Strategies for Enhancing Education Governance and Management in Egypt: International Organizations’ Perspectives

Ayman Rizk

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto

Ayman Rizk

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

University of Toronto

2018 Abstract

With the aim of realizing a better understanding of the governance and management of the pre- university education sector in Egypt, this study explores perspectives of twelve officials working for international organizations. It presents genuine, authentic and valuable contributions and inputs from highly experienced and well-qualified professionals, fills a gap in the knowledge and provides perspectives that are difficult to obtain from official reports as there is a tendency in official reporting to avoid criticizing national contexts, national education sectors, their leaders and performance in a direct way.

Utilizing the qualitative method and gathering its data from semi-structured interviews, the study identifies governance weaknesses that affect negatively the education sector and its performance and defines governance strengths that can be built on and maximized. The ultimate goal of this study is to reach applicable strategies that may be of assistance to the Egyptian Government and

Ministry of Education to enhance education governance and management as an entry point to reform the whole pre-university sector and improve its performance. ii

Acknowledgements

Life is a continuous journey of learning and I strongly believe in the enormous power and impact of education on states, economies and humans. Education has no limits and it has no boundaries. It can make the difference and change that we would like to see in ourselves and in the world around us.

In the beginning, I would like to thank all participants for their precious time, remarkable contributions, and their valuable experiences, views and opinions. Without their faithful and effective participation, I could not have completed this thesis.

After reaching this point in my doctoral path, I would like to express my deep feelings of indebtedness and gratitude for Professors. James Ryan and Joseph Flessa for supporting my application to join OISE and for their continuous support during my program.

I am deeply thankful for my supervisor, Professor. Nina Bascia. I cannot really find enough words to express my gratitude and indebtedness to her. Nina, I am really very impressed by your remarkable wisdom, genuine understanding, continuous support and encouragement to myself and all LHAE students despite your heavy academic, leadership and management responsibilities as the LHAE Chair.

I am really very lucky with my thesis committee and I am deeply thankful and grateful to them. Thank you, Professors Carly Manion and Carol Campbell for all your unlimited support, precious contributions to this thesis, constructive feedback, insightful comments and valuable suggestions.

I am also very grateful and indebted to Professor. Ruth Childs for all her support at the academic, professional and personal levels. Thank you, Ruth.

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I am and will always be indebted and grateful to my master’s degree supervisor, Dr. Khalil Mahshi, former Director General of UNESCO IIEP, Paris, who always encouraged me to move forward academically and professionally and had a strong impact on my professional, academic and personal life. Thank you, Khalil. May your soul rest in peace.

I have to thank Professor Nadia Gamal El-Din, Department of Educational Foundations, Cairo University, Former Director of the National Center for Educational Research and Development; Professor Sami Nassar, Former Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies for Education, Cairo University; and Professor Yousry El-Gamal, Former Minister of Education in Egypt for their continuous support and encouragement to get more education and move forward in my professional and academic path.

I would like to thank all my colleagues and friends in the Egyptian Ministry of Education, the Minister’s Technical Office, Policies and Strategic Planning Unit (PSPU) and International Cooperation Unit for their continuous support and crucial assistance.

Special thanks are due to Iman Yassin, Senior Education Specialist, International Cooperation Unit, for all her excellent facilitation and assistance.

My deep thanks and appreciation are due to my father and my siblings who are always in my heart and mind; to all my faithful and supportive ones; and to everyone who has ever given me a hand or taught me a lesson.

Finally, I would like to thank my mother who was among the top people I have ever known in her enthusiasm and belief in education and its power. She always wished and taught me to be in a better place tomorrow than I am today. Losing her during my program was the most painful experience I have ever had. May God have mercy upon her.

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii

Acknowledgements ...... iii

Table of Contents ...... v

List of Tables ...... xv

List of Figures ...... xv

List of Appendices ...... xvii

List of Abbreviations ...... xviii

Chapter One: Background...... …..1

Introduction ...... 1

Historical Overview of the Education Sector ...... 2

Problem of the Study ...... 3

Aims of the Study ...... 4

Why International Organizations? ...... 5

Revealing the Unrevealed ...... 6

Powerful Organizations and Robust Influencers ...... 7

Policy-Makers and Prescribers ...... 8

Strong Capacity ...... 9

Strong Presence in Egypt ...... 10 v

Study Questions ...... 12

Scope ...... 13

Professional and Academic Interests ...... 14

Structure of the Study ...... 16

Chapter Two: Literature Review ...... 19

Introduction ...... 19

I- Education Governance: Concept and Definitions ...... 20

II- Education Governance in International Contexts ...... 26

III- Education Governance and International Organizations ...... 34

IV- Education Governance in Egypt ...... 37

Conclusion ...... 41

Chapter Three: Conceptual Framework ...... 43

Introduction ...... 43

Conceptual Framework ...... 43

Leadership…………………………………………………………………..…………………46

Partnership…………………………………………………………………………………….46

Participation ……………………………………….…………………………………….……46

Governance Diagnosis…………...……………………………………………………………47

Governance Dynamics………...………………………………………………………………47

Suggested Strategies...………...………………………………………………………………47

Chapter Four: Methodology ...... 48

Introduction ...... 48

Methodology ...... 48

A Qualitative Method ...... 48

Document Analysis ...... 49

Interviews ...... …..…….49

Candidates ...... 50

Invitational Emails ...... 51

Interview Questions ...... 53

Interviewees ...... 54

Interview Dynamics ...... 55

Data Analysis ...... 57

Plan versus Reality ...... 58

Subjectivity Vs Objectivity ...... 59

Conclusion ...... 59

Chapter Five: Leadership ...... 61

Introduction ...... 61

I- Political Leadership ...... 61

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Real Political Support? ...... 63

Lack of Resources ...... 66

Lack of Information ...... 67

Presidential Specialized Council on Education and Scientific Research. ………...…………..69

Composition and Representation ...... 69

Lack of a Tangible Impact ...... 71

Inefficiency ...... 72

II- Educational Leadership ...... 73

Educational Leadership Selection ...... 74

Supply ...... 74

Seniority ...... 77

Corruption and Lack of Clear Selection Criteria ...... 79

Educational Leadership Performance ...... 81

Weak Performance and Lack of Courage ...... 82

Dominance of Top Management and Variance in Capabilities ...... 83

Management not Leadership ...... 84

Accumulative Professional Experiences ...... 84

Limited Motivated Capacity ...... 86

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Educational Leadership Challenges ...... 87

Lack of Transformational Leadership ...... 87

Instability ...... 88

Demotivating Environment ...... 89

Conclusion ...... 92

Chapter Six: Partnership ...... 94

Introduction ...... 94

I- International Organizations ...... 94

Uncertainty ...... 95

A Real Partnership? ...... 96

Partnership Launch and Mutual Interests ...... 97

Organizations’ Interests and Ready-made Solutions ...... 99

The Driver’s Seat ...... 102

Partnership in Governance ...... 103

International Partnership Challenges ...... 105

Lack of a Clear Vision and Effective Strategy ...... 105

Mistrust ...... 106

Lack of Efficiency...... 107

Lack of Capacity ...... 108

Lack of Sustainability ...... 109

Duplication and Conflicts ...... 110

Bureaucracy ...... 112

Project Implementation Contracts ...... 113

II- The Private Sector ...... 114

Contributions and Impact ...... 114

Public Private Partnership (PPP) ...... 116

Donation not Partnership ...... 117

Potential Expansion ...... 118

Private Sector Lead ...... 119

Private-Sector Challenges ...... 120

Quality Variation ...... 120

Privatization versus Equity ...... 121

Lack of Commitment ...... 122

Conclusion ...... 122

Chapter Seven: Participation...... 124

Introduction ...... 124

I- Local Communities ...... 125

The Alexandria Experiment ...... 126

Community Schools ...... 127

Weak Community Participation ...... 127

An Environment for Success ...... 128

Participation Challenges ...... 129

Poverty ...... 129

Lack of Participation Culture ...... 131

Lack of Motivation ...... 132

Lack of Trust ...... 133

Barriers and Negative Participation ...... 134

II- The Boards of Trustees ...... 135

A Golden Opportunity ...... 136

Impact ...... 137

The Boards of Trustees’ Challenges ...... 139

Scaling-up Failure ...... 139

Lack of Effectiveness ...... 140

Lack of Incentives and Monitoring ...... 141

Lack of Awareness ...... 141

III- Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) ...... 142

Implementers and Service Providers ...... 143

Suspicion and Strict Control ...... 144

Capacity Variation ...... 146

Unsupportive Climate and Bureaucracy ...... 146

Foreign Fund Dilemma ...... 147

Conclusion ...... 148

Chapter Eight: Governance Diagnosis ...... 149

Introduction ...... 149

I-Governance Strengths ...... 149

Structures ...... 150

The Outreach of the Sector ...... 152

Functional EMIS ...... 152

Medium-Term Expenditure Framework ...... 153

II- Governance Weaknesses ...... 154

Lack of Strategic Directions ...... 155

Over-Centralization...... 157

Overstaffing ...... 161

Inefficient Use of Resources ...... 162

Budget and Finance...... 163

Fragmentation and Duplication ...... 165

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Lack of Data and Information Sharing ...... 166

Lack of Transparency and Standards ...... 167

Conclusion ...... 168

Chapter Nine: Governance Dynamics ...... 169

Introduction ...... 169

I- Leadership and Partnership ...... 169

II- Leadership and Participation...... 173

III- Partnership and Participation ...... 177

Conclusion ...... 180

Chapter Ten: Summary and Suggested Strategies ...... 181

Introduction ...... 181

I- Summary ...... 181

II- Strategies for Enhancing Education Governance and Management ...... 182

The Government of Egypt ...... 183

Leadership ...... 183

Partnership ...... 184

Participation ...... 185

The Ministry of Education ...... 186

Leadership ...... 186

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Partnership ...... 188

Participation ...... 188

Implications for Research ...... 189

Significance...... 190

Limitations ...... 191

A Final Word ...... 192

References ...... 193

Appendices ...... 208

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List of Tables

Table 1. Difference s between Governance and Management ...... 25

List of Figures

Figure 1. Conceptual Framework of the Study ...... 45

xvi

List of Appendices

Appendix A: Invitational Email ...... 208

Appendix B: Interview Guide ...... 210

Appendix C: Interview Schedule ...... 211

Appendix D: Egyptian Education System ...... 212

Appendix E: List of Egyptian Ministers of Education since 2011 ...... 213

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List of Abbreviations

AUC American University in Cairo

ATP Advanced Training Program, UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning

BBC British Broadcasting Corporation

BOTs Boards of Trustees

CAOA Central Authority for Organization and Administration

CAPMAS Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics

CCIMD Center for Curriculum and Instructional Material Development

CSEP Collaborative Specialization in Educational Policy Program

CIDA Canadian International Development Agency

CIDE Collaborative Specialization of Comparative, International and Development Education

CISD Computer and Information System Department

DAC Development Assistance Committee of the OECD

DAG Donor Assistance Group

DPG Development Partnership Group

EC European Commission

EEP Education Enhancement Programme

EFA Education for All

xviii

EIC Education Improvement Commission, Canada

EMIS Education Management Information System

ERP Education Reform Program, USAID

EU European Union

FTI Fast Track Initiative

GAEB General Authority for Educational Buildings

GALAE General Authority for Literacy and Adult Education

GDP Gross Domestic Product

GMR Global Monitoring Report

GOE Government of Egypt

GP Gender Parity

GRC Governance Review Committee, Canada

IIEP International Institute for Educational Planning

IIM-A Indian Institute of Management - Ahmedabad

IMF International Monetary Fund

JICA Japanese International Cooperation Agency

LHAE Leadership, Higher and Adult Education Department

MENA Middle East and North Africa

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MDGs Millennium Development Goals

MIT Management Implementation Team

MMTA Middle Management Training Abroad

MOE Ministry of Education

MOES Ministry of Education and Sports, Nepal

MOF Ministry of Finance

MOHE Ministry of Higher Education

MOIC Ministry of International Co-operation

MOLG Ministry of Local Government

MOU Memorandum of Understanding

MTEF Medium-Term Expenditure Framework

NCEEE National Center for Examinations and Educational Evaluation

NCERD National Center for Educational Research and Development

NGOs Non-Governmental Organizations

OCSTA Ontario Public School Trustees’ Association

ODA Official Development Assistance

OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development

PPP Public-Private Partnership

PSPU Policies and Strategic Planning Unit

PTCs Parent-Teacher Councils

RCOL Royal Commission on Learning, Canada

RTI Research Triangle Institute

SEP Senior Executive Program

SGBs School Governance Bodies

SIPs Sector Investment Programmes

SWAp Sector Wide Approach

TVET Technical Vocational Education and Training

UK United Kingdom

UN United Nations

UNDG United Nations Development Group

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

UNICEF United Nations Children’ Funds

US United States

USAID United States Agency for International Development

USD American Dollar

xxi

WB World Bank

WGI Worldwide Governance Indicators

WTO World Trade Organization

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Chapter One: Background

Introduction

Egypt is a Middle Eastern and North-African (MENA) country located in the north-eastern corner of Africa, with a total land area of approximately one million square kilometers. Administratively, the country is divided into 27 governorates (State Information System, 2016a). The population reached roughly 95 million in 2017 (Central Authority for Mobilization and Public Statistics, 2017). Egypt has projected a cultural, social, economic, political and environmental influence far beyond its borders with its seven thousand years of recorded history and large population (CIDA, 2001).

The country witnessed a popular uprising on January 25th, 2011 when demonstrators protested the continued emergency laws, the lack of free elections, limited freedom of speech, the wide spread of corruption and high rates of unemployment. The uprising led to the end of Mubarak’s regime that had lasted for three decades (European Union, 2013). Following a year of interim military rule, Islamist Muslim Brotherhood1 candidate Mohammed Morsi won the presidential elections held in 2012 (BBC, 2014).

