Prosecutors released Dr Mohamed Zahran, an education expert and founder of the Teachers’ Independence Movement, in October 2026, after he spent more than three months in pretrial detention on a charge of publishing and spreading false news. In his interview with Zawia3, Zahran says he still does not know the real reason for his detention. He recounts his independent candidacy in the 2025 House of Representatives elections in Matariyya and the appeal he filed with the Court of Cassation.
Zahran also discusses the education budget and the constitutional provision that has not been implemented since 2014; the Educational Professions Syndicate, which is run by a “caretaker committee” not recognised by its law; the teachers’ pension of no more than EGP 120 a month; and his conditions for running for syndicate president.
The interview follows:
“A closed chapter”: detention and release
We would like to hear the details from you. What happened to you?
I do not want to talk about that period. I consider it a closed chapter, and we have started a new one. The period of detention has passed and we have moved beyond it. We are extending our hands to the state: no one can question our patriotism, and the state needs every one of its people. I believe the state has recently begun reaching out to people, as demonstrated by my release when it established that the allegations against me were untrue. I have returned to work, and life goes on.
What charges were brought against you, and how long were you detained?
The charge in the prosecution’s order is publishing and spreading false news. I spent three months and four or five days in detention, from 17 July to 20 October.
Did you face restrictions in detention? Did you encounter problems or any arbitrary treatment?
People detained in what are known as cases of opinion are treated differently. We are held in a place with special treatment, separate from people held in criminal cases involving drugs, public funds and crimes against the person. Ultimately, it is a difference of opinion: the security agencies believe this speech creates problems in the country, while the accused believes he is discussing the state’s issues and problems. In the end, the security agencies established that this was the case; they know everyone’s history.
I do not need to produce documents proving Mohamed Zahran’s patriotism. I participated in drafting the 2014 Constitution at the invitation of the presidency. I submitted its education provisions, Articles 19 to 25, and they were included exactly as I submitted them. This is recorded in the minutes of the Committee of Fifty. I also submitted Articles 76 and 77 on professional syndicates, and they appeared verbatim as I submitted them. The sessions were recorded with my voice on the Sawt Al-Shaab channel. It was the first time in the history of constitutions that a teacher represented education on a constitution-drafting committee, and I received recognition from the prime minister’s office and the minister of education at the time.
I am known to them. When they draw up an education development plan, they invite me. When the National Dialogue came, they invited me to amend the Education Law and the Educational Professions Syndicate Law. The state itself knows Mohamed Zahran’s value. But malicious complaints are sometimes filed, and an investigation takes place based on the circumstances and particulars of the complaint. The security authorities check the truth of these allegations, and consequently I was released after three months in detention.
Naturally, there is no doubt that the experience is difficult. If you were at home and the door were locked with no one there and the key on the outside, even knowing that you would soon get out, that you could call to someone passing through the peephole to open it, or telephone someone to open it, you would feel suffocated. You might even feel that way with the door open and no one else at home. So imagine being deprived of your freedom inside a prison. Ultimately, prison is a place for serving a punishment.
I pray that this period is never repeated, because it is a psychologically painful experience. I have a family, a home and children who need me with them, particularly since my children are young and need care and a constant presence. However advanced a prison may be, with television, exercise periods when we go out and sit outside for a while, ventilation, beds for sick people and facilities that help people stay there, it is still, first and last, a prison.
Parliamentary elections and “the reasons for detention”
Many people said your detention was connected to what happened in the latest House of Representatives elections. Is that true?
I ran as an independent in the 2025 House of Representatives elections for Matariyya, and I appeared in Egyptian, Arab and foreign media. I went to pay the candidacy fees assuming they would be one or two thousand pounds, as we had seen before, only to find they were thirty thousand pounds. I wrote on my pages: “Everyone, I am sorry. All I have is my salary from my job.” Salaries do not cover the basics, and we have to work alongside our jobs to meet basic needs and necessities. Teachers’ salaries, like those of state employees, do not enable anyone to support a household.
