Cairo- Inside the same classroom in Egypt, two students are sitting, both taking their high school exams. One is anxious and the other is reassured. The difference between them is not their level of academic achievement, but rather their families’ financial ability.
With the appearance of the exam results, the outcome of anxiety and reassurance is realized. Only 4 points prevented the student Ammar from wanting to join one of the government medical colleges, while his colleague, who got 20 points less than him, will become a doctor after securing a seat in the College of Dentistry at one of the non-government universities.
Looking at the higher education system in Egypt, the four grades that Ammar failed to obtain in his total score are not the obstacle to his dream. Rather, the problem lies in his financial inability to pay the tuition fees for private and national universities.
Contrast formatting
Last Sunday, the period allowed for high school students to register for the second phase of university admission coordination ended, while last week the results of admission to the first phase appeared.
The difference between the admission scores for the first stage in government colleges and their private and national counterparts was clear. While government medicine accepts a percentage of no less than 93.17%, the private and national coordination provides an opportunity for the student who obtains a total of 74%.
The same discrepancy occurs with the coordination of different colleges. For example, government engineering colleges accept a percentage of 88.65%, while private and civil colleges accept a percentage of 65%, and government pharmacy accepts a percentage of 91.7% compared to 71% in non-government universities, where the coordination of media colleges drops to 53%, while government coordination is not less than 83%.
Despite the official announcement of the coordination of admission to private and public universities, there is internal coordination for each university, and the coordination rates for each one usually increase in proportion to the student demand to join it.
On the same track, tuition fees differ between public and non-governmental universities. The fees of public colleges for the academic year do not exceed hundreds of pounds, while the fees of private and national universities exceed 100 thousand pounds ($2,053).
Several private universities have announced the tuition fees for the Faculty of Medicine. The 6th of October University set the fees for the new academic year at about 140,000 Egyptian pounds ($2,874), while the cost at the Modern University for Science and Technology rose to 160,000 Egyptian pounds ($3,285), while the fees at Horus University reached 230,000 Egyptian pounds ($4,722).
In contrast, private universities offered competitive prices for studying medicine compared to their private counterparts. At Mansoura University, the fees amounted to 130,000 pounds ($2,669), while at Beni Suef University the amount decreased to 110,000 pounds ($2,258).
Tuition fees vary greatly between private universities. Nile University announced the cost of enrollment in the Faculty of Engineering, which amounts to 145 thousand pounds ($2,977), while the cost is less than half at Zagazig University, not exceeding 60 thousand pounds ($1,232).
Big market
According to official statements, the number of Egyptian universities has increased by more than 120% over the past ten years.
The number of public, private and national universities reached 108 universities until last July, while the number did not exceed 49 universities in 2014.
This number is distributed among 27 public universities, 32 private universities, 20 civil universities, 10 technological universities, 9 branches of foreign universities, 6 universities with international agreements, 2 universities with framework agreements, and a university with special laws supervised by the Ministry of Higher Education.
The government’s interest in expanding the establishment of private universities at the expense of government universities can be noted. During 10 years, only 4 government universities were established, while 16 private universities were established.
The official spokesman for the Ministry of Higher Education defended the move towards non-free education, considering the new private universities an important tributary of higher education in the country.
He said – in an official statement – that this type of university contributed to alleviating the increasing pressure on government universities, and absorbing the increase in the demand for university education, adding that they are non-profit universities.
According to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, the number of higher education students enrolled in the last academic year in Egypt amounted to about 3.7 million students, with a growth rate of 5.7% over the previous year.
The number of students enrolled in private and national universities increased to about 297 thousand students, representing 8% of the total number of higher education students in the last academic year, compared to 229 thousand students in the academic year (2021-2022), an increase of 29.7%, in addition to 697.7 thousand students enrolled in higher institutes and private academies, representing 17.9% of the total number of higher education students.
From free to paid
- Education was not free before 1950, when Dr. Taha Hussein assumed the position of Minister of Education. His condition for assuming the position was to establish free basic education up to secondary school.
