{"id":17247,"date":"2025-11-01T12:28:27","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T10:28:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/?p=17247"},"modified":"2026-10-24T15:03:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T13:03:29","slug":"edu-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/edu-5\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cEnough\u201d: Egyptian Parents Call for a School Boycott Over Workloads and Costs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Social media platforms in Egypt are witnessing an active online <\/span>campaign<\/span><\/a> calling for an education strike starting from 1 November 2025, in protest at what students, parents and teachers describe as worsening crises in the education system. These calls come as a protest against what they described as the difficulty of the school curricula, the pressure of weekly assessments, the high prices of textbooks and private tutoring, as well as the lack of time set aside for studying, which reflects negatively on students and families. <\/span><\/p>\n

The campaign is accompanied by demands for the dismissal of the Minister of Education, Mohamed Abdel Latif, and for the curricula to be lightened. The main reasons behind the <\/span>calls<\/span><\/a> for a strike centre on the complaints of pupils and their families about the psychological pressure resulting from the large number of assessments and assignments, and the loss of class time to exams instead of actual teaching, in addition to the high costs of education. <\/span><\/p>\n

A number of prominent hashtags have spread across social media, such as: (<\/span>#Dismiss_the_Minister_of_Education<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>#Education_strike_starting_from_the_first_of_November<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>#No_to_assessments<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>#Lighten_the_curricula<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>#Abolish_weekly_assessments<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>#Abolish_classroom_and_homework_performance_assignments<\/span><\/a>), which activists, parents and students are using to mobilise support and to demand that the government respond to their demands, calling for the strike to be open-ended, starting from the first of this November until the demands are met.<\/span><\/p>\n

As <\/span>Malak Adham<\/b>, the mother of a boy and a girl studying in the preparatory and general secondary stages, tells it, Egyptian families are suffering severe pressure because of the current education system, as students are losing the ability to concentrate and rest because of the lack of time and the accumulation of daily homework and frequent assessments that exhaust students and parents alike. She notes that mothers bear a double burden, as they study alongside their children despite their household responsibilities. <\/span><\/p>\n

The mother, who has joined the calls for a strike, criticises the decline in attention to school activities such as sport, music and drawing, calling on the Ministry of Education to lighten the curricula, reduce weekly assessments and give students a real opportunity to study, rest, play sport and pursue their natural activities, and expressing regret at what she described as the collapse of the ambitions of families and students under the pressure of the curricula, as their goal from education has become “just passing”.<\/span><\/p>\n

She tells Zawia3: “The Ministry of Education must listen to the voices of parents, students and teachers as those best able to diagnose the problems of education. Officials at the ministry take decisions without consulting the people really concerned. Our children are being subjected to educational oppression and we parents share that oppression with them, which causes psychological pressure inside Egyptian homes”, stressing that some students, including her son in the third year of secondary school, have developed depression from excessive academic pressure and the accumulation of information.<\/span><\/p>\n

She notes that her son in general secondary was taught under the old system, which she described as more balanced and fairer than the current one, explaining that he was able to combine studying, sports activities and private tutoring without exhaustion or psychological pressure. The new system, however, has destroyed this balance and led students to lose their energy and interest, as she puts it, pointing out that her daughter, who is in the preparatory stage, sometimes has to eat her meals while studying to keep up with the large volume of homework, and keeps studying until midnight.<\/span><\/p>\n

Malak criticises what she described as the “incomplete” application of the international education system, explaining that the ministry transferred the curricula without providing what they require in qualified teachers, equipped schools and an integrated assessment system, and noting that information technology is taught theoretically without practical application. She criticises the way some teachers treat students, stressing that the psychological pressure exerted on them inside the classroom has created hatred of school among the children.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile,<\/span> Ehab El-Sawah<\/b>, the parent of a girl in primary school, believes that the current education system is very difficult for children at this young age, stressing that the daily pressure pupils are subjected to has become beyond their capacity and that of their families.<\/span><\/p>\n