I had to withdraw, but residents of the constituency, friends and loved ones collected the thirty thousand pounds and paid my candidacy fees. People also paid for the medical examination, which cost ten thousand pounds. I did not put up campaign banners. Banners are for people who want to introduce themselves; the constituency’s residents know me. People who had not been taking part went out to vote and told me: “We have not voted in an election since 2013. We came out specifically for you.”
God granted me success in the first round and I reached the run-off, where I was winning overwhelmingly. Then we were surprised to find that the result had changed: the result had been manipulated. We submitted documents to the general committee and the National Election Authority proving manipulation and deliberate fraud through electoral bribery. The police arrested 45 people who were distributing bribes and directing voters towards the other candidates. We filed an incident report at Matariyya police station documenting manipulation and fraud inside one polling station. Among 46 polling stations, excluding just one ballot box from that station would have been enough to change the result, but the second candidate was declared elected in my place. I followed the legal route and filed appeal No. 15 of judicial year 96 with the Court of Cassation, which reserved it for judgment on 16 November.
Those who said I was detained because of the elections saw detention as a means of pressure. It was also said that they wanted to prevent me from running for president of Egypt’s teachers’ syndicate, because fellow teachers had signed authorisations and powers of attorney for me, and some people or decision-makers did not want me to run. This is not my own speculation. It is something that was said repeatedly and that I heard after my release. I had been following the legal route and was then suddenly detained. I was told that channels abroad had said I was detained to stop me from running, or to pressure me into dropping the case seeking to invalidate Matariyya’s election, which is before the Court of Cassation.
I heard all of this just as you did and as people in the street did. But I cannot identify the main reason for my detention, because I do not know it. The charge is publishing and spreading false news, and I asked the prosecution to show me what the false news was.
After my release, I heard that some people said I had been detained because of my appeal to invalidate Matariyya’s election, since invalidating it and declaring me elected would anger the party, so they were keen to pressure me. Others said the reason was the Educational Professions Syndicate elections planned for February, and that they did not want me because I was popular among the public. There is a great deal of speculation. But the charge before the prosecution is publishing and spreading false news. It was not established before the prosecution that I had published false news, so a decision was issued to release me on the basis of inquiries that said this was untrue.
There are many suggested reasons for my detention, and people talk and speculate. But do I have definite information about why I was detained? No, by God, I do not know. I wish you knew someone who could tell me why I was detained.
The education budget: an unimplemented constitutional provision
Turning to education, what are the main issues you will work on now that you have returned to your job?
I believe education is the most important issue. I drafted the education provisions in the Constitution and know better than anyone why they were adopted: they found all of them necessary. I called for an increase in the education budget. Education cannot function for free, and development does not come for free. In the 2014 Constitution, we said the budget should be 4% of Egypt’s gross national product, rising gradually to international levels by 2016. Those levels were then as high as 8% and 10% of gross national product, so that we could achieve quality Egyptian education. But this provision has still not been implemented, and the budget remains at 2% of gross national product.
In the coming period, we therefore want to work with state agencies and institutions, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Education, the cabinet and the House of Representatives, to implement this provision and gradually raise the budget to international levels. Education does not come for free. But this engagement requires an elected syndicate representing teachers. The current caretaker committee cannot speak out because its members have no legitimate standing in the Educational Professions Syndicate. Who pays the education budget? The state and the political leadership. That is why we engage with the state.
We have more than 60,000 schools that need a large budget, and more than 26 million students in pre-university education. We need funding and a great deal of work, and we need to appoint teachers because we have a glaring shortage. We also need to stabilise the curricula. The generations before us, Dr Magdi Yacoub, Dr Ahmed Zewail, Dr Farouk El-Baz and outstanding Egyptian scientists in Europe and America all studied in Egyptian state schools with Egyptian curricula. A curriculum would remain unchanged for ten years, allowing teachers to master it. Now, every incoming minister says he will carry out a development process.