However, people demonstrated once again, supported by a military intervention, against Morsi’s policies that failed to meet Egyptians’ expectations (World Factbook, 2014). Waves of unrest and demonstrations ousted Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 (Egyptian Ministry of International Cooperation, 2013).

In this regard, OECD (2015) describes that transition as follows:

As political tensions mounted, the grassroots Tamarod2 campaign started in May 2013 collecting signatures to force President Morsi to step down, with calls for mass demonstrations nationwide on 30 June 2013. These Tamarod-led mass demonstrations

1 The Muslim Brotherhood group that was founded by Hassan Al-Banna in Ismailia city in Egypt in 1928.

2 Arabic word means “Rebellion”

were followed by the announcement of an ultimatum by the army that gave all political forces a 48-hour period to resolve the impasse. President Morsi was removed as President of Egypt on 2 July, and the Minister of Defence, General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, made an announcement outlining a new political transitional phase in a televised speech on 3 July. The head of Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court, Adly Mansour, was sworn in as interim president according to the announced roadmap (p. 17).

President Abd El-Fattah El-Sisi won the presidential elections held in May 2014 and re-elected to a second term in March 2018. Since the January 25th, 2011 revolution, the country has suffered from a state of political, economic and social instability. The country’s instability affects all aspects of Egyptians’ lives. In 2013, the United Nations (UN) indicated that due to the political and social unrest after the revolution, the Egyptian economy suffered considerably, which led to a negative impact on the tourism sector, a decrease in foreign investments and shrinking of foreign reserves that consequently increased unemployment rates.

Historical Overview of the Education Sector

The current pre-university education sector is the product of complicated, historical and political developments and influences that mainly go back to the 1950s.

According to Loveluck (2012):

The evolution of Egypt’s education system has long been influenced by political developments. A European-style system was first introduced by Ottoman rulers in the early nineteenth century in order to nurture a class of well-educated, loyal administrators and army officers who would become the national army. Under the British occupation (1882– 1922) investment in education was then curbed drastically, and secular public schools, which had been free up to this point, began to charge fees. It has been suggested that this downscaling was partly designed to refashion graduates as administrators in the colonial bureaucracy and even to reduce the risk that potentially disruptive, educated, nationalist leaders might emerge to challenge the occupation. Under the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser, education became a central part of the modernizing project (P. 4).

Hartmann (2008) states that:

In 1950, Minister of Education Taha Hussein introduced free education on the pre- university level for all Egyptian citizens, stating that “education is a right for people as is their right for air and water”. The nationalist policies that had begun after independence were continued after the revolution of 1952 and during the rule of Gamal Abdel Nasser. In

1962, universal free education was extended to include higher education. General access to free education and President Nasser’s employment guarantee for all university graduates in the public sector, which was announced in the same year, contributed to a rapid increase in enrollment rates in the following decades. However, the state soon lacked the resources to meet the educational needs of the fast-growing population and the quality of publicly provided education started to deteriorate. More and more unqualified teachers had to be hired and school facilities were insufficiently equipped for the masses of students they had to accommodate. Many schools started to operate in shifts, especially in densely populated urban areas. This trend continued under the rule of President Anwar Sadat (p. 21).

President Anwar Al-Sadat (1970-1981) adopted the “Open Door Policy” that encouraged foreign investment which extended to the education sector. As a result, a two-class education system was effectively established. While wealth families could provide their children with educational opportunities in private language schools, the poor had to rely on public schools where the quality is generally less. Under president Hosni Mubarak (1981-2011), education policies aimed at creating advancements in all areas of education for developing the whole person as a means to elevate the Egyptian economy (OECD, 2015).

UNESCO (2008a) suggests that:

During the early 1990s, the political leadership in Egypt declared education as Egypt’s national project. Accordingly, the 1990s were envisaged as the national decade for eradicating illiteracy. The significance of this declaration stemmed from the fact that about half of the Egyptian society was illiterate. In 2000, education was regarded as an issue of “national security”. Since then, the Ministry of Education (MOE) has espoused “Education for Excellence and Excellence for All” to guide the Ministry’s efforts towards attaining reform and development. On the international sphere, Egypt has committed itself to educational reform through abiding by the principles of the international community since the launch of Jomtien Education for All (EFA) initiative (1990) and under the Dakar Framework for Action on EFA (2000) (p. 17). Problem of the Study

During my work in the pre-university education sector, I realized that it suffers from serious governance and management challenges that negatively affect the whole sector and its performance. The sector lacks a clear vision, a sound strategy, effective leadership, obvious guidance and definite directions. My thoughts and the urgent need to enhance education governance and management are supported by several studies and international reports (see for

example El-Baradei and El-Baradei, 2004; UNESCO, 2003; UNESCO, 2008a; World Bank, 2002). The symptoms and consequences resulting from the lack of good governance and effective management within the sector are realized in all its aspects (Rizk, 2012).

In its national strategic plan, the Ministry of Education (MOE) (2007) identified a set of education governance and management challenges including: 1) the fragmentation and duplication of several entities at the central level in areas of planning, monitoring, evaluation and technology; 2) the contradictions in the interpretations of Ministerial decrees and the absence of accountability; and 3) the parallel structures of entities established by both Ministerial and governorate decrees, which inflate the size of the administrative bodies, making improvement efforts hard to implement, increasing fragmentation and duplication of work, and leading to more inefficiency.

The chronic deterioration of the pre-university education sector and its performance was most strongly identified in the Global Competitiveness Report 2013-2014 (World Economic Forum, 2013) which ranked Egypt last regarding Quality of Primary Education, a rating that came as a shock to different educational stakeholders and stigmatized the whole education sector. As El- Baradei notes: “The 2014/2015 report showed Egypt ranking for the same indicator to be 141/144, signifying very little progress being achieved and a very gloomy picture for the quality of education” (p. 3).

However, this critique may also be the reason and motive for launching major reforms and making real improvements within the education sector. Enhancing its governance and management should be one of the top priorities of the Egyptian Government and the MOE. Reforming governance and management will impact positively the whole education sector, improve its overall performance, and enhance its effectiveness and efficiency.

Aims of the Study

This study aims at realizing a better and deeper understanding of the governance and management of the pre-university education sector through exploring the perspectives of officials working for international organizations whose contributions and inputs can enrich the 4

understanding of the investigated phenomenon - education governance - in the light of their professional experiences and academic qualifications.

Perspectives of those officials represent external voices and inputs on education governance and management that can be utilized to reach ultimately specific applicable strategies that may be considered by the Egyptian Government, the MOE as well as policy- and decision-makers to reform education governance and management.

For the purpose of this study, international organizations are limited to two main categories: (1) United Nations (UN) organizations such as United Nations Development Program (UNDP), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), and the World Bank (WB); and (2) International donor agencies such as the European Union (EU), the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). These organizations provide international aid, financial and technical, to recipient countries where mutual interests meet, support national education reforms, and shape national educational policies in different ways around the globe.

Why International Organizations?

A lot can be understood and learnt about any national education sector by exploring and understanding the perspectives and perceptions of different stakeholders including international organizations and their employees; official and non-official. Those organizations possess power that is based and supported by their funding capacity; political influence; strong capacity; information and knowledge; as well as technical expertise and skills.

Revealing the unrevealed is one of the main reasons for focusing in this study on exploring the perspectives of international organizations’ officials. Additionally, international organizations are powerful organizations and robust influencers; policy-makers and prescribers; with strong capacity and presence in Egypt.

Revealing the Unrevealed

During my work at the MOE, I had been engaged frequently in informal conversations with international officials who openly criticized and complained about different aspects of the education sector, its leadership, barriers and challenges that hinder their organizations’ efforts and reduce their impacts.

For example, in one of those conversation, a well-known international figure in education circles, who visited Egypt many times and contributed to a number of reports focusing on the pre- university education, expressed his extreme disappointment regarding the performance of the sector, the performance of certain education leaders at the central level, and the failure of the sector to utilize and maintain its well-qualified capacity. He indicated that the sector was incapable of providing the conditions for well-qualified and highly educated staff to be promoted to leadership positions in the light of their merits due to tendency for connections to override experience. He concluded that in such a system, there is no chance for well-qualified individuals to have the capacity to implement anything they have learnt. In another discussion with a representative of a multilateral organization, the performance of certain senior MOE staff was criticized, and they were perceived as being unsupportive and hindering the implementation of international organizations’ initiatives due to their bureaucratic style.

It is notable to mention that it is a normal practice that international organizations share their draft reports with senior governmental officials from the host country for two main reasons. The first is to avoid any mistakes that may occur in these reports, especially those related to the names of national organizations, departments, their staff or dates of certain decrees and so on. The second reason is to reach agreeable final versions where national officials may request to lighten the criticism, edit, delete or/and place more focus on positive aspects than negative ones. That is why these reports tend to present more strengths and fewer weaknesses of national education sectors. Some facts, criticism, interpretation and attitudes can not be introduced directly and are not normally found in any international organizations’ reports that tend to be very diplomatic and avoid harsh criticism of the host country. Indeed, deeply critical reports may

hinder or even prevent current and future cooperation between the host country and international organization.

Powerful Organizations and Robust Influencers

A number of scholars and studies manifest international organizations’ increasing power and how they significantly direct, influence and interfere in national policy-making. Increasingly the UN and international donor agencies influence and formulate national policies in different sectors in many ways. For example, Dale and Robertson (2009) argue that “International organizations do not replace national states but create an additional and informal structure of authority and sovereignty besides and beyond the state (through providing) means of communication, socialization, institutionalization and integration” (p. 5).

Since the 1990s, international organizations have widened their scope of action considerably and have undertaken new activities. They shape, guide and influence national debates on education and its related policy, influence states’ aims and goals, and change the structures of education systems. They introduce performance standards, new arrangements for education systems and evaluation mechanisms. They exercise governance as they often employ highly skilled professionals who can provide effective solutions to national problems (Martens, Rusconi and Leuze, 2007).

According to Barnett and Finnemore (1999), international organizations can be autonomous and independent from the states who established them for the power they gain from two main sources: 1) the legitimacy of the national-legal authority they represent and; 2) the control of technical expertise and information. They can use their power in: 1) classifying the world, creating categories of actors and action; 2) fixing meanings in social world and; 3) articulating and diffusing new norms, principles and actors around the world.

International organizations influence states in different ways including the transnational exchange of ideas and information that can take many forms such as publications, conferences, meetings, and seminars. International organizations teach states to value, adopt and implement certain policies, practices, and structures. They conduct studies for country’s internal use; for

international comparison; and for general monitoring. They provide ideas and models for following prescribed practices and influence national policies in many ways (McNeely, 1995).

One important source of influence for international organizations is their use of expertise and information to influence and change other actors, indicating that their expertise resides in their professionals whose professional training helps or blocks the promotion of new norms (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998, 899). Mundy (2007) suggests that “efforts to understand multilateralism usually assume that [International Organizations] take on institutional and normative characteristics that in turn play an important steerage role across the systems of national states” (pp.19-20).

National education sectors are complemented by an emerging, expanding and increasingly significant system of transnational influence where international organizations, non- governmental organizations (NGOs), the professions and scientific communities have all formed a complete system of global influence and engagement (Jones, 2007).

Policy-Makers and Prescribers

One of the roles of international organizations is to prescribe national education policies (McNeely, 1995; Resnik, 2006). International organizations “and notably the World Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO and UNDP played vital roles in designing the architecture of this world agenda, supported at a key stage by Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD" (King, 2007, p. 377).

Mountsios (2009) suggests that international organizations have become major contributors that determine a country’s educational aims, and education policy-making is no longer an exclusive matter to the nation-state, indicating that:

The globalization of economy is accompanied by the globalization of policy-making. Nation-states, inter-state unions, regional and local governments, governmental and non- governmental institutions and private corporations function in transnational contexts to make policies regarding a wide variety of areas. Certainly, the major international organizations, the World Bank and IMF (International Monetary Fund), the WTO (World Trade Organization) and the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), have existed in some form since the period after World War II. However, it 8

is from the 1990s onwards that the size, the role, and scope of their policy agendas have extended dramatically, expressing but also defining the process of globalization. This also applies to education policy (p. 469).

Mundy (1998) describes international organizations as “arenas within which states and other social forces continue to struggle and construct the shape and meaning of world order itself” (pp. 450-451).

Similarly, Resnik (2006) argues that international organizations are:

The tools of capitalists or vehicles of a consensual world education culture…[who] played a key role, and not merely as transmitters but as actors, in the creation of a world education culture that encouraged educational expansion…[and] whose significance is likely to continue to grow in our global world (pp. 194-195).

International organizations continuously and increasingly guide and influence educational policies in the North and the South in different ways. Sahlberg (2009) states that “International organizations have been instrumental in profiling national education policies and financing the implementation of education reforms, not only in developing world but also in the industrial nations” (p. 8).

International organizations obviously prescribe national policies in various ways and their roles, sizes, influence, and power have increasingly expanded. They continue to advise, recommend, interfere, formulate and even impose national policies while relying on strong assets and utilizing powerful influence and pressure mechanisms including various rich resources, funding, intensive expertise, strong capacity, reliable information, technical assistance, consultations, recommendations, and professional development programs.

Strong Capacity

International organizations with large development financing capacity such as the World Bank (WB), can disseminate information widely, including research results, comparative data, concepts and approaches for policy-setting, policy implementation and resource management. Those organizations rely upon large networks of experts and enjoy operating conditions for their action that enable them to play a leading role around the world. International organizations with

relatively limited development-funding capacity, most of bilateral donors, focus their work on certain objectives, levels and types of education in certain countries. They can include new strategic system-strengthening activities and gain influence on the sector’s policy and strategy debate at county level (Gottelmann-Duret & Bahr, 2012).

One of the strongest pillars of international organizations is their reliance on local and international employees that help construct a comprehensive understanding of the national context of the host country supported by international expertise, knowledge, and successful practices gained from working in different contexts. This approach is very effective in bringing together a deep understanding of the local context in a comparison to the wider international scope.