He explains to Zawia3 that a child’s day begins early in the morning with going to school, then attending private lessons after returning home, before doing his homework without finding time for actual studying or understanding, continuing: “The school day now repeats itself at the same pace day after day, without rest or renewal, and this exhausting system does not affect children alone, but also places a psychological and physical burden on families who share this constant effort with their children”.<\/span><\/p>\n

El-Sawah calls for the school curricula and continuous assessments to be lightened, proposing that assessments be held once a month instead of every week, because the current system puts great pressure on pupils and teachers at the same time.<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, he calls for the absence system to be reconsidered, because many children are forced to be absent due to illness, and forcing them to attend in such cases is a danger to their health and that of their classmates, given the possibility of infection spreading among them, stressing that these demands are simple and easy to implement, and that applying them would greatly ease the suffering of families and children and help improve the learning environment and its quality.<\/span><\/p>\n

In contrast, the Ministry of Education denied that any official decision had been issued to lighten the curricula as of November 2025, stressing in statements<\/a> carried by local media that what is being circulated online is baseless, and that any changes to the curricula or school timetables will be announced officially.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Recommended reading: <\/b>Burdens First, Education Later: A New School Year of Shocking Decisions for Parents in \u201cExperimental and International\u201d Schools<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Teachers share the burdens<\/b><\/h1>\n

Discontent with conditions in schools and the crises battering the education system has not been confined to a broad sector of pupils and their families, but has extended to include many male and female teachers; as<\/span> Dina El-Abd<\/b>, a teacher at a girls’ industrial secondary school in Minya Governorate, reveals, conditions inside technical schools have sunk to an unprecedented low, and she stresses that technical education is “actually collapsing” because of the absence of discipline, the weak academic level of pupils, poor management, and the absence of material and moral support for pupils and teachers alike.<\/span><\/p>\n

She stresses that the new curricula known as the <\/span>“Competencies System”<\/b> have aggravated the crisis, because they include material requirements that take no account of the students’ circumstances, obliging each student to keep buying tools and materials for practical training in the clothing, decoration or computing specialisations, and burdening their families financially amid grinding economic conditions. <\/span><\/p>\n

She tells Zawia3: “The girls and boys in technical education joined those schools because their families cannot afford the cost of private tutoring in general secondary, so how can we ask them every week to buy new threads, fabrics and tools? That is why many of my students are forced to be absent or to transfer to the home-study system, because they are unable to meet those costs”.<\/span><\/p>\n

The teacher explains that she and her female colleagues bear an additional burden in preparing assessment books and electronic files for each student, since most of the students cannot write well, noting that some schools handed teachers blank assessment books to fill in by hand on the students’ behalf, adding: “We are asked to write an error-free assessment, while the student does not know how to write her own name, so how is that education?”.<\/span><\/p>\n

She also points to the shortage in the number of teachers and the refusal of supervisors to send new teachers to technical schools, on the pretext that basic education takes priority and that the academic subjects in technical education are of no importance, which has left entire schools without mathematics, science or Arabic teachers, making do with substitute classes or a single teacher covering more than one school, while the workshops turn into a new financial burden without real benefit and the academic subjects are completely neglected, which makes the educational process “a mere formality, nothing more”. She stresses that technical education is treated as a marginalised sector within the ministry, as sufficient staff are not sent to it and it receives no administrative or field attention.<\/span><\/p>\n

El-Abd criticises the daily assessment system imposed on teachers, noting that it obliges them to carry out a continuous assessment of every student every day in a class of about fifty students, which leaves them unable to explain or follow up, adding: “We spend the day on assessment and on attendance and departure, and find no time for actual teaching.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Regarding the calls for a strike, she says that many teachers implicitly support them, especially those who teach primary-stage pupils, because they suffer similar pressure from daily assessments and multiple tasks, but she believes the solution lies not in a strike but in “officials going down to the schools themselves to see the real situation, and that reform will only be achieved through a realistic vision that takes into account students’ financial capacities and their level of preparation, and restores consideration to activities and teachers”, noting that schools have turned into an arid environment lacking any recreational or educational dimension, and that even physical education classes have been cut to one class a week, although each class is supposed to receive three or four.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) revealed<\/a> last October that the total number of pupils in Egypt for the 2024\/2025 school year stood at about 28.9 million pupils in pre-university education, distributed as follows: 23.734 million pupils in general education, 2.1 million pupils in technical education, and 3.101 million pupils in Al-Azhar education.<\/p>\n