One minister abolished the sixth year of primary school: Dr Ahmed Fathi Sorour, who later became speaker of the People’s Assembly. Then the sixth year returned. General secondary education is sometimes two years and sometimes three. Sometimes the second year is a certificate year, sometimes the third. Then we make it one year; we make examinations electronic and then paper-based. All these things confuse students.
For education to follow a clear path, we need a long-term strategy with clear objectives and a means of achieving them, producing Egyptian students suited to the labour market. We should not have thousands of graduates from faculties of arts and technical diploma programmes who do not meet the labour market’s needs. We need a clear plan defining what we want from education, as every country does: are we an economy-oriented country, a commercial country, an agricultural country or a tourism country? This must be integral to curricula that fulfil the state’s educational objectives.
The education minister’s performance and development plans
What do you think of the current minister of education’s performance?
I cannot claim to be impartial about the minister of education because I am an employee of the ministry. I met him two years ago, and on a personal level he is a very respectable man. As for the baccalaureate, general secondary education and curricula, abolishing core subjects and turning them into subjects that do not count towards the total grade, I cannot judge the minister’s performance on those matters. Ultimately, I am an employee in an education administration and am subject to constraints.
But if I were invited to participate in an education development plan, I would tell the minister: first, second, third. I have a plan and a vision based on my experience. I have worked at every stage of education, primary, preparatory and secondary, and then in a supervisory role. I have practical experience in the field. I previously participated in an education development plan and submitted the Constitution’s education provisions. I know what makes a development plan succeed and what benefits the country. But this would not be in response to a question about the minister’s performance. It would be when I present a complete plan, including the budget required for development.
In 2010, under Minister Dr Ahmed Gamal El-Din, we drew up an education development plan beginning with primary education. I implemented it in Matariyya, and it focused on improving reading and writing skills. The plan succeeded, as shown by the minister’s request to expand it and his question about its cost. I presented him with a complete vision for implementing it nationwide. But circumstances did not help him. Dr Ahmed Gamal El-Din was dismissed, and Minister Gamal El-Araby succeeded him with a different plan after the revolution. He lasted no more than six months, like the entire government at the time.
With successive ministers, each brings a different plan. Therefore, for me to contribute to what is happening in education, I need to be present at a conference or as part of an education development plan, where I can present a ready plan built on many years of work, study and research.
The Educational Professions Syndicate: receivership and a caretaker committee
Do you intend to run for the teachers’ syndicate? Tell us about the syndicate.
The Educational Professions Syndicate, known as the Teachers’ Syndicate, is a long story. It is governed by Law No. 79 of 1969, which has not changed since then. A caretaker committee controlled it from 2000 to 2011, until I filed a lawsuit that led to elections in 2011. In other words, the syndicate remained for eleven years under a caretaker committee with no standing whatsoever. I took part in the 2011 elections, ran for the syndicate committee in Matariyya and won its presidency. I also ran for national syndicate president.
At that time, the Muslim Brotherhood was winning every seat because people wanted to get rid of the remnants of Mubarak’s regime. They took the People’s Assembly, the Shura Council, the government and the presidency because they were organised. There were few votes from outside the Brotherhood, but with that small number I came second to the Brotherhood’s syndicate president, Dr Ahmed El-Halawany. A court ruling then removed the Brotherhood president and the syndicate’s board. The natural course would have been for me to take over as the candidate with the second-highest number of votes. But I was surprised to find that they wanted to impose on me the same people who had exhausted the syndicate, destroyed it and squandered its money. I do not want to say they stole it, although they did steal it, and I have documents proving this from before the January Revolution.