Strong Presence in Egypt

The UN system in Egypt is represented by 24 UN and UN-affiliated agencies (United Nations, 2005):

The UN is expected to work less on direct program implementation and increase its work in the areas of upstream policy advice, advocacy and capacity development, drawing on its strong and varied country presence, healthy mix of international managers and highly- capable national professionals with local knowledge that is backed by regional and international expertise (United Nations, 2013, 15).

As for international donors, there is the Development Partnership Group (DPG), which brings together 20 bilateral and 19 multilateral organizations. When a country participates with more than one member in the DPG, it is only counted as a single country; for example, the Japanese embassy and JICA (United Nations, 2013).

Egypt has received, since the seventies, international aid totalling tens of billions of dollars from UN and international donor organizations, bilateral and multilateral, including UNDP, USAID, EU and from countries such as Canada, Japan and Germany as well as the Gulf states (Amin, 2014).

Egypt has topped the lists of development assistance recipients for two decades after signing the Camp David Accords in 1978 and was only second to Israel in receiving aid from USAID. It also topped the list of recipients of European Union development assistance in 1997-98 at 5.5 percent. Egypt, however, is described as “The black hole of development assistance” (Sayed, 2006, 1).

After signing the Peace Treaty with Israel in 1979, Egypt has witnessed an intensive presence of international donor organizations and become one of the top recipient countries in the world. The American government promised Egyptians and Israelis significant financial support as a contribution to assist in developing their countries (Rugh, 2012). Egypt attracted large amounts of foreign development assistance because of its strategic importance, its key role in the peace process in the Middle East, and its cultural influence on neighbouring countries (Sayed, 2005).

The most obvious factor in Egypt’s experience with aid is politics, not economics (Handoussa, 1991). The country’s strategic location, large population, and military strength have made it the leading power in the Arab World and positioned it at a critical point in the larger superpower competition. Cairo hosts representatives of almost all bilateral and multilateral development organizations. Approximately 41 bilateral and multilateral donor organizations provide assistance to Egypt (World Bank, 2001).

According to Sayed (2006), “The Government of Egypt and foreign development assistance agencies identify education as a crucial agent of internal and political stability. Therefore, both the state and international organizations together with liberal donors have mobilized significant resources and activities” (p. 144). Thus, it seems that both the Egyptian Government and its international partners work together towards a common goal, which is the realization of internal stability through enhancing education that ultimately impacts development in a positive way. Additionally, Egypt is normally committed and develops plans to implement global initiatives such as the UNESCO’s Education for All and the UN’s Millennium Development goals.

The MOE collaborates constantly with UN organizations and international donor agencies in different areas such as pilots, technical assistance, governance and management, decentralization, capacity building, professional development, and teachers’ training. Those organizations possess and share their successful international experiences, best practices and lessons learnt from different contexts.

To enhance the leadership of the recipient country, international contributions should be integrated in the MOE’s programs and be in accordance with its actual needs and priorities, not to be left completely to the partners’ agendas, preferences and interests. Therefore, the MOE should take the lead to maximize the returns of international assistance and avoid the negative impacts of the scattered projects implemented by its international partners.

International organizations have a strong presence and make significant contributions to the different sectors in Egypt including education. They come with their own valuable expertise gained through programs and projects implemented in various contexts all over the world. Their expertise includes successful stories, best practices and challenging reforms. They document and possess knowledge and analyses on how their contributions succeed in certain contexts and why they do not work in others, demonstrating their awareness of how contexts can affect the way their programs and projects are implemented and developed.

Study Questions

Prior to and during the pursuit of this study, I have believed that the perspectives of international organizations’ officials can provide external judgements and relatively more distinct perceptions, compared to local internal ones, regarding the challenges facing the achievement of good governance within the Egyptian pre-university education sector. Those perspectives may contribute to politicians’ and decision-makers’ knowledge and understanding of how to realize good governance within the education sector and what its strengths and weaknesses are.

This study aims at answering the following key question:

How can governance and management of the pre-university education sector in Egypt be enhanced from the perspectives of officials in international organizations?

The following sub-questions stem from the key question:

1) How do international organizations’ officials understand and perceive governance and management of the pre-university education in Egypt? 2) What are the strengths and weaknesses of education governance and management from the perspectives of international organizations’ officials? 3) What strategies that can be adopted by the Egyptian Government and the Ministry of Education to enhance education governance and management in light of the contributions and inputs of international organizations’ officials?

Scope

The study is limited to education governance and management of the pre-university education sector that is managed and supervised by the MOE. Therefore, the study does not include higher education and universities, which are supervised by the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE).

While the lack of good governance in the pre-university education sector, its reasons, symptoms and consequences can be clearly realized and witnessed at its different management levels, this study focuses mainly on the central MOE for several reasons:

First, the central MOE is probably the most important and interesting level to study as the sector is highly centralized and almost all its decisions are made at the central level. Enhancing governance and management at the central level will be reflected positively in the performance of the whole sector, as it is the dominant level of control, planning and leadership. Thus, focusing on the central MOE also gives this study more importance from a practical point of view.

Second, the central MOE is the level where communication, negotiation, coordination and agreements between the MOE and its national and international partners take place. For this reason, international organizations probably possess more knowledge and better understanding about the central level compared to other management levels of the sector.

Third, I spent most of my career working at the MOE, which has helped me develop a good understanding of the central level and how it functions.

Professional and Academic Interests

My professional and academic backgrounds frame my interest, motivation and enthusiasm to conduct this study and shape my understanding and views regarding the pre-university education sector, its opportunities, challenges, strengths and weaknesses.

Professionally, I worked in the sector between 1996 and 2012 in several teaching and management positions, starting as a teacher in public secondary schools in Cairo. In 2002, I started a new post, as an education specialist, at the Minister of Education’ Office where I was promoted later to the posts of Senior Education Specialist in 2008, and a Head of Department in 2012. Thus, I was exposed to different sorts of knowledge about the sector from different positions as I was involved in the sector at the local level through my work in schools and at the central level through my work at the MOE. I participated in and offered technical assistance to a number of international missions to Egypt such as the UNESCO 2003 mission that produced the report: Educational Reform in Egypt 1996-2003: Achievements and Challenges in the New Century.

Those opportunities enabled me to understand how the sector functions, locally and centrally, and put me in a good position to understand the views of teachers at the grassroots level and those of officials working at the central level. Additionally, they helped me possess strong professional relations at the central and local levels.

Academically, I completed my Master of Arts degree in educational planning and management, UNESCO IIEP in 2006. The title of the thesis was: “International Aid and Sector Wide Approaches in Education: A Study of Crucial Management Issues in Egypt”. That thesis focused on the international aid to the Egyptian pre-university education sector and how to maximize the contributions of international donor agencies to that sector by adopting the Sector Wide Approach (SWAp) for enhancing aid effectiveness and efficiency. The study identified several key strengths and weaknesses for moving towards the adoption of SWAp in Egypt.

In 2012, I completed a doctorate in education management and the title of my thesis was: “The Role of Decentralization in Developing General Education in Egypt in the Light of the International Experiences: An Analytical Critical Study”. My doctoral dissertation aimed at investigating the activation of decentralization within the pre-university education sector as an entry point to improve the performance of that highly centralized sector. The study presented a number of international experiences in education decentralization reforms and their effects, reviewed the Egyptian historical and current experiences regarding education decentralization and analyzed the different challenges that may affect the movement towards realizing more education decentralization. It suggested a conception to activate education decentralization through empowering schools, enhancing their autonomy and increasing their decision-making authorities; taking into consideration that schools represent the basic units of reform, development and improvement.

I am interested in conducting studies that aim at investigating whole system reforms and targeting the broad national context. While my Master thesis focused on investigating how to enhance the impact of international aid to the pre-university education sector and my first doctoral thesis explored how to enhance and activate decentralization in that highly centralized sector while focusing at the school level, this current study aims at investigating and enhancing education governance and management based on the inputs of international organizations’ officials.

Structure of the Study

The study is structured in ten chapters as follows:

Chapter One: Background

This chapter focuses on setting the scene and introducing the problem of the study. It presents the main challenges of governance and management of the Egyptian pre-university education sector, the study questions, scope, the rationale behind exploring the perspectives of international organizations’ officials and theoretical discussion of international organizations.

Chapter Two: Literature Review

This chapter explores the literature related to the current study and is divided into the following four sections: I) Education Governance: Concept and Definitions; II) Education Governance in International Contexts; III) Education Governance and International Organizations; and IV) Education Governance in Egypt.

Chapter Three: Conceptual Framework

This chapter presents the conceptual framework that guides the current study and summarizes its path and analyses. It discusses the following sections: leadership, partnership, participation, governance diagnosis, governance dynamics and suggested strategies.

Chapter Four: Methodology

This chapter presents the methodology of the current study, which adopts a qualitative method. It addresses different, yet related methodological issues, including candidates, interviewees; data analysis; plan versus reality; and subjectivity versus objectivity.

Chapter Five: Leadership

This chapter addresses the area of leadership and discusses it through analyzing and reviewing two main stakeholders: Political Leadership and Educational Leadership. It discusses and reviews efforts, contributions, challenges and impacts of those two stakeholders on the pre- university education sector and its performance.

Chapter Six: Partnership

Chapter Six explores partnership between the MOE and two main stakeholders - international organizations and the private sector. It discusses the initiation of partnership, its management, and challenges facing those partners from the perspectives of international organizations’ officials.

Chapter Seven: Participation

Chapter Seven focuses on the theme of participation to the pre-university education sector. Participation is discussed through investigating and reviewing the contributions, efforts and challenges of three main stakeholders, namely, local communities, the BOTs, and NGOs.

Chapter Eight: Governance Diagnosis

This chapter aims at realizing a better understanding of governance and management of the pre- university education sector through diagnosing its strengths and weaknesses as identified by participants. It adds to the understanding of the education sector’ governance presented in chapters Five, Six and Seven.

Chapter Nine: Governance Dynamics

This chapter presents an overview, draws linkages and explores the relationships and interactions among different stakeholders through discussing the themes of leadership and partnership; leadership and participation; and partnership and participation.

Chapter Ten: Summary and Suggested Strategies

This chapter summarizes the thesis and presents a set of suggested strategies that may be considered by the Government of Egypt and the MOE for enhancing governance and management of the pre-university education sector; improving its poor performance; and overcoming the deterioration in the quality of its services.

It suggests future relevant research and presents the significance and limitations of the study.

Chapter Two: Literature Review

Introduction

This chapter reviews the literature with the aim of shedding light on the theoretical background on governance and education governance. Kaufmann, Kraay and Mastruzzi (2010) suggest that the issue of Governance is complex and difficult to be defined precisely. Therefore, this chapter presents a variety of governance definitions that demonstrate and provide evidence of why governance can be interpreted differently by different practitioners.

This chapter includes a set of studies and reports on governance and education governance that clearly manifest how research on education governance can be approached and designed in very different ways. Investigating education governance, for example, may adopt a qualitative, quantitative or mixed-method; it may focus on reviewing and understating the roles and responsibilities of one certain internal or external stakeholder(s) or more; it may explore the perspectives and perceptions of any insider or outsider stakeholder; it may focus on a certain level within the hierarchy — central, regional, local or school — or it may consider the whole sector; and it may assess or evaluate the impacts of a certain stakeholder (s) on an education sector, its performance or any of its aspects.

The reviewed literature includes national and international studies and reports on education governance, governance reforms and initiatives, impacts on education sectors and their performance in the light of adopting and implementing governance reforms.

The literature review is presented through the following four sections: I) Education Governance: Concept and Definitions; II) Education Governance in International Contexts; III) Education Governance and International Organizations; and IV) Education Governance in Egypt.

I- Education Governance: Concept and Definitions

Governance

As suggested at the onset of this chapter, governance is a very complex issue and cannot be defined precisely. Though the concept of governance is widely discussed among scholars and policy-makers, there is no strong consensus around one single definition. Various authors and different organizations have produced a wide array of definitions (Kaufmann, Kraay and Mastruzzi, 2010).

According to a number of scholars, “Governance” is not a new term. Coward (2010), for example, states that it has been in use for many centuries. “Kubernetes”, the ancient Greek word that meant “steersman” or “helmsman”, was used by successive civilizations to refer to exercising authority, control and direction.

The concept of governance can be traced back to 400 B.C. in the Arthashastra3 where the art of governance, including justice, ethics, and anti-autocratic tendencies, was presented. In this document, the duties of the king were identified, including the protection of the wealth of the state as well as enhancing, maintaining and safeguarding the wealth and interests of his subjects (Kaufmann and Kraay, 2008).

The concept of governance, however, may be even older as it was born with human civilization. According to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (2009): “Simply put “governance” means: the process by which decisions are implemented (or not implemented)” (p.1).

Governance has emerged as a key concept pre-occupying the international community. It refers to the way a society sets and manages the rules that guide policy-making and policy implementation. It also refers to the formal and informal arrangements that determine how public

3 A treatise that is attributed to Kautilya, chief Minister of the king of India.

decisions are made and how public actions are carried out from the perspective of maintaining a country’s constitutional values (The United Nations, 2007).

It is a “multifaceted concept encompassing all aspects of the exercise of authority through formal and informal institutions in the management of the resource endowment of a state” (World Bank, 2005, p. 40). In this definition, the World Bank pays attention to both informal and formal aspects of governance. Through its project of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), from1996 to 2013, the World Bank presented aggregate and individual data for 215 economies on the following six governance dimensions: 1) Voice and accountability; 2) Political stability and absence of violence; 3) Government effectiveness; 4) Regulatory quality; 5) Rule of law; and 6) Control of corruption. The World Bank (2015a) refers to governance as:

Traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised. This includes the process by which governments are selected, monitored, and replaced; the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies; and the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them.

This definition provides a sort of a framework of how authority is exercised in a given country by the government at the top level and citizens at the grassroots level.