The number of teachers in pre-university education (general \u2013 technical \u2013 Al-Azhar) reached 1.034 million teachers during the (2024 \/ 2025) school year, teaching 28.9 million pupils, among them 798,400 teachers teaching 23.734 million pupils in general education, compared with 110,900 teachers teaching 2.1 million pupils in technical education, and about 124,500 teachers teaching 3.101 million pupils in Al-Azhar education. The number of teachers in primary education reached 468,300, with about 252,900 teachers in preparatory education, while the number of teachers in secondary education reached 114,100.<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Recommended reading: <\/b>\u201cMosque Nurseries\u201d: A Step to Bridge the Educational Gap or the Beginning of Social Sorting?<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n


\nAnger on the education street<\/b><\/h1>\n

According to <\/span>Fatma Fathy<\/b>, founder of the Education Without Borders initiative, the curriculum crisis in Egypt has been ongoing since the launch of the new education system in 2018, and she stresses that the current problems are not new but the result of accumulations that have gone unaddressed for years; however, the two former education ministers, Tarek Shawki and Reda Hegazy, were more engaged with parents, while the current minister, Mohamed Abdel Latif, lacks communication, which has heightened the tension on the education street and fuelled the escalating calls to strike by staying away from school.<\/span><\/p>\n

She explains that the root of the crisis goes back to earlier statements by the former Minister of Education, Dr Tarek Shawki, who acknowledged that the curricula were imported and contained content beyond the abilities of Egyptian children, which prompted the ministry at the time to cut some lessons. However, the new curricula have become more difficult again in recent years, with repeated changes that have confused students and teachers alike. She notes that the current minister has focused on bringing students back to schools without providing what is needed for that, while pupils suffer enormous pressure because of the density of the curricula, the multiplicity of weekly and monthly assessments and the difficulty of the subjects, at a time when the shortage in teacher numbers has not been fully filled. <\/span><\/p>\n

She tells Zawia3: “Students return home exhausted, unable to complete their homework, because classes are short, classrooms are overcrowded, and the curricula include units containing a large number of lessons that exceed the children’s capacity, which has made them rely on explanations from their parents or on private tutoring. My twin children study in the new system and also suffer from the heavy curricula and the length of the school day. The student has lost the ability to understand or analyse and has come to rely on rote learning, and switching exams from the multiple-choice system to essay questions shows the absence of a clear vision for managing the education file”.<\/span><\/p>\n

The initiative’s founder asks: “How can one talk about Egypt Vision 2030 for education while the curricula change with every minister?”, noting that what is happening is not adjustment but repeated radical change that robs the system of stability, and that the current minister listens neither to the demands of parents nor to the boards of trustees, which has increased the anger on the education street.<\/span><\/p>\n

She adds: “The decisions on reducing densities inside classrooms were implemented in reverse, as students were moved between schools far from their residential areas, forcing families to bear daily transport costs”, pointing out that the absence of school activities is a serious aspect of the crisis, as their classes were cancelled to fill the shortage in core subjects, which deprived students of their outlet and led to an increase in aggressive behaviour among them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fatma, who works as an art education teacher, recounts the administrative burdens imposed on teachers, as a class lasts no more than 35 minutes, a period insufficient for explanation or for following up on assessments in classes of between 45 and 50 students, which leaves teachers unable to do their work with the required efficiency, explaining that even activity subjects, such as art education, are now taught theoretically without actual practice because of the lack of time.<\/span><\/p>\n

