Dr. Hossam Badrawi Official Website
Young dreamers of tomorrow asked me critically about my opinion of what is happening in the application of the new assessment systems in education, so I told them:
I am very slow before criticizing what is happening in the assessment system in education these days. But I cannot ignore that the idea of making the first secondary and fourth primary exams and the transportation years a test for all of Egypt at the same time is an unneeded centralization and a fabrication of a problem that did not exist unnecessarily. These are stages of school-level assessment everywhere in the world. We must confirm decentralization within the framework of general rules.
The educated young woman asked me: What are the foundations of the student calendar and its philosophy?
I said: The foundations of evaluation and its philosophy do not change with the change of its method, because it depends on international standards, which are:
Validity: that is, the exam actually measures what is required to be measured according to the specified curriculum.
– Reliability: that is, the exam gives the same results to students even if its methods change.
Justice, equity and equal opportunities.
We must move towards transforming student assessment into a fun, fair and comprehensive process that tests what students really know as well as how they perform and works on developing learning skills and self-realization, so that this process does not remain terrifying (exam anxiety) and perpetuates negative practices such as private tutoring, and cheating in exams. To get out of the predicament of low grades that lead to comparison with others and absolute judgment of failure. The view on the concept of evaluation has changed, so we see it as a description instead of a measurement, performance rather than a test, a portfolio instead of a degree, a diagnostic construct instead of a source of judgments, collaborative performance, meditation, and self-evaluation instead of competition and evaluation of others.
In fact, success in exams is a sign of the teacher’s success, not the student’s, because all students and students have the ability to succeed if they are taught well.
However, I assure you that taking the digital exam is a courage that deserves appreciation, but it has errors that must be corrected. However, the ministry must continue and not retreat in the face of pressures that want the matter to remain as it is, only to complain and criticize.
Stability, guys, comes with moving towards modernity, not with stillness and stopping, even if we make mistakes sometimes.
Einstein said, “He who has not made a mistake in his life will never learn anything new.”
The first young man asked: What is suffering from our educational system, and why are we not moving with the required speed?
I said: The main problem is the lack of sustainability of the application, and that the priority of education is more verbal than actual. The truth is that the Egyptian educational system, with all its many components, suffers from challenges that have been exacerbated by the Covid crisis. We must admit that the transition from vision and politics to implementation always faces new developments, and that we must stand in front of them, confront them, and discuss them with reason and objectivity, seeking to overcome them to reach the desired results, and we have to share with the community in understanding these challenges, and persistence on these Policies so we can get from where we stand to where we go.
The continuous desire to develop education and the demographic reality in Egypt imposed on us a set of challenges that must be faced, foremost among them.
(First): Weak community confidence in the official government educational institutions, the emergence of an irregular pattern parallel to the educational system, out-of-school education, and the large spread of private lessons. (That challenge is still not the case.)
(Second): Weak confidence in the main pillar of the educational process, which is the teacher, the decline in his social capacity, and the reduction of his powers in evaluating the student. (That challenge is still not the case.)
It should be noted that the decline of teacher leadership, the decline in the role of the enlightenment school, and the attempt to set rigid templates for thinking come at the forefront of the challenges that must be faced.
(Third): The low degree of language proficiency, including Arabic, the low level of mathematics and science, and the reluctance of young people to specialize in them. (That challenge is still not the case.)
(Fourth): The volume of student activities is reduced or absent in many cases, with all the negative meanings that build the personality. (That challenge is still not the case.)
Fifthly: The existence of a large gap in the education curricula and their failure to pursue the acceleration in knowledge and the necessity of linking it with the needs of society and the labor market. (That challenge is still not the case.)
Sixth: The unprecedented geographical spread of schools in all of Egypt, including its positive availability, and the great challenge it poses in centrally administering them, and the difficulty in raising their level and evaluating their performance. (That challenge is still not the case.)
(Seventh): The presence of more than one study period in about 20% of schools, and consequently, the decrease in the hours of students’ attendance at school and the noticeable increase in the phenomenon of students’ absence from schools, especially at the secondary level, which marginalizes the role of the school in building the students’ personality and wastes the educational value of its presence. (That challenge is still not the case.)
Eighth: The pressure of public exams in their current form, whether traditional or the resulting new methods due to the Corona pandemic, and its impact on students and the Egyptian family, as it is a challenge from the students’ abilities and does not measure higher thinking abilities and creativity and creates a social and political climate of anger and a sense of injustice that is reflected on Increasing loss of confidence in the credibility of the educational institution. (Unfortunately the centralization has increased).