While trying to reach a common understanding of governance, the World Bank (2015b) defines it as “the rule of the rulers, typically within a given set of rules … It is the process by which authority is conferred on rulers, by which they make the rules, and by which those rules are enforced and modified”.

Governance is also defined as the:

Exercise of economic, political, and administrative authority to manage a country’s affairs at all levels. It comprises the mechanisms, processes and institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations and mediate their differences (The United Nations Economic and Social Council, 2006, p. 3).

This definition stresses the importance of participation and contributions made by citizens and other stakeholders in practising their authorities and rights while seeking to serve their interests.

The United Nations Commission on Global Governance defines governance as:

The sum of the many ways that individuals and institutions, public and private, manage their common affairs. It is a continuing process during which conflicting or diverse interests are accommodated and co-operative action taken. It includes formal instructions and regimes that are empowered to enforce compliance; it also refers to formal arrangements as agreed to by people and institutions because they perceive them to be in their best interests (UNESCO, 2007, p. 24).

Governance is the way in which power is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources. It is concerned with how government interacts with civil society and how it encourages and facilitates peoples’ participation in service delivery, monitoring and evaluation of government performance (Manasan, Gonzalez and Gaffud, 1999). This definition concentrates on the management of economic and social resources and how power is exercised and distributed among different stakeholders while focusing on the government, civil society and people.

Education Governance

Education governance is concerned with “how the education system is organized, and power is allocated; what structures and decision-making processes are in place; formal roles and responsibilities; and the relationship between central and local authorities” (Watson et al, 2003, p. 2). It “provides a framework and a process for the allocation of decision-making powers. Good governance is the exercise of these powers through ethical leadership” (Ontario Public School Trustees’ Association (OCSTA), 2014, p. 22).

Education governance reforms in different contexts involve attempts to dismantle a centralized education bureaucracy to create devolved systems entailing varying degrees of institutional autonomy and forms of management. These reforms include moderate or radical shifts in authority across the different management levels and imply power redistribution within the education sector (Naidoo, 2005).

In its EFA Global Monitoring Report (GMR) 2009: Overcoming Inequality: Why Governance Matters, UNESCO stresses the crucial importance of governance in realizing the EFA goals in particular and education ones in general as it strengthens accountability, enhances participation and breaks down inequalities. UNESCO (2008b) states that Governance “is a word that conjures 22

up an image of abstract political, administrative and management processes” (p. 128) and it is about: “The processes, policies and institutional arrangements that connect the many actors in education. It defines the responsibilities of national and subnational governments in areas such as finance, management and regulation” (p. 6).

According to UNESCO (2008b):

Education governance is not simply the system of administration and management of education in a country. In its broadest sense, it is concerned with the formal and informal processes by which policies are formulated, priorities identified, resources allocated, and reforms implemented and monitored. Governance is an issue not only for central government but also for every level of the system, from the education ministry down to the classroom and community. It is ultimately concerned with the distribution of power in decision-making at all levels (p. 129).

Education governance, at the national level, determines what educational policies and priorities are to be adopted, how much funding should be allocated and how it should be distributed, managed and accounted for. It determines how powers and functions are distributed among the different actors and across the different layers of the system and how to maintain law and transparency to hold those with authority accountable for their performance. It also ensures the deployment of qualified, motivated and accountable employees across the system (UNESCO, 2012a). According to this definition, education governance encompasses a number of processes including education policy planning; development and implementation; prioritization and objectives identification; resources allocation; and authority distribution among different stakeholders.

Through reviewing the previous different definitions of governance and education governance, it is obvious that governance is a very broad term and encompasses a large set of processes that makes it difficult to identify or define it accurately and precisely. Governance can be used to refer to a wide range of political, economic and administrative aspects related to a certain sector. Education governance is extremely important in planning and mapping current and future directions and trends. It is concerned with the roles, responsibilities and interests of the different stakeholders, key players, beneficiaries and influencers who share authorities and

responsibilities, such as governmental bodies, national and international organizations, NGOs, citizens, parents and students.

This study adopts Pierre’s (2000) definition of governance that suggests it is the process of “sustaining coordination and coherence among a wide variety of actors with different purposes and objectives such as political actors and institutions, corporate interests, civil society and transnational organizations” (pp. 3-4). This definition constitutes the base of composing the conceptual framework of this study, which is presented in more details in Chapter Three.

Notably the USAID adopts a similar understanding of governance that focuses on the relationships among main stakeholders suggesting that: “Governance is mainly about the relationships between key stakeholders. It is also about access to reliable and relevant information for all stakeholders” (RTI International, 2007, p. 34).

Governance and Management

As shown in Table 1, UNESCO (2018) stresses differences between governance and management:

Management refers to the planning, implementation and monitoring functions in order to achieve pre-defined results. Management encompasses processes, structures and arrangements that are designed to mobilize and transform the available physical, human and financial resources to achieve concrete outcomes. Management refers to individuals or groups of people who are given the authority to achieve the desired results. Governance systems set the parameters under which management and administrative systems will operate. Governance is about how power is distributed and shared, how policies are formulated, priorities set, and stakeholders made accountable.

Table 1.

Difference between Governance and Management

Governance Management

 Set norms, strategic vision and  Run the organization in line with the direction and formulate high-level broad goals and direction set by the goals and policies governing body

 Oversee management and  Implement the decisions within the organizational performance to ensure context of the mission and strategic that the organization is working in the vision best interests of the public, and more  Make operational decisions and specifically the stakeholders who are policies, keep the governance bodies served by the organization’s mission informed and educated  Direct and oversee the management to  Be responsive to requests for additional ensure that the organization is information achieving the desired outcomes and to

ensure that the organization is acting prudently, ethically and legally.

Note. Reprinted from UNESCO (2018). Concept of Governance. Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/quality- framework/technical-notes/concept-of-governance/

Notably UNESCO (2018) suggests, however, that: “Often there is a tendency to equate governance with management”.

II- Education Governance in International Contexts

Significant changes happened over the past two decades in the governance of education sectors. As Robertson (2012) suggests:

International institutions, governments, firms, philanthropies and consultants have promoted more hybrid partnerships, involving new combinations of state and non-state actors engaged in a range of activities within the education sector. These newer forms of education governance often operate across scales, through interactions between local, regional and national governments and intergovernmental organizations, and between these national and transnationally configured profit firms, philanthropists, NGOs, and religious organizations (p. 1).

According to UNESCO (2001), the capacities of Ministries of Education to formulate, implement and evaluate policies rely a lot on their inside abilities to collect, analyze and evaluate data. Policy reform is dependent on the ministries’ managerial capacities regarding planning, organization, and following-up the concrete implementation of different policies. Several factors that contribute to the weakness of ministries of education are identified including: poor quality of available information on both past performance and future directions of the education system; poor quality of forecasts and lack of commitment of different stakeholders; and lack of capacity to organize interaction among policy actors. Moreover, the study identifies four organizational pillars that represent challenges for developing countries. First, the need to possess a coherent and well-coordinated overall organizational pattern. Second, an efficient information system needs to be in place. Third, the existence or development of accurate and consistent rules, regulations and procedures. Finally, the availability of skilled staff and incentives to motivation them. Having both well-designed policies and internal abilities within ministries of education to implement policies successfully are critical.

To examine the relationship between education governance and management and the achievement of Education for All (EFA) goals, Bray and Mukundan (2003) investigated whether decentralization can be a solution to address the challenges facing the less developed countries towards the achievement of EFA goals. The authors suggest that decentralization cannot be looked at as the silver bullet that can solve all educational problems, as it is not always

successful and faces normally various challenges. They conclude that while decentralization can contribute to realizing EFA goals in certain contexts, it may hinder their achievement in others.

Williams (2003) indicates that since the 1980s most countries have implemented governance reforms in areas including decision-making authority, curriculum, finance, personnel and evaluation, however, those educational reforms witnessed major differences in their implementation. Reviewing education governance reforms in five Western countries; including Australia, England, New Zealand, Sweden and Canada, the author found that different approaches were taken. Indeed, Australia and New Zealand implemented governance reforms that eliminated intermediate level school boards and established a site-management system, while England and Sweden increased decision-making authority of municipal governments. Canada was different from the rest of the reviewed countries as many of its provinces moved towards the creation of larger units through amalgamation, whereas the other four countries moved towards decentralizing authority from the state.

With the aim of assessing the overall capacity and guiding the conceptualization and preparation of a human resource development plan of the Ministry of Education and Sports (MOES) in Nepal, its staff, and constituent bodies, Bista and Carney (2004) conducted a mixed-method study that gathered its data by questionnaires; that were widely distributed at the central, regional, district and school levels; interviews and group discussions with stakeholders. The study suggests that information processes reflect the steep organizational hierarchy within the ministry, and while some schools are effective and successful, the majority lack qualified staff, resources, materials and facilities. The study identifies other challenges including the very limited role of the regional education directorate and the great gap among schools. It concludes, that structures, mandates, and responsibilities, at the central level, are not clear, the staffing practices are poor, professional development programs lack effectiveness and are not normally linked to performance.

While exploring school governance in relation to the concept of deliberative democracy, Adams (2005) argues that the voices of learners and parents seem to be excluded from the practices of School Governance Bodies (SGBs) in South Africa. The author suggests that the South African Schools Act and its implementation are inconsistent, which leads to a situation where school governance operations operate in manner contrary to what the Act purports. The author concludes that SGBs do not seem to establish conditions through which deliberative democratic practices can be achieved and the marginalized voices of learners and parents, that seem to be excluded from SGBs, should be included to move towards strong democratic practices.

LeMoine (2006) examined the Council of Ministers of Education in Canada and analyzed the participants’ understanding of Canada’s educational priorities and practices that enable or hinder the identification, development, and implementation of those priorities. The author addressed transformation in education that has implications for the national governance of education in Canada. Data were gathered mainly through interviewing 19 participants from across Canada, who held or had held senior government positions in education; six participants had served as either deputy Ministers or Ministers of Education. The study concludes that the strategic use of language influences public understandings of education while implicitly raising questions about jurisdictional responsibility for education. It also suggests that the Council of Ministers of Education continues to pursue its role as a national voice of education in Canada with evidence that there are possibilities and potential resistance to the changing context of education governance in Canada.

With the aim of exploring the parental involvement in educational decision-making in a large urban school district, Caines (2006) investigated perceptions of principals and parents at two schools using case study method and observations of the school governance meetings. Participants included two principals and ten parents at a school located in an inner-city neighbourhood and one principal and seven parents at a school in a high-income area. The author concludes that principals have an influential role in promoting and fostering parental involvement. The study suggests that school council policy is problematic as it appeals specifically to higher income parents rather than serving as an open invitation for all parents to get involved in educational governance. 28

Fazekas and Burns (2007) explored the relationship between governance and knowledge through examining how governance and knowledge mutually constitute and impact each other in education sectors. The authors define governance as “The process of governing societies in a situation where no single actor can claim absolute dominance” and suggest there is very little literature that links governance and knowledge (p. 7). They argue that knowledge is crucial for governance, while governance is important for knowledge creation and dissemination. The study also presents a framework that combines models of governance with modes of learning and types of knowledge with empirical examples to support that framework.

Mansel (2008) investigated one school district in the United States that undertook an effort to reform its governance through the implementation of Carver or Policy Governance Model. This model focuses on the board’s work in setting an organizational direction and delegating responsibility for doing the work to get to the superintendent. The author proposes a new theory to understand how the Policy Governance Model can be replicated across the system to enhance organizational earning. Analysis of data, gathered from interviews, observations, documents and audio recordings of board meetings, suggests that Policy Governance Model creates a shift in ownership of the organizational vision away from the superintendent towards the board and community. This shift contributes to easing the organizational impacts caused by a loss of tacit and explicit knowledge resulting from the district leadership’s turnover.

Consequences of poor governance of education sectors are identified in a Background Paper prepared for the Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2009 (Crouch and Winkler, 2008). Those consequences include the failure of resources to reach schools, such as books, instructional materials, and construction materials; ghost teachers; high rates of absenteeism among principals and teachers; poor teacher deployment with large disparities in class size among schools; and wastage of resources within schools. The study identifies education governance challenges facing poor countries; assesses international experiences in education governance improvement and their effects on educational outcomes; and presents analytic tools for evaluating education governance. The authors suggest a framework for education governance and management that builds on the following three dimensions: 1) Responsiveness of

government to the needs and demands of citizens; 2) Capacity of the system to deliver the services and satisfy citizens’ needs and; 3) Accountability by schools to citizens they serve.

Governance is an important determinant of the effectiveness of educational sectors. Building on previous analyses of California’s governance structures, Brewer and Smith (2008) conducted more than forty interviews with leading academics and stakeholders and developed new analyses of primary source documentation. Their study suggests a framework of good systems that builds on five characteristics: 1) Stability; 2) Accountability; 3) Innovation, flexibility and responsiveness; 4) Transparency and openness; and 5) Simplicity and efficiency. The study concludes that California has a space for improvement as its education governance is weak regarding its accountability, efficiency and stability, whereas it is moderate regarding transparency and innovation.

Lewis and Pettersson (2009) suggest that good governance can serve as an entry point to raise institutional performance in educational services delivery while standards, information, incentives, and accountability are important to realize high performance. Poor governance results in inefficiency in service provision or no service at all in some cases. Moreover, the lack of standards, information, incentives, and accountability can also lead to corruption. Building on previous studies conducted by individual researchers and organizations, this study confirms that the line between poor governance and corruption is often blurred and poor service may result from corruption or mismanagement suggesting that good education governance enhances the effective delivery of educational services.

