drinking and washing their faces—despite the fact that public fountain water is not safe for drinking. But, thankfully, the stomachs of Egyptian children remain as tough as ever, and so far, no cases of illness have been reported.
Meanwhile, on the same day, another familiar annual scene played out: students and parents expressing outrage over the difficulty of the Thanaweya Amma exams. Yet this time, the minister’s strict policies—which, in some ways, could be considered positive—turned against him. Complaints this year were louder, harsher, and directed personally at him.
Among the absurd accusations, one parent claimed: ‘The minister came specifically to take revenge on students and their parents.’ A bizarre allegation, entirely lacking logic, revealing only the disturbed thinking of its source. Another student shattered a nearby window and slashed his wrists in protest over the exam’s difficulty. Elsewhere, enraged parents stormed a girls’ school and broke its gates after hearing the students screaming, following several fainting incidents. The school administration had refused to let them leave after the exam ended.
With all due respect to both sides of this hysterical, incomprehensible scene—government and public alike—doesn’t any rational person stop to ask: ‘What is actually going on?’ Shouldn’t the government feel ashamed of this hollow propaganda for educational ‘achievements’ that barely amount to basic administrative corrections? And, just as importantly, shouldn’t parents be asking: what happens after Thanaweya Amma?
Do they not see the long queues of unemployed graduates from so-called ‘top faculties’? These faculties, supposedly the pinnacle of higher education, churn out doctors, engineers, and pharmacists whose competence barely extends beyond the university walls. They fail to secure a distinguished place in the real supply-and-demand dynamics of the job market.
The Thanaweya Amma crisis, which has dragged on for so long that it has become a stain on the country’s social identity, continues to be met with solutions that only complicate matters further. The government, the media, and society as a whole stand accused together. All of them are shortsighted when it comes to this chronic headache of an issue. None seem to grasp that there is no real difference between a medical graduate and a law graduate—they are all equally underqualified. They all suffer from something they do not understand. The Egyptian student has never been taught how to search for what they truly want, what benefits them, or what they are actually capable of achieving based on their skills and interests. Instead, everyone is chasing after rigid social moulds, illusions forged from high-grade, deeply rusted iron.
This article is originally published by AlBorsa in Arabic and later AI-translated by South Push.