The entire syndicate was Brotherhood-affiliated and I was the only one outside it. I told the minister of education and the relevant agencies: I will not enter the syndicate unless elections are held for every council, the local committees, branch syndicates and national syndicate, so that those working with me have legitimate standing. I would also run for national president myself, and anyone who wanted to run could do so. They wanted things to continue as they were. Then, to our surprise, four colleagues, unfortunately, filed a lawsuit to place the syndicate under receivership. The Educational Professions Syndicate was placed under receivership on 31 March 2014.
From that date, I pursued legal action to end receivership. Placing syndicates under receivership means wasting and destroying them, suspending services to members, and leaving us unaware of where the money goes. In 2017, I obtained a ruling removing the court-appointed receiver because he had not submitted a statement of accounts. No one knew anything about the syndicate’s resources or land. I obtained a certificate from the court confirming that he had not submitted any statement of accounts for four years. The people assisting him then are the same people who are there now, with no standing whatsoever. The receiver and those with him should have been tried, but he left and they remained in their positions without trials. They continued in the syndicate with no standing, neither through a court ruling nor through elections.
What is their standing? None. They say: a caretaker committee. There is nothing in the Educational Professions Syndicate Law called a caretaker committee. Either an elected board runs the syndicate, or it is under court-ordered receivership. Can you imagine people entering your home and sitting there with no standing, signing cheques worth millions every day? One claims to be president, another secretary-general, a third deputy president, and others presidents of branch syndicates in governorates as far as Aswan. We have branch syndicates in every governorate, three hundred local syndicate committees and the national syndicate. Everyone currently in them has no standing whatsoever and should face criminal trial. Someone signs cheques without standing, spends and transfers money, with no statement of accounts.
I filed another lawsuit, in which a ruling was issued on 30 October 2018 ending receivership. We said then: let us forget the period from 31 March 2014 to 30 October 2018, start a new chapter and call elections. But those in place refused to hold elections. We filed a second and a third case, until a ruling was issued on 25 November 2025, during the House of Representatives elections, removing those in place and requiring them to call elections. They resisted it and did not implement it. That is why some people say my insistence on enforcing the rulings, which date back to 2018, was the reason for my detention.
That is one of the interpretations offered. Some said the reason was my candidacy for the House of Representatives and the case to invalidate Matariyya’s election. Others said it was the syndicate elections and my popularity among teachers. Either is possible, but I do not know and have no definite information about it.
Running for syndicate president: “guarantees from the state”
The syndicate elections are supposed to take place under the old law in February 2027. Whether I run depends on finding a conducive climate and guarantees. Guarantees from whom? From the state, that the elections will be held under full judicial supervision. Then I will certainly run.
Service work or syndicate work is supposed to be voluntary and unpaid. When I leave my home and family to provide a service, I do it without compensation. But are those currently there providing a service without compensation? No. There are holiday resorts, land being sold, hospitals and clubs being rented out at branch syndicates, local committees and the national syndicate, halls rented for weddings and events, local committees that own tourist villages, and millions in the Educational Professions Syndicate. I, Mohamed Zahran, would enter seeking neither office nor money.
The syndicate’s teachers’ pension, from the Educational Professions Syndicate’s establishment until now, is EGP 120. Teachers receive EGP 360 every three months, and in fact even that EGP 360 does not reach them. I apologise for the expression, but a kilo of meat now costs four hundred and fifty or five hundred pounds, and the pension is not enough to buy a kilo of meat. The syndicate has many resources, and I understand how to bring in revenue. I could put billions in its fund and make the teachers’ pension one thousand or fifteen hundred pounds every month, not every three months, instead of EGP 120 that does not reach them.
I can also provide healthcare services to teachers. The syndicate has hospitals across the country. All I need is to contract with health insurance so that teachers are treated in teachers’ hospitals at its expense. Teachers pay health insurance contributions throughout their lives. Instead of suffering in health insurance hospitals, health insurance would cover the cost, and teachers would be treated in a place they finance and built with their own money. I have mechanisms to increase the syndicate’s resources and its services to teachers.
