Dr. Hossam Badrawi Official Website
The young man, who was enthusiastic about everything new, said: What is the story of the education observatory that you speak of, Doctor, and why now, when we don’t have an education in the first place, we keep making an observatory?
I said: The truth is really very disturbing, but there are luminous models that can be built upon.. You know me as an optimist and I see the best of it around me.
The young man said: When we do not have a vision and do not announce a strategy, and every new minister comes starts from the first and new remains, how do we wait for any change. Doctor, we have been hearing this from you for years, and we do not see development, but an unprecedented collapse in the history of Egypt in the educational process.
I said: You are right. The Egyptian people deserve to look forward with great passion to a real and tangible achievement in the field of human development from the entrance to education, hence our belief in the importance of Egypt’s vision 2020 as a means of sustaining education, research and development strategies in response to these hopes.. The vision has no value unless the community is convinced of it, Successive governments have adhered to it.
Another young man said: Who prepared the vision and how did we not hear or read about it?
I said: This vision, in the part related to education, research and development, was prepared by a group of seventy experts, politicians and professionals, each in his field, at the invitation and with special coordination from the Ministry of Planning. This committee met more than twenty-three documented meetings and opinion was surveyed on social networks so that the vision represented everyone’s hopes, and put it in a professional format that can be applied and followed up. The responsible committee collected all the previous work done in this regard, the policies and strategies that were developed over the years, discussed the best in them, and reviewed the reasons for not achieving them, in an attempt to have the effort this time have a tangible impact on society.
Since the vision must be sustained, the committee has set a framework for its review every number of years to ensure that its implementation strategies include the knowledge that the world finds on the one hand, and the challenges faced by the application on the other hand.
And you have a thousand right, because the vision and strategy were not published in the hoped manner, and the government did not adhere to it as necessary during the past four years, although it is referred to as headings in its reports and in the budgets submitted to Parliament.
In view of our belief in the role of civil society, which was represented in setting the vision, we presented to the Ministry of Planning our desire to support the state in reviewing and achieving its vision, by establishing an observatory to follow up the implementation, taking into account the main and subsidiary objectives of the vision and indicators to measure its application and effectiveness.
Another young man said: Isn’t education a service like other services that the government must adhere to in terms of quality?
I said: My belief in the priority of education does not come because education is one of the most important services that any government in any society undertakes to provide to citizens, but as a right of every child and youth, every family and small community, and every Egyptian citizen, man or woman, of all ages and in all times. Education must be viewed through a developmental concept that links the future of this nation intrinsically to the development of the Egyptian human being to be a builder of civilization and a grower of culture. My children, education and health care are rights of citizens, not services that may or may not be performed.
One of the young people said: What is the story of canceling free education that we hear about?
I said: The principle that there is a cost that must be paid is a correct principle, but the state remains responsible for this cost, not the citizen who does not have the ability to pay.. In a society where the illiteracy rate reaches 30% and the poverty rate is much more than that and dropouts from education are above 20%, the speech About burdening this citizen with the cost of educating his children, he becomes a dangerous political and social dementia that leads to the doom of the future of human development in Egypt. We must fight to prevent dropouts, and to sustain the education of girls, who will be the first victims.
A young man said: Where does the country get this money from, Doctor?
I said: The Ministry responsible for education is the largest ministry in Egypt, with close to 2 million employees, and dealing with 22 million students and close to one million teachers.. The first rule of development is in the governance of the management of this institution so that the people ensure efficient spending. About 90% of the ministry’s budget goes to the salaries of those who work and those who do not work.. All the evils of public sector institutions are the same in all of Egypt.. Excess employment and inefficiency in management.. In Egypt, about 7 million state employees perform work that 2 million can do. The most, and it is a well-known equation for corruption, inefficient spending and poor service provision… In general, this is not objective now.
The young man said: What is the vision of education that you speak of?
I said: To simplify the matter for you: The vision is divided into five main axes, under which sub-goals fall, then indicators for measuring the responsibility, time and cost of implementation.
The first axis: high-quality education available to all without discrimination.
The second axis: creating an efficient, fair and sustainable institutional framework for the management of education, research and development.
The third axis: digital empowerment of the student, teacher and school, and the development of teaching aids, which requires training the most important human factor, which is the teacher and teacher director.
The fourth axis: building the integrated personality of the student and student to become a normal citizen, proud of himself, enlightened, creative, proud of his country’s history, passionate about building its future, capable of difference and capable of pluralism.
Fifth Axis: The graduate should be proactive, able to adapt to changing circumstances around him, create new job opportunities, and compete with his peers regionally and globally.
The issue is simple for everyone who asks me about my approval or not of the development strategy presented now..
I say to everyone: Look at the simple and understandable vision axes of society and come to monitor its implementation using the measurement indicators agreed upon with the government.
Another young man said: What are the objectives of the Education Observatory?
I said:
■ Monitoring the efforts of state agencies in implementing Egypt’s Vision 2030 in erasing
Education and issuing a semi-annual report on it.
■ Monitoring the gaps between the plans of the concerned ministries and the announced strategy, and the objectives of Egypt’s Vision 2020 in the education axis.
■ Monitoring the reasons for not achieving the goals within their time frame.
■ Participate in reviewing the vision and the strategies stemming from it every period of time so that they can be developed, if necessary, in light of the development in the world.