To better understand main education governance challenges in different fragile contexts and suggest recommendations for external support to the education sector, the European Commission (2009) reviewed eight case studies including Aceh (Indonesia), Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Lebanon, Liberia, Somalia and southern Sudan. This review identifies several enabling factors that contribute to the resilience of education sectors and maintain some level of basic service delivery including the high value accorded by communities and families to school attendance, early restoration of teaching service, public-private partnerships and a sustained role by government in continuing to finance education. Though governance challenges varied among

the different case studies, common challenges are identified including the underdevelopment of education standards-setting and broad stakeholder participation in performance monitoring, the need to adopt more results-oriented frameworks, and the importance of strengthening sector performance oversight and independent watchdog agencies. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that many governance actions can ensure positive legacies and responses to fragile situations including the early preparation of sectoral medium-terms plans; a comprehensive and inclusive education reconstruction program; early building of state organizational capacity to regulate public-private partnerships; early restoration of state-run teacher payroll; merit-driven teacher recruitment and teacher training systems.

It is widely recognized that effective local governance considerably impacts access to education as well as the enrolment, retention, and learning experiences of children in school. For several years, stronger and better functioning of local governance bodies have increasingly become top priorities of educational reform agendas and the establishment of effective local governance has been a part of overall changes in educational governance across contexts (Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity, 2010).

To test whether governance has a positive influence on education enrolment ratios, D’Andrea (2010), building on data obtained from United Nations and the World Bank, employed the following four World Bank governance indicators: 1) Voice and accountability; 2) Rule of law; 3) Control of corruption; and 4) Government effectiveness that are tested against gender parity (GP) enrolment ratios per country as well as control variables to account for region and culture. The study concludes the insignificance of the governance indicators and the significance of some control variables, which may suggest that governance is not associated with the enrolment gap and it may not be the most related to gender parity but rather society’s culture and traditions.

To answer the question of whether school boards can govern, Shields (2011) investigated the evolution of Ontario’s school boards while focusing on how school board governance is understood in terms of conflicts over power, authority, areas of competence and responsibility for the public good. The author suggests that governance is subject to internal and external influences, conditions, constraints and circumstances while having a set of essential

characteristics which are power, authority, fiducially, and legitimacy. The study concludes that board governance is a social practice and Ontario’s school boards can govern.

Good governance ensures successful policy implementation and requires all stakeholders to address the problems of vulnerable populations including indigenous people, refugees and children with special needs. It is essential in policy implementation, particularly in areas such as Early Childhood Care and Education that requires cooperation and coordination among different sectors (Boon, 2010).

Swift-Morgan (2011) investigated the post-bureaucratic education reform in in the Republic of Guinea through examining whether and how instruments, such as data-based planning, are used and identifying the main actors in the process. Data were gathered from in-depth interviews, focus groups with actors who participated in the reforms, document analysis, reports, and observations of education offices at the decentralized level. The study concludes that educational reform processes in Guinea are not implemented as they should be, and that the education sector is affected severely by informal political, social, cultural and economic dynamics among actors at different levels.

Serra, Barr, and Packard (2011) explored the relationship between a set of school inputs including proxies for the functionality of top-down and bottom up accountability systems and education outputs in primary schools in Albania. Building on data gathered from surveying 180 national schools, findings demonstrate that there is a strong negative correlation between top- down accountability measures and repetition and failure of students in final exams. Additionally, the study suggests there is a strong positive correlation between top-down measures and students’ excellence in math. The bottom-up accountability measures are correlated to various education outputs, though they tend to lose statistical significance when parent characteristics, school resources and top-down accountability indicators are considered. The in-depth analysis reveals challenges, including limited parental involvement and lack of information and suggests the importance of having representative parents acting in the interests of all parents as the most direct and shortest way towards accountability.

Investigating the political management of state schooling in the period from 1997 to 2010 under New Labour, Goodwin (2011) argues that the best general characterisation of New Labour’s education strategy is as a centralising project. The author finds that centralisation has increased the power and discretion of the core executive over the education sector at the expense of alternative centers of power. The author suggests that New Labour education policy is harmonic with a broader strategy for the modification of the British state that aims at enhancing administrative efficiency and governing competence. Findings demonstrate that New Labour’s education strategy is largely successful in terms of securing governing competence and altering power relations and behaviour in the education sector despite continuing controversy over program and political performance of educational policies.

Sattler (2012) explored the relationship between neoliberal ideology and the discourse and the practice of Ontario’s education governance reform over the last two decades. The study investigated changes in education governance introduced by successive Ontario governments including the National Democratic Party government from 1990 to 1995, the Progressive Conservative government from 1995 to 2003, and the Liberal government in power since 2003. Describing differences in the policy content of the neoliberal governance reforms undertaken by each government, the study relies on the tripartite model of education governance identified by Bedard and Lawton (2000). This model includes policy interdependence, administrative agency and policy tutelage. Additionally, Sattler’s study uses the work and recommendations of three government-appointed bodies: The Royal Commission on Learning (RCOL); the Education Improvement Commission (EIC); and the Governance Review Committee (GRC). To further the understanding of education governance dynamics, three interrelated points are identified. First, the influence of political ideologies on governance and accountability approaches. Second, the mediating role played by the three government-appointed bodies. Third, the incrementalism of neoliberal reforms in education governance policy.

Studying the changing education governance in two different contexts England and Peru, Balarin (2014) found that there are major differences between the two cases. The author suggests that a common agenda could be identified where an increasing degree of organizational hybridity is present where the goals and rationales of public and private sectors are recombined. In the two 33

case studies, though this agenda was enacted very differently yet it generated similar outcomes including an increasing degree of fragmentation of educational services. Education was transformed from a contested space of knowledge and identity formation to a commodity bought and sold. Thus, education was administered through the rules of the market and was recast as a private rather than public good. In both cases, the changing education governance produces an increasing commodification of education, which reproduces and deepens existing social inequalities.

Through reviewing the literature on education governance in different international contexts, it is evident that most countries have adopted different forms of governance reforms to address almost every aspect of the education sector. Those reforms can focus on the decision-making authority, curriculum, finance, personnel and evaluation. However, decentralization is the most radical, important and common component of education governance reforms. Though decentralization can absolutely contribute to the achievement of the education goals in some contexts, it is not always the silver bullet that can overcome all educational problems due to the differences in its design, implementation, surrounding context, and stakeholders.

Some studies investigative governance through concentrating on different stakeholders, internals or externals, to better understand their roles, responsibilities and contributions to education sectors and decisions-making processes. Understanding, assessing and evaluating stakeholders, their efforts and impacts on education sectors and their performance, can help improve their contributions, reduce their challenges and reach applicable strategies and recommendations.

III- Education Governance and International Organizations

It is important in this regard to refer to the framework developed by Levin (2001) to help better conceptualize educational reforms from international organizations’ perspectives. This framework builds on four interactive dimensions: origins; adoption; implementation; and outcomes with the aim of realizing a better understanding of educational reforms form political, organizational and educational perspectives. In this context, origins refer to what the source of a particular reform is; adoption refers to how and who proposed and supported various policies; implementation refers to what model of implementation is used to move a reform into practice; 34

and finally, outcomes refer to the intended and non-intended results with a focus on school system, student learning outcomes and learning processes in schools.

Tilak (2002) demonstrates how developing countries and international organizations’ perceptions and conceptions of one-another may impact policy development and implementation. For Tilak, developing countries might take the position that many of the international organizations, especially lending ones, rarely learn from their experiences, know little about developing countries and refuse to learn from them. At best, international organizations are seen too slow to learn, which may be attributed to the familiar arrogance of those organizations that knowledge transfer is necessarily a one-way transaction from the international organization or the developed country to the developing country. On the other hand, international organizations assume that no knowledge base exists in the developing countries, and even if it does, it is not significant, useful or relevant.

Governance continues to receive increasing attention from different stakeholders for its importance in realizing the desired goals of national education sectors. The International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) (2005) states that donors support reforms that aim at improving governance through building capacity, providing professional programs, and advising on establishing effective management information system. However, several strategies are suggested that include building knowledge, disseminating information, facilitating learning and re-engineering ministries of education.

Katayama (2007) sought to answer the questions of how international donor agencies disburse their aid resources and if their aid activities work for developing countries while focusing on Fast Track Initiative (FTI)4. Adopting the case study approach and focusing on three Asian countries: Mongolia, Vietnam, and Cambodia, the author interviewed international donor officials and

4 Fast Track Initiative was established in 2002 for strengthening national education plans, improving aid effectiveness, coordinating donor support and galvanizing the fund required to achieve EFA goals. In 2011, the FTI became officially the Global Partnership for Education (World Education Blog, 2018).

undertook document analysis. The study demonstrates contracting problems and capacity issues and concludes with evaluating the performance of international donor organizations involved in Fast Track Initiative (FTI).

To identify the differences between the perceptions of international Organization headquarters and field employees of a program they were involved in Southern Sudan, Eschenbacher (2011), adopted a mixed-method case study approach and gathered data via phone interviews and online surveys from international organizations’ employees. Findings demonstrate that though both headquarters and field employee aim at making the program successful, they perceive the politics, problem and solutions of the program differently. Discrepancies in perception between the headquarters and field employees are based largely on how much detail they are exposed to. While field employees encounter competing demands from both the organization and local stakeholders, headquarters employees balance donor requirements within their own organization and the host government to ensure grant compliance.

Each type of the international organizations has its own advantages and disadvantages that affect the sustainability of their support to education. UN organizations, for example, have better resources compared to international donor agencies and NGOs to draw upon and a greater obligation to collaborate with governmental partners. However, bureaucratic hurdles within those organizations as well as in the partner governments can impede sustainability. As for international donor agencies, they work through governments and mediate any political resistance that may appear. This resistance can slow down progress and impede the sustainability of support to education. Regarding NGOs, though they may work more efficiently than other types of organizations, the challenges they face asserting their legitimacy in the eyes of the government can affect the sustainability of their support to education sector (Mendenhall, 2014).

Reviewing key official reports issued by the World Bank, OECD, UNESCO and UNICEF between 1990 and 2000, Akkari and Lauwerier (2015) analyzed the roles of those organizations regarding education reforms. The authors confirm that international organizations gain an increasing influence over education and its policies, indicating that organizations like UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank are very influential in the global South whereas the OECD leads

education reforms in the global North. International organizations are described as key actors in education policy as they guide education policy in light of their significant financial weight, particularly with organizations like the World Bank and UNICEF that inject fund into education systems. The authors suggest that international organizations practise their influence through their expertise, successful practices, benchmarking mechanisms and tools used for evaluating educational policies. They argue that the roles of international organization change continuously and emphasise the need for deep analyses of those roles in developing education policies.

Through reviewing the literature on international organizations and their contributions to education governance, it is obvious that those organizations support governance reforms in many ways including the provision of technical assistance and advice; conducting education sector diagnosis; and implementing professional development programs. This review also demonstrates that it is interesting and helpful to understand the perspectives of developing countries and international organizations regarding each other. Indeed, as suggested by Tilak (2002) developing countries may take the position that international organizations are arrogant and know little about developing countries and even refuse to learn from them, while international organizations may assume that no knowledge base exists in developing countries or it is not useful or relevant.

IV- Education Governance in Egypt

Strengthening the management of educational institutions by decentralizing decisions, promoting accountability and ensuring the availability of information to all mangers to inform their decision are serious challenges to the education sector. The World Bank (2002) advises the Egyptian MOE to adopt a number of policies to face those challenges including: The involvement of local communities and school staff in the education process; the provision of information on teaching practices and student learning outcomes to schools; decentralization of decision-making authority to school principals; training mangers at all levels to use Education Management Information System (EMIS) for decision-making; and improving EMIS and its utilization as there are particular challenges in areas of questionnaire design, data analysis, and findings utilization.

Centralization in Egypt impedes development as it does not suit the complexity of modern life regardless of the long history of Egypt with centralization. Adopting decentralization can enhance participation of local communities in decision-making in a way that promotes better access to basic services, improved quality of services, cost-efficiency and prioritization of beneficiaries’ needs. Decentralization also can strengthen people’s participation in development by enhancing partnership, transparency and accountability at local level (UNDP, 2004).

Sayed (2006) examined the process of international socialization of basic education policy reforms through which international organizations have promoted a set of key beliefs and objectives. The study identified several key challenges including, for example, the lack of sufficient persuasive dialogue with policy stakeholders at different levels, which acted to alienate domestic actors from policy process and prevent a consensus over the main issues of reform. The author concludes that policy reforms required institutional changes that are inconsistent with the functions, structures, and culture of Egyptian educational institutions and operated in a suspicious climate towards foreign aid to education and blames directly the MOE for failing in embedding the values and administrative cultures advanced by reforms in institutions or the public at large.

Ghodsi (2006) sought to estimate the effects of educational decentralization on student outcomes through reforms supported by international partners. The author indicates that there are major complications plaguing the Egyptian pre-university education sector that are rooted in the bureaucratic tradition of the government. She argues that the strong centralized government led to increasing inefficiencies, which are the main contributors to the consistent problems in Egyptian public education. The study concludes that educational decentralization had an insignificant effect on student outcomes. Thus, findings differed from the literature on Argentina, Nicaragua, and the Philippines that suggests decentralization has a positive impact on student outcomes. This may be due to the lack of the effectiveness of the decentralization program or to the fact that decentralization reforms need more time to prove their impact.

To examine the history of educational decentralization in Egypt, from 1883 to 1979, Ibrahim and Hozayin (2006) analyzed different attempts to adopt education decentralization in the light of six key aspects: 1) financial decentralization; 2) willingness; 3) capacity; 4) selection of participants to implement decentralization; 5) establishment of a well-defined decentralization system; and 6) formation of a framework of accountability and transparency. The authors conclude that education decentralization faced implementation challenges because of the lack of willingness by all partners to share authority and responsibility and the domination of the central representatives over their counterparts from other management levels in discussions; stressing the importance and necessity of raising public-awareness on decentralization targets and activities.

