{"id":17374,"date":"2025-08-25T18:02:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T16:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/?p=17374"},"modified":"2026-10-24T15:04:41","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T13:04:41","slug":"education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/education\/","title":{"rendered":"Nurseries in Mosques: Expanding Early Education or Deepening Religious Divides?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ministry of Awqaf and the Ministry of Education announced the launch of a<\/span> project <\/span><\/a>to establish educational nurseries inside mosques, to be implemented during this summer, with its pilot application starting in Qena Governorate (southern Egypt), so that every village or neighbourhood would have one nursery inside one of its mosques.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to a statement by the Cabinet, Minister of Awqaf Osama al-Azhari and Minister of Education Mohamed Abdel Latif signed a cooperation protocol to launch the project. The Minister of Awqaf explained that the initiative aims to eradicate illiteracy and to instil moral and religious values in children, in addition to “consolidating national belonging, building the Egyptian character, and connecting generations with their cultural and civilisational heritage”.<\/span><\/p>\n

For his part, the Minister of Education stressed that the ministry’s teachers would be assigned to deliver educational activities to children inside the mosques during the morning period, with suitable teaching aids and games provided, on condition that the floor mats are folded up before the noon prayer to prepare the space for prayer. Some observers interpreted this as a direct integration of the educational function into the religious framework.<\/span><\/p>\n

The project comes at the same time as the “Return of the Kuttabs” initiative, which al-Azhari announced last December and which he described as an attempt to revive the educational and religious role of the traditional kuttabs, in the face of what he called “extremist thought and atheism”.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite the project’s declared objectives, such as supporting early education and combating illiteracy, its announcement raised questions and criticism in rights and educational circles. A number of specialists expressed fears that confining these nurseries to mosques, to the exclusion of other places, could contribute to reinforcing discrimination on religious grounds and undermining the principle of equal opportunity among children, in addition to redeploying religious symbolism in a space that is supposed to be civic and inclusive of all citizens.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Recommended reading: <\/b>The New Education Law: This Is How Free Education Is Being Eroded in Egypt<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\nWhat About Non-Muslim Children?<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Although the project does not explicitly exclude Christian children, confining the nurseries to mosques alone raises serious questions about whether non-Muslim children will be able to benefit from this service. On this point, Dr Said Sadek, professor of sociology, says that the mosque nurseries project entrenches clear religious discrimination and raises fundamental questions about the fate of Christian children whose parents cannot afford to enrol them in private schools, but who at the same time cannot, socially or religiously, send them to Islamic da’wa institutions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sadek continues, speaking to Zawia3: “If you are a Christian child from a poor family, and you have not found a place in the overcrowded government schools, what is the alternative? Will you turn to the mosque? Is the church able to provide a parallel nursery? And will the child be treated with the same equality inside those institutions?”<\/span><\/p>\n

He also raises doubts about how ready mosques are to play an effective educational role, questioning the nature of the curricula, the competence of the educational staff, and the values-based and religious content that will be adopted. He also points out that many mosques lack the basic infrastructure needed to provide a suitable learning environment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Article (53) of the <\/span>Egyptian Constitution <\/span><\/a>states that “Citizens are equal before the law, and they are equal in rights, freedoms and public duties, with no discrimination between them on the basis of religion, belief, sex, origin, colour, language, disability, social level, political or geographic affiliation, or any other reason”. Article 19 of the Constitution also states that “Education is a right of every citizen, aimed at building the Egyptian character, preserving national identity, rooting the scientific method in thinking, developing talents and encouraging innovation, consolidating civilisational and spiritual values, and establishing the concepts of citizenship, tolerance and non-discrimination”.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Under the <\/span>Convention<\/span><\/a> on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which Egypt ratified in 1990, the state is obliged to take “all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of discrimination”, whether that discrimination is based on the child’s religion or on the beliefs of the child’s parents, according to the text of Article 2 of the convention. The convention also provides, in Article 14, for the child’s right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, which requires providing a religiously neutral learning environment that takes diversity into account and guarantees the family’s right to guide the child in line with its own beliefs.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Recommended reading: The Baccalaureate: An Upgrade of the General Secondary Certificate or the End of the Era of Free Education?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Entrenching Sectarianism?<\/b><\/h1>\n

Ishak Ibrahim, officer in charge of the Equality and Non-Discrimination Programme at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, believes that the project to establish educational nurseries inside mosques, even if on the surface it appears to be a service initiative with a developmental dimension, carries within it worrying messages that entrench religious discrimination and strengthen the presence of religious institutions in the public sphere at the expense of the role of the civil state.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Zawia3, Ibrahim explains that the existence of nurseries attached to religious institutions, as in some churches, is not a problem in itself, as long as those institutions are subject to clear educational oversight and are run by specialists.
What is worrying, in his view, is the generalisation of one particular religious model as the officially approved model for early education<\/strong>, with direct government support, which grants institutional legitimacy to a religious role that is not subject to civil educational standards.<\/p>\n

Ibrahim stresses that the nursery is no longer a preparatory or recreational activity, but has become part of formal basic education, and must be provided through recognised educational institutions that are subject to national quality and oversight standards.
He adds: “There is a fundamental difference between an educational institution affiliated with a religious body and under the supervision of the Ministry of Education, and the religious institution itself directing the educational process inside religious facilities, using a methodology that is not subject to official oversight.”<\/p>\n