(Ninth): The absence of political understanding that deals with the direct increase in the force of resistance to change and development, which hinders attempts to progress in the educational process, and holds the Ministry alone responsible for bringing about change and managing it.
Tenth: The incompatibility and completeness of the infrastructure for digital transformation in education for students in their homes, teachers in their classrooms, and school administration that is far from digital.
The human factor and the inadequacy of teacher training on digital interaction will remain a major reason for delaying the development movement.
We believe that the slowdown in facing these challenges with a strong will and according to an integrated, announced plan will lead directly to:
(First): Greater marginalization of the poor, and the inability of education in its current state to support the social movement
I am very slow before criticizing what is happening in the assessment system in education these days. But I cannot ignore that the idea of making the first secondary and fourth primary exams and the transportation years a test for all of Egypt at the same time is an unneeded centralization and a fabrication of a problem that did not exist unnecessarily. These are stages of school-level assessment everywhere in the world. We must confirm decentralization within the framework of general rules.
The educated young woman asked me: What are the foundations of the student calendar and its philosophy?
I said: The foundations of evaluation and its philosophy do not change with the change of its method, because it depends on international standards, which are:
Validity: that is, the exam actually measures what is required to be measured according to the specified curriculum.
– Reliability: that is, the exam gives the same results to students even if its methods change.
Justice, equity and equal opportunities.
We must move towards transforming student assessment into a fun, fair and comprehensive process that tests what students really know as well as how they perform and works on developing learning skills and self-realization, so that this process does not remain terrifying (exam anxiety) and perpetuates negative practices such as private tutoring, and cheating in exams. To get out of the predicament of low grades that lead to comparison with others and absolute judgment of failure. The view on the concept of evaluation has changed, so we see it as a description instead of a measurement, performance rather than a test, a portfolio instead of a degree, a diagnostic construct instead of a source of judgments, collaborative performance, meditation, and self-evaluation instead of competition and evaluation of others.
In fact, success in exams is a sign of the teacher’s success, not the student’s, because all students and students have the ability to succeed if they are taught well.
However, I assure you that taking the digital exam is a courage that deserves appreciation, but it has errors that must be corrected. However, the ministry must continue and not retreat in the face of pressures that want the matter to remain as it is, only to complain and criticize.
Stability, guys, comes with moving towards modernity, not with stillness and stopping, even if we make mistakes sometimes.
Einstein said, “He who has not made a mistake in his life will never learn anything new.”
The first young man asked: What is suffering from our educational system, and why are we not moving with the required speed?
I said: The main problem is the lack of sustainability of the application, and that the priority of education is more verbal than actual. The truth is that the Egyptian educational system, with all its many components, suffers from challenges that have been exacerbated by the Covid crisis. We must admit that the transition from vision and politics to implementation always faces new developments, and that we must stand in front of them, confront them, and discuss them with reason and objectivity, seeking to overcome them to reach the desired results, and we have to share with the community in understanding these challenges, and persistence on these Policies so we can get from where we stand to where we go.
The continuous desire to develop education and the demographic reality in Egypt imposed on us a set of challenges that must be faced, foremost among them.
(First): Weak community confidence in the official government educational institutions, the emergence of an irregular pattern parallel to the educational system, out-of-school education, and the large spread of private lessons. (That challenge is still not the case.)
(Second): Weak confidence in the main pillar of the educational process, which is the teacher, the decline in his social capacity, and the reduction of his powers in evaluating the student. (That challenge is still not the case.)
It should be noted that the decline of teacher leadership, the decline in the role of the enlightenment school, and the attempt to set rigid templates for thinking come at the forefront of the challenges that must be faced.
(Third): The low degree of language proficiency, including Arabic, the low level of mathematics and science, and the reluctance of young people to specialize in them. (That challenge is still not the case.)
(Fourth): The volume of student activities is reduced or absent in many cases, with all the negative meanings that build the personality. (That challenge is still not the case.)
Fifthly: The existence of a large gap in the education curricula and their failure to pursue the acceleration in knowledge and the necessity of linking it with the needs of society and the labor market. (That challenge is still not the case.)
Sixth: The unprecedented geographical spread of schools in all of Egypt, including its positive availability, and the great challenge it poses in centrally administering them, and the difficulty in raising their level and evaluating their performance. (That challenge is still not the case.)