The National Center for Educational Research and Development (NCERD, 2009) reviewed the role and results of projects implemented in collaboration with international organizations to enhance the quality of Egyptian schools. These projects included the Active Learning Project, Effective School Project, Developing a Hundred School Project, School Excellence Award Project, and Education Reform Program (ERP). The study suggests that though those projects contribute generally to enhancing the quality of schools, there are serious challenges face Egyptian schools. The study proposes a conception to activate such projects and enhance the quality of schools through building on several internal and external factors. While internal factors include improvements to human resources, school management, development of suitable curriculums, methodology, activities, educational aids, laboratories, equipment, and comprehensive evaluation, external factors include flexible educational policy supporting decentralization, community participation, continuous professional development, educational supervision, and accountability.

To examine historically the rhetoric, action, and outcomes of educational policy reforms in Egypt from 1981 to 2007, Ginsburg, Megahed, Elmeski and Tanaka (2010) analyzed institutional frameworks, financial resources, system leaders’ capacity and political will, global dynamics, and the roles of international organizations. The study addresses proposed and implemented changes in the organization and distribution of various governance and management functions across school/community, district, governorate, and central levels. It also reviews the efforts exerted by the Government towards delegation and devolution of authority and responsibility. 39

Findings call for actions towards implementing broader and deeper forms and degrees of involvement by parents, civil society, and businesses.

With the aim of understanding the political, social and economic challenges that should be faced to promote social justice and equitable economic growth, Browne (2011) reviewed education reforms in Egypt from Mohamed Ali till Mubarak. The author argues that both the elite and the masses resist education reforms for their own reasons. While the elite work on keeping their economic and political advantages and privileges and preventing the masses from practising their right of self-determination, the masses are suspicious of changes that may result in increasing the power of the state and threatening their own limited resources. The study suggests that education reforms prevent the liberalization of the political system and education reforms supported by the elite aim at maintaining their authority and avoiding any change that may threaten their interests.

Hammad (2012) explored education decentralization while focusing on school-based management efforts exerted by the MOE since the early 1990s. The author argues that the authorities given to the BOTs are very limited and describes them “pseudo participation”. This description was made as the focus of the BOTs is on activities related to supervising of school activities and resources mobilization, whereas issues like policy design, curriculum development, staff hiring and firing, and textbooks design stay untouched to a great extent. The author suggests that there are existing concerns within Egyptian context including the weak local management infrastructures, risks of manipulation and nepotism and unfavorable organizational and cultural norms that can be the basis to argue that Egypt is not yet ready to make a large move towards decentralization.

The poor governance and its negative impacts over three decades was one of the main reasons for the revolution and the fall of Mubarak regime in 2011 as suggested by Aly (2013). He suggests that poor governance is the result of accumulative and diverse causes, though the acute corruption is the most prominent one. Various reforming procedures should be adopted to enhance governance including enhancing people participation, pervasiveness of law rules, improving accountability, transparency, anti-corruption procedures, equity and equality, and

realizing effective management of governmental organizations. Political commitment is a must, and people awareness is very essential for realizing governance reform.

The National Center for Educational Research and Development (NCERD) (2014a) set out to answer the question of how good governance could be implemented in pre-university education as a strategic entry for education accountability in Egypt. The study explored the theoretical bases of good governance while focusing on good governance standards in education. Furthermore, it examined the mutual relationship between good governance and accountability adopting the descriptive analytical, case-study and comparative approaches. It suggests that accountability is the other side of the coin of good governance and transparency goes beyond informing citizens and beneficiaries of education but moves process towards getting them involved.

Based on reviewing the literature on education governance in Egypt, it is obvious there is not enough research that focuses mainly on governance and how it can enhance the performance of the whole education sector as the literature suggests. The lack of such studies deprives the decision- and policy-makers from getting evidence-based advice or/and taking research-based decisions. Education governance studies in Egypt seem to be more focused on discussing over- centralization of the education sector; decentralization reforms and efforts; and challenges of education decentralization.

There are areas that still need more attention from the MOE and other stakeholders including: strengthening management; involving local communities; decentralizing decision-making authority; improving and utilizing the Education Management Information System (EMIS); and enhancing accountability and transparency.

Conclusion

Governance of education can be investigated through reviewing a single or many aspects of the education sector. It can be limited to the contributions of one key-player or expanded to include a group of stakeholders. It may focus on understanding the perspectives and perceptions of one or more of the stakeholders or beneficiaries. It may address one of the educational management 41

levels and can cover the whole education sector. Thus, the foci may be very broad and dependent on the purpose and design of the study.

The Egyptian pre-university education sector suffers from obvious challenges regarding its governance and management that negatively impact its performance and lead to deterioration of education quality. Therefore, there is an urgent need for conducting more specific research and studies on education governance and management systems and how to enhance them. Such studies should be given a high priority by the national educational research centers, universities and international organizations as they can provide evidence-based solutions.

It is crucial in this regard to explore and understand perspectives of different stakeholders and beneficiaries. This current study comes as a contribution in this direction as it aims at understanding the perspectives of international organizations’ officials on education governance. It explores and analyzes key stakeholders, their responsibilities, and contributions to the education sector.

In this study, key stakeholders are presented and categorized into three main themes:

1) Leadership: where the focus is political leadership and educational leadership;

2) Partnership: where the concentration is on international organizations and the private sector; and 3) Participation: where local communities, the BOTs and NGOs are presented.

The next chapter focuses mainly on presenting the conceptual framework of the study and explains in more details the main themes of analysis.

Chapter Three: Conceptual Framework

Introduction

This chapter focuses on presenting the conceptual framework of the current study, summarizes its path and provides a guidance for its analyses.

Conceptual Framework

The conceptual framework of this study builds on the definitions of governance introduced by Pierre (2000) and the USAID. According to Pierre (2000), governance is the process of “sustaining coordination and coherence among a wide variety of actors with different purposes and objectives such as political actors and institutions, corporate interests, civil society and transnational organizations” (pp. 3-4). For the USAID, “Governance is mainly about the relationships between key stakeholders. It is also about access to reliable and relevant information for all stakeholders” (RTI International, 2007, p. 34)”.

As shown in Figure 1, the conceptual framework aims at guiding the exploration, analysis and understanding of the governance of the pre-university education sector from the perspectives of international organizations’ officials. That can be realized by reviewing key stakeholders and their contributions to the education sector while focusing on the following main themes: Leadership, Partnership, Participation, Governance diagnosis and Governance dynamics.

A lot can be learnt about the pre-university education sector through reviewing the roles and responsibilities of its key stakeholders. Important questions can be raised including: How decisions are made and by whom? How, and to what extent, does political leadership support the pre-university education sector? How educational leaders are selected? How do they perform? How are they professionally developed? How are policies formulated, implemented and evaluated? How do national and international partnership initiatives start and how are they carried out? How do citizens, parents and grassroots organizations contribute to the education sector and decision-making processes? What are the governance strengths and weaknesses of the

education sector? And what strategies can the Government of Egypt and the MOE implement to enhance governance and management within the education sector?

This conceptual framework can contribute to realizing a better understanding of education governance, diagnosing its current state, and exploring its dynamics to ultimately reach applicable strategies for enhancing governance and management of the sector and its overall performance. In this regard, Winkler and Cohen (2005) suggest that: “Good governance can improve the role and performance of the public institutions by bringing them transparency, accountability, and fighting corrupt practices in the management and utilization of public resources. This applies at the national, district and school levels” (p. 6).

In other words, good governance can reform the whole education sector through enhancing its performance; improving transparency and accountability; and reducing corruption.

Leadership Governance • Political Leadership • Educational Leadership

Participation Partnership

• International Organizations • Local Communities • Private Sector • BOTs • NGOs

Governance Diagnosis and Dynamics

Suggested Strategies for Enhancing Governance of the Egyptian Pre-university Education

Figure 1. Conceptual Framework of the Study5

5 This conceptual framework is adopted from Pierre (2000) and based on his definition of governance that stresses the coordination and coherence among different stakeholders.

Leadership

In this area, the focus is made on two main stakeholders: Political Leadership and Educational Leadership. Leadership is therefore related to who possess authority and power on or within the education sector and can contribute to making a real change, leading improvements and providing strategic guidance and direction to the sector. It presents political leadership, will and commitment to support education and its initiatives. It discusses the selection of educational leaders; their performance and effectiveness; and their ability to guide and manage their units and staff. In highly centralized sectors, like the Egyptian one, the leadership at central Ministries in particular is of high importance as it is the level where most decisions are made. Consequently, leaders at the central level are responsible for the provision of guidance, direction and support to the whole sector and its different management levels.

Partnership

Discussing the theme of partnership aims at realizing a better understanding of two main stakeholders of the education sector, international organizations and the private sector, their contributions to the sector, efforts, impacts and challenges from the perspectives of international organizations’ officials.

Participation

This area is concerned with three main stakeholders: Local Communities, the BOTs, and NGOs. It examines their contributions to the education sector and their challenges that prevent them from contributing more effectively and efficiently to the sector and its governance and management.

Governance Diagnosis

Based on the perspectives of the participants, the study identifies education governance’s strengths and weaknesses which can contribute to the construction of a clear image of the education sector, its governance and management, as well as ways forward to build on and maximize strengths, and strategies to confront and reduce weaknesses.

Governance Dynamics

The study presents an overview of the governance dynamics of the education sector through exploring interactions and drawing linkages among its main stakeholders. Governance diagnosis and dynamics constitute the bases and platforms to reach and suggest applicable strategies for enhancing governance and management of the sector.

Suggested Strategies

Based on the perspectives and inputs of the participants, specific and applicable strategies are suggested, that may be considered by the Government of Egypt and the MOE, to enhance education governance and management; the entry point to reform the whole education sector and enhance its performance.

The following chapter presents the methodology of this study with more details on data collection, data analysis, interviewees, interviews, their dynamics and other relevant themes.

Chapter Four: Methodology

Introduction

This chapter presents the methodology of the study, which employs a qualitative method and discusses a set of relevant themes including: Interviews, Interviewees; Interview Dynamics; Data Analysis; Plan versus Reality; and Subjectivity versus Objectivity.

Methodology

A Qualitative Method

This study is qualitative in its nature and builds mainly on qualitative data gathered from semi- structured interviews with officials working for international organizations whose focus is the pre-university education sector in Egypt. As Picciano (2004) suggests: “Qualitative research relies on meanings, concepts, context, descriptions and settings” (p. 32). Qualitative research does not have a precise meaning and it represents a wide umbrella covering a broad set of interpretative approaches that aim at investigating in depth different phenomena in social sciences (Van, 1983). The primary goal of qualitative methods is to reach valid information regarding a certain phenomenon through exploring, identifying, engaging and observing individuals who are involved with, influenced by, or familiar with the investigated phenomenon (Moore & Flowers, 2002; O’Brien, S. 2008).

Qualitative research aims at exploring and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human phenomenon. It is a process that involves emerging questions and procedures, data collection, data analysis building from particular to general themes, and the researcher’s interpretations of the data. Those who are engaged in this type of research support an inductive style, focus on individual meaning, and pay attention to the complexity of a phenomenon (Creswell, 2014). It also aims at producing rounded understandings based on rich, contextual, and detailed data. It should be strategic, flexible and contextual. Researchers, involved in qualitative research should make decisions on the basis of a sound research strategy

and demonstrate sensitivity to the changing dynamic contexts and situations where their research takes place (Mason, 1996).

Qualitative research facilitates the study of issues in depth and detail as this type of research typically produces a wealth of detailed information about a small number of people and cases, which enhances the depth of understanding of the investigated phenomena (Patton, 2002).

Based on reviewing the definitions, objectives, essence and aspects of qualitative research, it seems that the qualitative approach is the most suitable in exploring and realizing a better understanding of education governance and management from the perspectives of international organizations’ officials.

Document Analysis

This study relies on document analysis and reviews the recent relevant available resources issued by international and national organizations on governance and education governance. Documents include national and international studies, research, reports, policy papers, journal articles, books and decrees.

Document content considered includes those pertaining to the Egyptian pre-university education sector, its policies, performance, governance, management, decentralization efforts, reform initiatives, programs and projects. It also includes: initiatives implemented in collaboration with international organizations focusing on leadership, partnership and participation; international organizations’ experiences on governance reforms; their contributions to the pre-university education sector in Egypt and internationally; and their best practices and lessons learnt in this regard.

Interviews

Data of this study were gathered mainly from semi-structured interviews with officials working for international organizations in Egypt whose focus is the pre-university education sector. More details about interviews are presented below under the following sections: Candidates, invitational emails, interview questions, interviewees, and interview dynamics.

Candidates

Several approaches were used to recruit interviewees to participate in this study. One approach was the exploration of international organizations’ websites, where applicable, to obtain candidates’ contacts. Besides, the invitational emails asked potential interviewees to nominate other potential candidates to participate. Additionally, I sought the support of my professional and academic networks for nominating potential candidates and asked interviewees at the end of every interview session to nominate other candidates.

In one case, when I sent an invitational email to a candidate working for a bilateral organization, he responded positively by nominating one of his colleagues instead to participate justifying that his colleague is more focused on the pre-university education sector. In another case, one of the candidates responded that she had to get permission from her organization before participating, which happened later.

Recruiting participants in multiple ways was crucial as it was a challenge to secure participants for this study taking into consideration the sensitivity of its topic and its sample’s positions. Moreover, governance is not an easy topic to tackle even for qualified professionals like those working for international organizations as it is very broad, does not have a precise definition, and probably means different things to different practitioners.

Reasons for candidates’ refusal or reluctance to take part in this study may have included: 1) The current sensitive political, economic and social context in Egypt that make those officials avoid criticizing the host country and its current status; 2) discussing governance often leads to extending the conversation to politics as well as the socio-economic status of the country which is normally avoided by international officials who do not feel comfortable discussing such issues especially where it is not imperative; 3) their organizations’ reactions towards their participation and inputs to this study; 4) their concern that their perspectives may be perceived as representing or even diverging from the official positions of their organizations; 5) their concern of being judged as not being knowledgeable or professional while discussing a very sensitive yet a broad topic like governance; and 6) the lack of time due to international officials’ commitments in Egypt and overseas. 50

Invitational Emails

Initially, invitational emails were sent to candidates to invite them to participate in semi- structured interviews to share their perspectives on governance and management of the Egyptian pre-university education sector. In the beginning, 20 invitational emails were sent and that ultimately led to 12 interviews; three were facilitated through my professional networks; one with the assistance from an academic connection; and one through the facilitation of a participant. Thus, almost 40% of the interviews were secured through my professional network, academic connections, and participants. The total acceptance rate for interviews was 60%, which is very satisfactory considering the whole context and the aforementioned reasons for not participating. However, this rate was reached over almost four months with persistent follow-up on my part.