But this will only happen with many guarantees that allow me to contest the elections and gain my position through my fellow teachers’ votes. Everyone knows that colleagues constantly ask me to run for the syndicate. But I have declined because I do not think the climate is conducive, and God does not burden a soul beyond its capacity. To provide a service, I must have powers. I feel that anyone taking over the syndicate after years of stripping it and its finances will be unable to restore its role unless there are guarantees and support from the state. The state supports syndicates so they can fulfil their service role for fellow teachers.
The Egypt Forum and increases in teachers’ salaries
What do you think of the Egypt Forum held a few days ago, particularly regarding education?
The discussion at the Egypt Forum took place under state supervision and with specialists present. But its events happened while I was in pretrial detention, and by the time I was released the forum had ended. I saw that the president had issued decisions on its sidelines to pay attention to teachers’ salaries. I heard the finance minister say, as part of the forum’s outcomes, that teachers’ salaries would increase by six thousand pounds over two years: three thousand in July 2027 and three thousand in July 2028, for the chief teacher grade. Assistant teachers would receive an increase of five thousand pounds, two thousand five hundred in the first year and two thousand five hundred in the second. This is good news in terms of the financial increase.
But I would like to draw the finance minister’s attention to the fact that the president himself said to give people increases. Then they come and say they will raise the pay of those in classrooms, while specialists will not receive increases, or they will consider how to raise their pay. Article 22 of the Constitution refers to teachers and their assistants, and the assistants are the specialists. Law No. 155 of 2007 and Law No. 93 of 2012 stipulate that specialists are like teachers in the pay structure. But the finance minister, unfortunately, spoke about those who deal directly with students and said they would consider increases for specialists.
No specialist has a lesser role. The social worker is essential to a school, as are the psychologist, the journalism and educational media specialist, the teaching-aids specialist, the theatre specialist, the library specialist and laboratory supervisors. Administrative staff and workers also have their duties in a school. A school is an integrated system. We cannot give to one and leave out another, as happened when they introduced development and teaching incentives for classroom teachers but not specialists. Justice, the law and the Constitution say “teachers and their assistants”. An assistant is anyone involved in the educational process, including supervisors in education administrations and heads of departments.
Otherwise, let us amend the law and say we do not want social workers, psychologists, activity specialists or journalism specialists in education. Without them, education becomes mere rote instruction, and a tutoring centre is suitable for that, so we would not need classrooms or schools. Schools were not established for rote instruction, which can take place in homes, tutoring centres and private lessons. Education is a system in which everyone has a role: the worker, the night guard and the laboratory supervisor. All specialists have roles in their job descriptions, just like teachers, and we cannot exclude them from any increase for teachers.
Besides, the president did not say that these people should receive increases and those should not. The president directed an increase for those working in education. Out of respect for the Constitution, whose Article 22 says “teachers and their assistants”, no one should be excluded from this increase.
A final word
A final word before we conclude our interview.
I believe the statements we hear daily from officials and the political leadership at present confirm that there is hope, that the country is on a good path and that the president is paying attention to every issue. Education is one of the most difficult issues. The president gave it attention at the Egypt Forum through clear statements and an increase in teachers’ salaries. Teachers are at the head of the educational process. As long as the president is paying attention to teachers, he is paying attention to education.
Putting education right puts the state right. If we want an economy, agriculture or foreign policy, we need education, because it is the teacher, the school and the educational institution that produce judges, ambassadors, ministers, lawyers and doctors. If the education system is sound, the other systems will be sound: health, the economy, foreign relations and the judiciary.
I say this, and you know and people know that I have no personal interest in saying it. It is a genuine feeling. Despite the pain I have told you about, this is my state and Egypt is my country. If I do not extend my hand to the state and those running it at this difficult time, who will? We have no other country. When a problem occurs in any country, its people come to Egypt. If a problem occurred in Egypt, God forbid, where would we go? No one would receive us. Every country has its problems and burdens, but Egypt, God willing, will remain safe until Judgment Day.