(Seventh): The presence of more than one study period in about 20% of schools, and consequently, the decrease in the hours of students’ attendance at school and the noticeable increase in the phenomenon of students’ absence from schools, especially at the secondary level, which marginalizes the role of the school in building the students’ personality and wastes the educational value of its presence. (That challenge is still not the case.)
Eighth: The pressure of public exams in their current form, whether traditional or the resulting new methods due to the Corona pandemic, and its impact on students and the Egyptian family, as it is a challenge from the students’ abilities and does not measure higher thinking abilities and creativity and creates a social and political climate of anger and a sense of injustice that is reflected on Increasing loss of confidence in the credibility of the educational institution. (Unfortunately the centralization has increased).
(Ninth): The absence of political understanding that deals with the direct increase in the force of resistance to change and development, which hinders attempts to progress in the educational process, and holds the Ministry alone responsible for bringing about change and managing it.
Tenth: The incompatibility and completeness of the infrastructure for digital transformation in education for students in their homes, teachers in their classrooms, and school administration that is far from digital.
The human factor and the inadequacy of teacher training on digital interaction will remain a major reason for delaying the development movement.
We believe that the slowdown in facing these challenges with a strong will and according to an integrated, announced plan will lead directly to:
(First): Greater marginalization of the poor, and the inability of education in its current state to support the social movement
Positive social as a direct or indirect product of it.
(Second): The transfer of the most able groups to private and foreign education, inside and outside Egypt, and its impact on general culture, the use of the Arabic language, and the social separation between classes.
(Third): The cost of private lessons for the poorest groups is relatively more than their capacity, and official educational institutions do not benefit from this private spending, which means many lost opportunities, unrealistic freebies, and a negative social impact on public sentiment.
I know that there are respectable efforts being made in the ministry, and from civil society, they are not being highlighted enough, unfortunately. And there is the 2030 strategy that the state approved, and I hope that it will abide by it and that Parliament will take its contents for oversight and follow-up.
I remind the reader of the axes of the 2030 vision in education, from which major goals and sub-goals emerged, and the criteria for their measurement, time period, cost and responsibility were agreed upon, and programs were set for them to achieve them.
The first axis: high-quality education available to all without discrimination.
The second axis: creating an efficient, fair and sustainable institutional framework for the decentralization of education, research and development management.
The third axis: digital and technological empowerment of the student and teacher, and the development of school administration and teaching methods.
The fourth axis: building the integrated personality of the student and student to become a normal, proud citizen, enlightened, creative, proud of his country’s history, passionate about building its future, capable of difference and capable of pluralism by practicing sports, arts and democratic coexistence within the framework of educational institutions.
Fifth Axis: The graduate should be an initiator, able to adapt to changing circumstances around him, create new job opportunities, and compete with his peers regionally and globally.
This division came so that we can simplify the follow-up and make it understandable to the community and monitor the implementation using measurement indicators agreed upon with the government.
(Second): The transfer of the most able groups to private and foreign education, inside and outside Egypt, and its impact on general culture, the use of the Arabic language, and the social separation between classes.
(Third): The cost of private lessons for the poorest groups is relatively more than their capacity, and official educational institutions do not benefit from this private spending, which means many lost opportunities, unrealistic freebies, and a negative social impact on public sentiment.
I know that there are respectable efforts being made in the ministry, and from civil society, they are not being highlighted enough, unfortunately. And there is the 2030 strategy that the state approved, and I hope that it will abide by it and that Parliament will take its contents for oversight and follow-up.
I remind the reader of the axes of the 2030 vision in education, from which major goals and sub-goals emerged, and the criteria for their measurement, time period, cost and responsibility were agreed upon, and programs were set for them to achieve them.
The first axis: high-quality education available to all without discrimination.
The second axis: creating an efficient, fair and sustainable institutional framework for the decentralization of education, research and development management.
The third axis: digital and technological empowerment of the student and teacher, and the development of school administration and teaching methods.
The fourth axis: building the integrated personality of the student and student to become a normal, proud citizen, enlightened, creative, proud of his country’s history, passionate about building its future, capable of difference and capable of pluralism by practicing sports, arts and democratic coexistence within the framework of educational institutions.
Fifth Axis: The graduate should be an initiator, able to adapt to changing circumstances around him, create new job opportunities, and compete with his peers regionally and globally.
This division came so that we can simplify the follow-up and make it understandable to the community and monitor the implementation using measurement indicators agreed upon with the government.