The initial emails provided background information on the study and presented its context and purpose. It further specified the aim of reaching applicable strategies that can be considered by the Government of Egypt and the MOE to enhance education governance and management. Those emails explained my role as an interviewer which was focused on asking questions, listening to interviewees’ responses, and asking follow-up questions seeking clarification, more details or evidence when required.

One of the main purposes of these invitational emails was to make the candidates feel comfortable initially in their decisions to participate, and later during their actual interview sessions through making several clarifications and describing their roles and rights as participants. Moreover, the invitational emails identified the main themes to be discussed during the interviews to make it easier for the participants to share relevant information and concentrate on the thesis’s purpose. These themes include governance and management of the education sector in Egypt; governance’s strengths and weaknesses; and strategies that can be adopted by the Government of Egypt and the MOE to enhance education governance and management. In the invitational emails, it was stated that more questions would be asked to get deeper and further understanding as well as more clarification or evidence.

Taking into consideration the nature of the thesis’s topic, governance, and its broad scope, the invitational emails stated that a list of the actual interview questions would be sent to candidates who agreed to take part in the study in advance prior to the interview session. One of the participants responded to the invitational email asking for getting the interview questions in advance to review before deciding to participate. From that situation, I made the decision to send the actual questions directly to candidates with the invitational emails instead of referring only to the main themes of the interview.

Additionally, in the invitational emails, candidates were informed of what was expected from them as participants explaining that in case they agreed to participate, a one hour face-to-face semi-structured interview would be conducted at a time and place convenient for them. They were also informed that data gathered through interviews would be used primarily for the purpose of my doctoral thesis but may also be used for subsequent research articles.

It was emphasized in those emails that their participation would be voluntary, and their identity would remain confidential. Besides, their names, any identifying information, or the names of their organizations would not be revealed. Candidates were informed they had the right to refuse to answer any particular question(s) or withdraw completely from the study without consequences. Moreover, they were informed that they could later request that any information they provided be totally eliminated from the project. The emails stated that at no time would value judgements be placed on the participants’ responses, nor would any evaluation be made of their effectiveness as a professional.

Resistance, reluctance or even refusal to participate were always revealed to me indirectly despite different forms and tries of reassurance. For example, one indirect way of refusal to participate came, through a response to the invitational email, from a candidate working for one of the UN organizations who stated that my thesis covers a very sensitive area, and that his organization’s headquarters would need to know more about the expected outcomes before participating. Other indirect ways of expressing reluctance or refusal to participate came through not responding to the invitational and the follow-up emails or through postponing the interview appointments for different reasons.

It was also noticeable that candidates were very slow in responding to the invitational emails. Perhaps they needed some time to think about deciding to participate or to get permission from their organizations or senior management. Another reason, maybe, it was summer when many of the international officials take their vacations. I had to resend follow-up emails for the most of candidates to make sure they had received the invitational emails. Many still did not respond and I had to follow up via phone to make sure they had got my emails and respond directly to any questions or concerns they had. A couple of interviews were conducted three months after the first initial communication with the candidates. The delay in candidates’ responses led to the expansion of my mission to Egypt up to approximately four months.

Interview Questions

Mason (2002) suggests that semi-structured interviews, regardless of their large variations in style and tradition, have the following core common features: 1) the interactional exchange of dialogue; 2) a relatively informal style; 3) a topic-centred, biographical or narrative approach; and 4) the assumption that knowledge is contextualized.

The questions of the semi-structured interviews were reviewed and enhanced based on the comments and feedback received from my supervisor and committee members and other UNESCO IIEP and OISE professors. A final version of the semi-structured interview questions consisted of twelve questions distributed among four main categories.

The first category’s title is Demographic Data and focuses on collecting data of the participants related to their organizations, positions, highest level of education, number of years of professional experiences, number of years working for international organizations, number of years working in the current organization, number of years working in education sector, and number of years working in Egypt.

The title of the second category is Organization and Governance and it is concerned with participants’ roles in their organizations; areas of their organizations’ cooperation with the MOE; and their organizations’ contributions to education governance reforms in Egypt and internationally.

The third category is focused on Perspectives on Egyptian Education Governance and Management and covers the themes of 1) leadership, political and educational; 2) partnership, covering international organizations and the private sector and; 3) participation, focusing on local communities, the BOTs and NGOs. It also addresses governance strengths and weaknesses and seeks to identify the priorities of the Government of Egypt and the MOE to enhance education governance and management.

The title of the fourth category is Final Questions and is composed of a couple of concluding questions that seek final thoughts or concluding comments from participants. This section also requested the nomination of other potential candidates to participate in the study.

The sequence of interview questions was not always the same in each interview. In many cases participants jumped to cover certain areas even before they were asked, probably for moving to other themes they felt more comfortable talking about or for avoiding discussing certain issues in more details. This meant I skipped over later questions that were related to areas already covered by interviewees.

Interviewees

Twelve international organizations’ officials were interviewed, three from UN organizations and nine from international donor agencies; ten with an Egyptian background, one European and one Asian; seven women and five men. They had received educational credentials of high quality. All of them had at least a master’s degree; 50% had completed their doctoral degrees at western universities; and four of them held the rank of a university professor.

They all demonstrated that they had absolutely attended distinguished professional development programs frequently offered by international organizations. They typically possessed a good understanding of research; how it is done; its nature; procedures and regulations and the majority gained a variety of rich professional international experiences gained through working in different contexts. All these factors seemed to be sufficient motives to participate and a source for their confidence, courage, and professionalism. Only eight interviewees, however, allowed for their interviews to be recorded. A ninth interviewee accepted to conduct the interview but

requested to send responses later in writing. That is why this study quotes mainly the inputs of nine participants.

It is notable to mention that participants tended to be more knowledgeable and focused on certain areas or aspects of the pre-university education sector than others; probably those are the areas of their organizations’ focus, their own areas of education or professional specialization. This is understood and even predicted while sharing their own views and thoughts on very broad topic such as governance which is the product and reflection of complicated factors, aspects and processes within the dynamic political, social, economic, managerial and administrative context of the country.

Interview Dynamics

Taking into consideration the sensitivity of the topic, the current situation in Egypt and the positions of those officials and their organizations, securing interviews for this study was difficult and demanding. The process proved to be complex even with my understanding of the possible difficulties before travelling to Egypt.

Arranging and conducting interviews happened over almost four months, from June until mid- September 2016, though I had initially planned to accomplish the mission within two months. Due to the slow responses from participants, the actual interviews were conducted during August and September 2016.

All interviews were conducted in English and were arranged with participants according to their preferences of location and time. It was my priority to reach them in their most convenient time and place to ensure their positive participation.

Ten interviews were conducted in participants’ offices at their convenient times. One participant requested that the interview be held outside his office and confirmed repeatedly that his inputs cannot be perceived as the official ones of his organization. Another interview was conducted over the phone based on a participant’s request for an emergent medical condition. All interviews took place in Cairo except for one that was conducted in Upper Egypt.

I am strongly convinced that procedures such as informing participants prior to interviews about areas of discussions, sending them a list of the actual interview questions in advance, meeting them at their convenient location and time led often to a positive impact on the interview environment and enhanced the quality of their responses. Each interview took around one hour.

In the beginning of any interview, I introduced myself and gave a quick brief overview of my study, its purpose, and context. I had stressed the fact that I was looking for participants’ perspectives in the light of their academic qualifications and professional experiences, not the official perspectives or positions of their organizations that can be traced in their reports and publications. I also reemphasized the fact that participants’ names, identifying information and the names of their organizations would not be revealed under any circumstances.

The topic of the study, governance, was described by many candidates and participants as being sensitive; and it is for many reasons. While discussing governance, its weaknesses and challenges, a lot of criticism and sensitive issues would be raised. These issues cannot be limited to the pre-university education sector but absolutely would be expanded to the larger political, social and economic context.

It was noticed on more than one occasion that participants did not feel comfortable and/or avoided criticizing the Egyptian context, the pre-university education sector or its leadership. For example, one participant who was very open, frank and raised a lot of sensitive issues with remarkable bravery, refused to answer a question about educational leadership in Egypt and his observations on its selection and performance. He indicated very directly that he did not feel comfortable to respond to such a question. He stated: “I must admit that I feel a bit uncomfortable responding to a question like this because, as staff members of an international organization, we are here to serve”. His reluctance, to respond to this question may be understood in the light of his understanding that I have worked for the MOE and still have professional connections within the MOE. He, however, answered the question later after I assured him that participants’ perspectives would be utilized to realize a better understanding of education governance and management and reminded him that participants’ names and identifying information will not be revealed.

Participants were encouraged to share their own personal and professional perspectives and perceptions in the light of their education and experiences. However, I believe sharing perspectives that may be different from those official ones of their organizations added some stress on them.

Each interview was unique in its nature as participants’ professional background and experiences varied greatly. Individuals’ differences and cultural backgrounds were also influential.

It was noticed on the ground there was reluctance from few participants to share openly and frankly their thoughts despite exerted efforts to create a suitable environment and supportive setting to encourage their positive participation. While most participants were very open with a sharp critical attitude, others tended to be very conservative and diplomatic most of time.

Data Analysis

For confidentiality, I transcribed the interviews myself. Names of the participants were changed in a systematic way without any reference to their real names, identifying information or their organizations of affiliation. After transcribing the interviews, transcripts were then sent back to participants to check for validity and verification. They were informed that it was completely up to them to add, delete, change or edit the transcript with the aim of improving and focusing their contributions. Only one participant made some changes on the transcript where he did some minor editing and deleted repeated phrases and words that happen normally during speaking. He indicated he had made some amendments wherever he felt he had not been very clear. A final version of the transcripts was reached in the light of the received feedback.

Data gathered from different sources were categorized into the following main themes: Leadership, Partnership, Participation, Governance Diagnosis and Governance Dynamics. Then, more sub-themes were reached.

Leadership focused on reviewing two main stakeholders: political leadership and educational leadership. Partnership presented data related to international organizations and the private sector. Participation discussed local communities, the BOTs and NGOs. Governance diagnosis

presented education governance’s strengths and weaknesses. Finally, Governance dynamics explored interactions and discussed relationships among key stakeholders according to the following themes: Leadership and Partnership; Leadership and Participation; and Partnership and Participation.

Plan versus Reality

It was confirmed in many interviews that the situation in Egypt after two revolutions, their consequences and the lack of political, economic and social stability have led to a situation where international organizations tend to avoid getting involved in major programs. Rather, they focus more on limited and specific initiatives, projects, or even totally withdraw.

Initially it was planned to interview officials working for international organizations from two categories: United Nations (UN) organizations and international donor organizations while seeking a balance between the two categories so that a set of comparisons between these two categories could be drawn. However, the balance between the two categories could not be realized and all participants were classified into one group whether they were affiliated to UN or international donor organizations.

It is important to refer to the significant decrease of international organizations’ officials focusing on the pre-university education sector due to the decrease in the number of current programs and projects because of the sense of uncertainty perceived by international organizations, according to participants.

It was expected that liberal values, always endorsed by international organizations would contribute to encouraging participants to express themselves without concerns; share their thoughts frankly; and present their experiences openly. However, it was understood throughout the course of this study that officials of international organizations have their own reasons and sources of concerns and sensitivities that would make them conservative in their responses to certain questions or even prevent them completely from participating in similar studies.

Subjectivity Vs Objectivity

This thesis represents a state of interaction between my own subjectivity based on my understanding of the Egyptian pre-university education sector gained through my work at the school and central levels, versus my objectivity as a researcher relying on data gathered from different resources. It is also a representation of the interaction between the perspectives of an insider versus those of outsiders. While international organizations’ officials represent outsiders to the education sector, I consider myself an insider based on my professional experiences within the sector from 1996 to 2012.

However, I am fully aware that this thesis is not about my own understanding and perspectives, but it is about those of international organizations’ officials; which represent the core and base of my thesis. My own understanding and my professional experiences within the education sector, however, helped me manage the interviews in a satisfactory way; accept and understand perspectives, concerns and challenges of the participants; organize and analyse the collected data.

Conclusion

Data collection was the bottleneck and the most challenging stage in my thesis due to the political, economic and social context in Egypt at the time of data collection. Accordingly, and because of the state of uncertainty as it was perceived by many participants, international organizations avoid getting involved in large-scale programs and prefer to work on specific small projects or even totally withdraw. That led to a decline in the numbers of officials working for international organizations who constitute the population of this study.

Governance does not happen in a vacuum, but it is the result and product of interactive powers, accumulative factors and complicated dynamics. It cannot be well understood or fairly explained without tracing its roots and linking them to their larger political, social and economic contexts. This reality added more stress on participants and made them more concerned and anxious as they had to link their points of views to political, social and economic factors; which was not always easy or comfortable for them to do.

Even with my frequent clarification that names of participants, identifying information, and names of their organizations would not be revealed, I found participants still had some concerns. These sensitivities may have stemmed from their intention not to criticize the host country; expressing views that might be different from those of their organizations or expecting unpleasant reactions from their organizations for their participation; or sharing views that might not be appreciated by their organizations.

While this chapter presents the methodology of this study and illuminates some of the challenges that emerged during data collection, the next chapter focuses on presenting international officials’ perspectives on education governance through reviewing two main stakeholders: political leadership and educational leadership.