She also criticises the decisions to raise fees and textbook prices, stressing that some schools forced parents to pay the fees in full in a single payment to complete the preparatory-stage form, at a time when most families are suffering financial hardship, and explaining that the prices of language books have doubled, and that many families with more than one child in experimental schools are now unable to afford school supplies. She notes that the turmoil has also extended to the question of school uniforms, as some schools imposed new colours not available on the market and forced families to buy them from the school, which increased the financial burden on parents at a time when the country is suffering from rising prices and hard living conditions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fatma Fathy concludes her conversation with us by stressing that the calls to strike on the first of November express widespread public anger at the way the education system is managed, and are not merely a protest against the curricula alone, warning that the ministry’s disregard of the demands of parents and teachers may lead to more tension, and calling for a genuine dialogue with all parties to be opened before it is too late.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ahead of the start of the school year, anger escalated among parents over the rise in the prices<\/a> of school fees and books for official language schools and distinguished official language schools for the 2025\/2026 school year, which ranged from EGP 1,875 for kindergarten to EGP 2,950 for the third preparatory grade, while textbook prices ranged between EGP 820 and EGP 830 for kindergarten, from EGP 1,030 to EGP 1,230 for the primary stage, and reached EGP 1,755 in the third preparatory grade.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the total<\/a> fees for kindergarten in distinguished official language schools reached EGP 3,477.41; the total rose to EGP 4,190.51 in grades one to three of primary school, to EGP 4,490.51 in grades four to six, and in the preparatory stage to about EGP 5,173.61 for the first and second grades and EGP 4,973.61 for the third grade, with book prices ranging between EGP 1,400 and EGP 1,500.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Recommended reading: <\/b>The Baccalaureate: A Development of General Secondary or the End of the Era of Free Education?<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The learning environment is not ready for the curricula <\/b><\/h1>\n

In the view of Dr <\/span>Mohamed Khalil<\/b>, an educational and pedagogical consultant, modern school curricula have seen a marked development for the better, as they now focus on understanding and logical analysis more than on memorisation and rote learning; however, this radical change was accompanied by a number of challenges in the early stages of its application, especially for parents, students and teachers alike.<\/span><\/p>\n

Khalil explains to Zawia3 that the most prominent current problems lie in the large amount of homework and school assessments, a result of the sudden transition from a traditional education system based on memorisation and limited homework to a modern system that imposes a large volume of daily tasks, noting that this change has created a state of general discontent, as teachers feel under pressure because of the imbalance between the volume of academic content and the number of assignments, while parents find it difficult to keep up with the new curricula, prompting some of them to turn to artificial intelligence or to do the homework on their children’s behalf to spare them exhaustion after a long school day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Khalil stresses that the solution lies not in abolishing assessments but in diversifying their methods and devising more flexible alternatives, such as group projects in which a number of students take part, or short online tests using official educational platforms such as the “Knowledge Bank” and the platforms of the Ministry of Education.<\/span><\/p>\n

The education expert proposes that a student be given just one weekly assignment of educational value, instead of being burdened with five or six assignments a day that exhaust him psychologically and physically, calling for technology to be used in the assessment process, through applications and short tests of no more than three minutes, while taking into account the circumstances of students in villages and areas with weak internet connectivity.<\/span><\/p>\n

He adds: “The new curricula are good in terms of content and direction, but they need some organisation and a lighter volume of homework, and making their application easier will make the experience more successful and sustainable”, stressing that the goal is organisation, not abolition, and finding a balance between the requirements of the curriculum and the capabilities of the students.<\/span><\/p>\n

The expert warns of the long-term negative effects of this continuous pressure, which may lead the student to turn away from school and the local education system and push him to look for alternatives in foreign systems, which represents an additional burden on Egyptian families.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Dr<\/span> Bothaina Abdel Raouf<\/b>, an education expert, considers that the current debate over school curricula and assessments is not new, but dates back to the start of the school year, and that the application of the assessment system began last year. She therefore believes that the calls circulating on social media to strike from school on the first of November look like an orchestrated campaign more than a spontaneous reaction to the state of education.<\/span><\/p>\n