- A few years later, former President Gamal Abdel Nasser issued a decision that university education, like basic education, would be free, with an expansion in the establishment of public universities.
- All Egyptian universities remained under government supervision, management and funding until 1992, when a law was issued to establish private universities.
- In 2009, the law regulating the establishment of private and civil universities was issued, which defined a civil university as a non-profit institution whose funds are public funds.
- In 2019, the Egyptian Parliament amended the law so that public legal entities have the right to establish private universities, and accordingly, the government has the right to establish this type of university.
- After only 3 years, the government announced the start of studies in 12 new private universities at once in 12 governorates at a cost of 39 billion pounds ($801 million).
According to official statements, the Ministry of Higher Education’s budget for the new fiscal year amounts to 117 billion pounds ($2.4 billion).
educational stratification
Egyptian families aspire for their children to enroll in medical and engineering colleges, which are known in society as “top” colleges, as their graduates are guaranteed jobs and societal respect. This is how educational expert Mohamed Fathallah explains the surge in demand for medical and engineering colleges in private and national universities, despite their high prices.
Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, he pointed out that the government has been moving in recent years to compete with private universities by establishing private universities, explaining that it has adopted the same strategy regarding pre-university education, as it has established private schools under the supervision of the Projects Department at the Ministry of Education.
The expert, who works at the National Center for Examinations and Educational Evaluation, questioned the quality of non-governmental education, citing international rankings, as the ranking of private and national universities declines while government universities advance.
This month, the Shanghai International Ranking included 8 Egyptian public universities among the top 1,000 universities in the world for the year 2024, and no private or civil university was included in the ranking.
The QS ranking included 15 Egyptian universities, including 5 private universities and branches of international universities, among the top 1,400 universities for the year 2024.
Fathallah warned of the growth of societal diseases due to what he called “educational classism,” such as class hatred and loss of identity. However, he saw a benefit to this type of education, as it accommodates large numbers of students in light of the government’s inability to establish free universities that can accommodate all high school graduates.
Preference for expatriates
The low admission rates in colleges are not limited to private and national universities, but government colleges are also entering the competition, but this time to attract non-Egyptian students.
Egyptian public universities allow foreign students to join them at a very low tuition fee compared to that set for citizens of the country, for sums of money ranging between 2,500 and 6,000 dollars.
Five years ago, the Ministry of Higher Education announced the move to receive more foreign students in Egyptian universities within the framework of the “Study in Egypt” initiative, and raised the percentage of expatriates from 5% of the total number of students enrolled in universities to 25%.
As a result, the classrooms of government medical colleges include Egyptian students who have obtained a total of no less than 93% in high school and foreign students who have obtained a total of no more than 75%.
The contradiction is clear in the announced figures regarding the number of foreign students in Egypt. While the former Minister of Higher Education, Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, announced two years ago that there were 100,000 students in Egyptian universities paying fees estimated at $480 million, the current Minister of Education, Ayman Ashour, said that the number of foreign students did not exceed 26,000 students during the past academic year.
Inequality of opportunity
Kamal Moghit, an expert at the National Center for Educational Research and Development, considered giving foreign students preference to join government universities at the expense of Egyptian students a violation of the principle of equal opportunities upon which any national educational project is supposed to be built.
He explained to Al Jazeera Net that the government found in foreign students a solution to confront the financial difficulties suffered by government universities, as they pay large sums of money in hard currency in exchange for educational services, “without taking into account the fact that the expatriate occupies the educational seat reserved for the Egyptian,” according to him.
The profit-driven logic in dealing with foreign students at public universities is what runs private universities, according to Mughis’s vision, noting that non-governmental universities have violated the principles of citizenship, equal opportunities, and educational justice.
The professor of educational principles refused to call the educational entities that were recently established “private universities,” saying, “The first Egyptian university, established in 1908, was a private university, and symbols of the national movement, dignitaries, and princes donated to its construction. As for what was recently established, they are entities that aim to make a profit only and are not private.”