In the same context, Elham Eidarous, the founders’ representative of the Bread and Freedom Party (under establishment), expresses her fears about this project, in which she sees an extension of a broader course of entrenching societal sectarianism<\/strong> from earliest childhood, by inserting the religious dimension into the most basic stages of education, particularly in poor environments that lack civil alternatives.<\/p>\n

Eidarous explains, speaking to Zawia3, that the project contributes to creating religiously separate learning environments, in which Muslim children are sent to mosques and Christian children, if the means are available, to church nurseries, leading to the emergence of generations that do not experience living together and do not get to know “the other” in their childhood.<\/p>\n

She continues: “In these nurseries, the Muslim child will not see a Christian child, and vice versa. This entrenches sectarian sorting, and makes interaction between the country’s children an exception rather than the rule. Especially since children are not exposed to the religious education subject before the first year of primary school, that is, after the age of six, while the new project brings them into a religious atmosphere very early.”<\/p>\n

She points out that the project in effect targets poor families, because the middle or upper class usually turns to private or international nurseries. Instead of the state establishing public nurseries open to all, which it funds and whose neutrality it guarantees, it hands the responsibility over to the Ministry of Awqaf, which entrenches what Eidarous calls “class sectarianism” from the pre-school stage.<\/p>\n

\n

International principles point to the necessity of neutrality in early education. The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which Egypt has signed, obliges states to guarantee the provision of public services, including education, without direct or indirect discrimination.<\/p>\n

Article (5) of the convention states that “States Parties undertake to prohibit and to eliminate racial discrimination in all its forms and to guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, colour, or national or ethnic origin, to equality before the law”, including the right to education, equal access to public services, freedom of religion and belief, and other fundamental rights.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Recommended reading: <\/span>National Universities in Egypt: From the Right to Education to a Paid Privilege<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Rise of Subsidised Sectarian Education?<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Ishak Ibrahim believes that the move towards establishing nurseries inside mosques reflects the state’s withdrawal from its basic educational responsibilities, and the Ministry of Education’s abandonment of its role in providing fair and neutral education that guarantees equality among all children without religious or social discrimination.<\/p>\n

He asks: “Will these nurseries offer the same official curricula? Will they be subject to the quality and oversight standards applied to government institutions? Or are we facing parallel religious and educational content that is implicitly imposed on children?”
He adds that the educational institution, at this early age, is not limited to its academic function, but contributes to shaping the child’s awareness, and if the upbringing is based on religious insularity or sectarian sorting, its effect will extend to the child’s awareness as a future citizen.<\/p>\n

Dr Said Sadek, professor of political sociology, goes further still, describing the project as a reflection of what he called the “educational and institutional bankruptcy” from which the Egyptian state suffers.
Sadek attributes this decline to the absence of the political will to invest in a modern educational infrastructure, especially in working-class and marginalised areas, which has pushed the state to resort to primitive solutions, such as turning mosques into nurseries, in a regression he described as “a return to the kuttabs in the age of artificial intelligence”.<\/p>\n

He says: “The state is incapable of building humane classrooms. In some schools, 80 or 90 children sit in a single classroom, many of them on the floor. Instead of solving the crisis at its root, the state chose the mosque as a temporary refuge, even though it is not equipped for it educationally or technically.”
He points out that education is no longer a real priority, as public spending on it does not even meet the constitutional percentage set at 4%. While the poor have been left to their fate, the elites continue to enjoy private and international education.<\/p>\n

Sadek concludes with a warning: “We are not moving towards an education for the future; we are withdrawing from it. While countries such as Saudi Arabia invest in educational technology, Egypt is returning to models of memorisation and rote learning, and turning religion into an educational curriculum that substitutes for the state.”<\/p>\n

For her part, Elham Eidarous notes that this direction is in line with the “State Ownership Document” issued in 2022, which classified the pre-school education sector among the sectors that will not see an expansion of public investment, but rather a gradual withdrawal. She points to the decline in the number of nurseries affiliated with the Ministry of Social Solidarity in recent years, which opens the door for religious institutions to fill this vacuum.<\/p>\n

She explains that what is available to the poor today is not public civil education, but religious nurseries with official backing. She says: “Instead of establishing civil nurseries that respect diversity and serve everyone, we hand the task over to the Awqaf. This not only excludes non-Muslim children, it also excludes the poor from the right to public education, and places on families the burden of adapting to a project that does not serve them, but instead reproduces sectarian division with official blessing.”<\/p>\n

To close the picture, UNESCO’s guiding principles (2020) on inclusive education affirm that education in early childhood should be separate from religious frameworks, unless genuine pluralism and real diversity in the provision of the service are guaranteed<\/strong>, in a way that ensures that all children and their families feel safe and that they belong, and avoids any form of discrimination or stereotyping.
This means that providing early education services in purely religious institutions, without guaranteeing neutrality and diversity, contradicts the most basic principles of fair and inclusive education<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Editorial correction: The first version of the report stated that the State Ownership Policy Document was issued in 2021; the correct date is 2022, as the government put forward its draft in May 2022 and the President of the Republic approved its final version in December 2022.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A project to establish nurseries inside mosques is stirring wide controversy in Egypt, amid fears of religious discrimination and the exclusion of non-Muslim children, and warnings against turning early education into a tool of sectarian sorting instead of promoting citizenship and equality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":13722,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[413],"tags":[],"kateb":[728],"class_list":["post-17374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society-en","kateb-shimaa-hamdy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/\u062a\u0639\u0644\u064a\u0645-1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17374","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=17374"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24079,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17374\/revisions\/24079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17374"},{"taxonomy":"kateb","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kateb?post=17374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}