She tells Zawia3: “The real problem lies not in the curriculum itself or in the process of developing it, but in the failure to take the culture of the Egyptian family into account when applying the new system; the developed curriculum no longer relies on memorisation and traditional studying, but on performing interactive activities and repeating short assessments to consolidate information, along the lines of the American system, yet Egyptian families have not yet become accustomed to this style of education”.<\/span><\/p>\n

The education expert notes that any development of the education system is doomed to fail if it is not given enough time to be absorbed by students, parents and teachers, explaining that a large part of the crisis relates to the conditions of schools and of teachers, who suffer from low salaries and weak resources, in addition to the fact that carrying out educational activities requires long periods of time that may not be available in government schools.<\/span><\/p>\n

She adds: “The new curricula may have been developed in line with international standards, but weak training in how to apply them and the absence of sufficient time to benefit from them have made the experience falter so far. The problem is not in the academic content, but in the learning environment, which is not yet ready to receive this kind of development”, pointing out that parents in turn bear part of the responsibility, as they still cling to a traditional educational culture based on private tutoring, memorisation and final grades, instead of developing the child’s skills and capacity for self-learning.<\/span><\/p>\n

She explains that weak confidence in the education system increases families’ attachment to private tutoring, because of what some schools experience in terms of teacher shortages, cramped spaces and negative practices by some teachers who pressure students to push them into private lessons, and even punish those who refuse, stressing that developing the curricula is an important and necessary step, but one that needs good preparation of society, teachers and schools before it is applied, and that real educational reform begins with changing society’s culture towards education, not with changing the curricula alone.<\/span><\/p>\n

By contrast, Dr <\/span>Hassan Shehata<\/b>, professor of curricula and teaching methods at the Faculty of Education at Ain Shams University, stresses that school curricula are built according to standards that take into account learners’ abilities, inclinations and needs, alongside the requirements of society and its vision for the future, with attention to modern technologies and to the nature of the school subjects, their core concepts and their applications in life.<\/span><\/p>\n

He explains to Zawia3 that the comprehensive and continuous assessment system for learners is a fundamental tool for gauging students’ levels of attainment, with the aim of identifying strengths and reinforcing them and identifying weaknesses and addressing them, through continuous exams, classroom and extracurricular activities, and continuous interaction between learners and teachers, stressing the importance of school discipline in attendance and departure, and the role of parents in supporting the educational process and achieving its goals.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shehata believes that the fundamental issue facing education is the Ministry of Education’s determination to restore the role of the school and to combat the phenomenon of private tutoring, external textbooks and students’ absence from schools, problems that have led to the spread of alphabetic illiteracy and the graduation of students who lack basic skills, especially at the basic education stage.<\/span><\/p>\n

He calls on parents to recognise the scale of the efforts the ministry is making to develop the educational process, noting that the aim of these efforts is to graduate a new generation of young people capable of thinking, analysis and critique, of accepting others and respecting the cultures of other peoples, contributing to building the New Republic.<\/span><\/p>\n

The calls for an education strike reveal the depth of the crisis battering Egypt’s education system, in which the problems of dense curricula, the pressure of continuous assessments and the absence of activities intersect with economic and psychological burdens weighing on families, teachers and students alike. <\/span><\/p>\n

While parents and students see the current system as having exceeded their capacity and robbed them of the joy of learning, the Ministry of Education insists that development is a necessity to keep pace with the future, while education experts stress that the success of any educational reform depends on preparing the school and social environment, training teachers and involving the family in formulating solutions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Education in Egypt stands at a crossroads: either the state succeeds in building a balanced education system that responds to students’ capabilities and needs, or the state of tension continues, threatening further deterioration in society’s trust in the school and its role. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The call for a strike in November carries a symbolism that goes beyond merely staying away from school. It is a message of collective protest from parents and students who feel that education has become futile. One mother says: “We want someone to hear us. Our children are not numbers in the ministry’s data”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":14413,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[413],"tags":[],"kateb":[1550],"class_list":["post-17247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society-en","kateb-aya-yasser"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/\u0627\u0644\u062a\u0639\u0644\u064a\u0645.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17247"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24058,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17247\/revisions\/24058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17247"},{"taxonomy":"kateb","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kateb?post=17247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}