Chapter Five: Leadership

Introduction

This chapter aims at realizing a better understanding of the Egyptian pre-university education sector and its governance through analyzing the roles, responsibilities and contributions of two key stakeholders: Political leadership and educational leadership from the participants’ perspectives. It discusses the extent to which the education sector receives effective and adequate political support; how educational leaders are selected and how they perform; and what challenges prevent these stakeholders from contributing to the sector in a more effective way.

Quotations contained in this chapter constitute all the study participants' comments pertaining to the presented themes. Sometimes, the participants’ responses are not very direct to the questions or have a lot of small details that can be irrelevant to the presented themes.

I- Political Leadership

Political leadership is a very important pillar in implementing any sort of educational reforms, especially major and national ones. In absence of real political leadership, commitment and will, education reform is left without real support and is unlikely to succeed. Education reforms normally require close cooperation and coordination among different stakeholders under the umbrella of supportive political leadership that possesses authority and power required for guiding such reforms, reducing resistance that may emerge from certain stakeholder(s) and keeping them supportive and involved.

Gottelmann-Duret and Zadra (2003) state that: “Political leadership is the essence that provides mandate, legitimization and vision for most of our undertakings in the field of education” (p. 20). They further note it “is very important in ensuring a conductive and supportive environment for the development of education policies and programs” (p. 127). Governments, however, face a dilemma as making a change on a large scale, a state, a province or a country, is absolutely a complex process. To implement large-scale reforms successfully, governments are crucially

essential, as they possess the power and resources that make them a real major force for transformation (Fullan, 2001).

Governance reforms often imply changes and redistribution of power and authority. For example, when teacher recruitment decisions are shifted from the central Ministry to the school level, this means that the staff at the central level will suddenly lose sources of power and patronage. Therefore, resistance from some stakeholders is often associated with governance reforms. For this reason, political support and commitment are very essential for executing governance reforms effectively (UNESCO, 2012b).

Responsibilities and contributions of political leadership, represented by governments, to education sectors and education reforms are very complicated at the national level. This complexity is due to the fact that such reforms normally involve the whole sectors and result in wide sets of implications, consequences and impacts on different stakeholders and geographical regions.

Political leadership, commitment and will are very crucial and essential to implement successful governance reforms where strong resistance is often expected as a result of authority redistribution, reduction and withdrawal. In authority redistribution, on one hand, those who lose authority will normally resist as losing authority will lead to the loss of benefits and advantages associated with it. On the other hand, those who are given more authority will probably resist unless they are rewarded and/or given incentives to do so.

Perspectives and inputs of the participants on political leadership and its support to the pre- university education sector are presented under the following sub-themes: Real political support? Lack of Resources; Lack of Information; and Presidential Specialized Council on Education and Scientific Research.

Real Political Support?

Normally governmental documents tend to reflect positive results and high performance of national ministries and authorities through stressing the strengths, achievements and accomplishments and avoiding referring to weaknesses and challenges whenever possible. Those in authority always try to secure their positions in every possible way. The tendency towards positive reporting is not just an Egyptian phenomenon, rather it is happening everywhere in both developed and developing countries.

In the Egyptian context, when it comes to discussing political leadership and its support to the pre-university education sector, it seems that the MOE and other national authorities go to the extreme in stressing the positive. Governmental documents tend to stress the importance of education and the strong political support it receives in a rather exaggerated way. For example, the Education for All 2015 National Review issued by the National Center for Educational and Research Development (NCERD, 2014b) states that: “Education is considered the greatest national project in Egypt and is on the top of national priorities” (p. b). However, the lack of actual political and financial support to that important sector; its ongoing and serious challenges; and its chronic deterioration manifested in almost every single aspect prove, on the ground, that education is not really recognized as a top national priority so far.

Interestingly, almost all participants respond similarly to the issue of political support to the pre- university education sector. Based on their responses, education in Egypt is one of the top priorities of the country as evidenced from political leaders’ public addresses, declarations, strategies and policy papers. They agree that theoretically education receives political support from the highest political levels in the country, namely, the Presidency and Cabinet. However, they suggest that political support to the education sector cannot actually be considered as real, tangible, or concrete because that support fails to be practically translated or reflected into clear procedures or significant actual increase in the education budget. Consequently, political support has not led to substantial improvements in the sector or its performance.

Suzanne6, in her response to a question if she thinks that the pre-university education sector receives enough political support, replies that: “Theoretically, yes. It is always mentioned in strategies. But if you look at the budget, you have to say: “No””.

Mark states that: “President El-Sisi mentioned many times that education is a priority and a matter of national security. So, intentionally and constitutionally, it already receives a lot of attention, but how to put this into practice and how to put this into a place”.

Adam stresses that there is a tendency from political leadership to support the pre-university education sector that can be clearly witnessed in policy papers and other governmental documents; even during Mubarak’s regime before January 2011 revolution. However, this support is actually neither real nor effective. He indicates that:

If we reviewed policy papers, even those issued by the National Democratic Party before the collapse of Mubarak’s regime, and if we reviewed the addresses by the Presidents and Prime Ministers after and the two constitutions of 2013 and of 2014, we will find that there is a tendency to support education and there is a sort of understanding that this area needs a lot of support and intervention from the Government of Egypt ... I think the most obvious indicator was to actually put in the Constitution of 2014 the threshold of the 4 percent of the GDP that should be spent on the pre-university education in Egypt. So, we can talk about a tendency to support pre-university education.

Adam explains there is a big difference between a tendency to support the education sector and the actual real support that can be understood and proved by sufficient financial increases in budgets and allocations to the sector. He concludes that the sector does not receive enough tangible concrete political support that can be seen clearly from the lack of resources allocated to that important sector.

6 Suzanne and all names of the participants are pseudonyms

As Adam explains:

There is a difference between the tendency and how to translate this tendency or intention into practice or specific actions on the ground. So, if we ask if they are interested to do this: “Yes”. If there is a kind of political will to improve the education system in Egypt, the answer is: “Yes”. Does the Government provide sufficient finance and sufficient staff to do this? The answer is: “No”. So, the intention is there, but I do not think actually that the Government provides enough resources.

Peter presents a very similar opinion, indicating that the reference to education in the Constitution is a good sign of political support to the education sector. However, he confirms that political leadership and commitment to education should not be limited or stopped at the level of the Constitution but should be reflected in a real serious increase in resources allocated to education. For Peter, such a procedure has not yet been observed:

We do appreciate that education was mentioned in the constitution, but from our own experience, this documentation of a particular will in legal documents such as the Constitution has not translated into a substantial increase in funding for this policy area. When a government affirms that it takes a particular topic seriously, the best way to assess this is through the observation of the increase in funding. This is something we have not observed so far.

Sarah suggests that the education sector is huge, and the support given to that sector should be at the same level. Her response reflects and implies that political support to the education sector is not enough and should be increased to match the sector’s huge size and its serious and severe challenges. She indicates that reforming that sector needs a lot of efforts and time to reap the fruits:

Education has always been a priority. Politically, it has always come on the top of the list of priorities for any politician. But what happens on the ground is a different story. Currently, in the situation we are in now, the President is giving more attention to education, but it is not an easy area as you know. The education system in Egypt is really very big. Doing reform for this very huge system is not easy. But already we started, and we have been working on that. Improving governance and improving management will help a lot the reform.

Education is frequently expressed as a matter of national security in governmental papers and reports. For example, the Ministry of Education (2014) states that: “the Constitution also tackled equally the illiteracy problem, realizing that education is a national security issue and the right of 65

all citizens” (p.12). However, political support to the education sector is perceived as not effective or real, as political leadership has not yet succeeded in translating the verbal support to the education sector into concrete increases in its financial allocations.

Lack of Resources

Based on the participants’ perspectives, the lack of financial resources is one of the main challenges and reasons that prevent political leadership from supporting the education sector in a more concrete way. In other words, because of the lack of financial resources, political leadership cannot translate its verbal support, good intentions, tendencies, attention and commitments into concrete tangible actions and implement realistic programs and serious initiatives.

The resources allocated to the education sector are not currently sufficient. Although the Constitution stipulates the allocation of 4% from GDP, the actual percentage is only 3%. Salaries absorb 89% from the total educational budget, whereas the percentage allocated for investments, services and other expenses does not exceed 11% (Ministry of Planning, Monitoring and Administrative Reform, 2016).

Adam suggests that the Egyptian Government has to: “Try to increase the amount of resources that are devoted to quality, innovation, and to new initiatives”.

Though resources allocated to the education sector are not enough, Jack sees that Egyptian Government is working towards increasing the sector’s budgets and allocations:

The amount of money that goes from the central Government to the Ministry of Education and its subsidiaries is very considerable ... That means there is support from the central Government to the Ministry of Education. How is this money spent? Is there a capacity within the local level of this Ministry to actually take decisions? That is a different story. But, there is a huge support from the central Government to the Ministry of Education because this sum of money has not been reduced. This sum of money is always increasing.

It is true that there is always an increase in allocations to the education sector. However, this cannot be described as a real increase and should be contextualized. It should always be remembered that roughly 89% of the budget is allocated to salaries and incentives and little of 66

the budget is left to implement any serious reforms. Increases in education budgets can be understood in the light of the continuous increase in salaries of the huge numbers of employees within the sector. Despite those increases, education employees are not well-paid which affects negatively their professional satisfaction, motivation and performance.

Taking into consideration the serious challenges facing the pre-university education sector, the collapse of its quality, demotivation and dissatisfaction among its employees and the continuous leakage of its well-qualified staff, the sector urgently needs real political commitment and will as well as generous financial support that enable the implementation of major education reforms and initiatives.

Lack of Information

Generally, in Egypt, the quality of data is very poor. Data are mainly gathered by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), which operates in great secrecy (Puddephatt, 2012).

Handoussa (2010) suggests that:

There are very few reliable data in all sectors, in part due to lack of transparency and access, but mostly because of lack of capacity to actually gather data, compare data among different institutions and agencies, perform economic analysis and use modeling systems (p.16).

Within the pre-university education sector, the lack of effective and reliable information systems, at the local and central levels, represents a crucial concern that threatens the sector’s agenda of reforms (Sedaghat, N., Guillemin, S., & Amin, K., 2009).

Mary indicates that though the problems and challenges of the education sector are very clear, the political leadership is unable to provide the necessary support to the sector because of the lack of information and understanding of what really is happening and what should be done to enable the sector to improve its performance and overcome its challenges.

Mary explains:

It is a dilemma. It is very difficult. Everyone knows that the education system has something wrong with it. The political leadership has established education and health as the two top priorities of this country. However, the problem is the political leadership may not have enough information about the technical aspects of the sector, so they can understand or guide what is happening. How much does the political leadership understand and know about what really needs to be done?

In fact, the availability of and access to information and data generally represent major concerns and serious challenges in the pre-university education sector as those challenge normally deprive leaders and decision-makers, at the political and educational levels, from accessing quality data, information and statistics that can positively impact their understanding of the sector and enhance the quality of their decisions.

Within the education sector, there is a tendency among different departments and units to avoid sharing information, data and statistics. Requesting any data and statistics, from one entity to another within the MOE, should normally be written and justified. This reality means the situation is absolutely more difficult and complicated for external stakeholders. The inability to access reliable valid information, data and statistics, the conflict in statistics gathered by different entities affiliated to the MOE, the duplication of efforts and data sources are serious challenges that should be addressed. Lack of reliable information, statistics and data is a serious barrier to understand clearly the education sector, assess its performance quantitatively and qualitatively, diagnose and overcome its challenges.

Sarah confirms that the lack of information negatively affects the performance of leadership and this is reflected on the whole pre-university education sector and its performance. She states:

When you go and ask government officials at the central level about anything that is happening in the field, they ask the governorate; the governorate asks the district; the district asks the school; and all the way back. It is not only a hierarchy, but no one has the information because you do not have a proper monitoring system. You do not have all the information required for proper decision-making and informed decision-making.

Based on my professional experience within the education sector, there is a tendency from educational leaders to avoid sharing information and statistics for different possible reasons. 68

First, they may think they secure and maintain their positions with the data and information they possess. Second, they avoid sharing statistics that may contradict statistics gathered by other entities to avoid illuminating the data problem. Finally, they absolutely refuse to share any statistics that reflects the sector’s poor performance, a deterioration in its quality or any of its weaknesses.

The education sector is huge and complicated; consequently, those working within the sector need to exert a lot of work and effort to understand its aspects. This is especially true when externals are appointed by Ministers in senior positions as they normally need time to construct their understanding of the sector and how it functions and to gather the required information and details that help them accomplish their tasks.

Presidential Specialized Council on Education and Scientific Research

On March 6th, 2015, Presidential decree no 125 was issued, regarding the establishment of the Specialized Education and Scientific Research Council which stipulates that the Council is responsible for formulating educational policy at all educational levels, connecting education to comprehensive developmental plans, enhancing education to realize national objectives within the framework of the public policy of the state, and coordinating with research centers in different disciplines (State Information Services, 2016b). Thus, the Council is a relatively new structure and represents evidence of the apparent good intentions of the political leadership towards education.

Given the importance of the Presidential Specialized Council on Education and Scientific Research, it is examined in detail according to the following set of sub-themes, namely: Composition and Representation; Lack of a Tangible Impact; and Inefficiency.

Composition and Representation

The Council consists of eleven members, four from the American University in Cairo (AUC), two from Alexandria University, two from Cairo University, one from Ain Shams University,

and two from research centers. Though the representation of the public universities in the Council is 67% and the private universities is 36%, it is noticeable that the AUC has the lion’s share of members. The AUC neither represents nor reflects the population of students or professors in Egypt; according to a couple of the participants at least. As for the specializations represented by the individuals on the Council, most of its members are specialized in engineering while there is only one professor who is specialized in education.

Suzanne criticizes the composition of the Council, as in her opinion, it does not represent the whole country. Rather, its composition is limited to university professors whose experiences are focused mainly on higher education. She clarifies that even if we agree that university professors are the most effective people to participate in that Council, there should at least be a balanced representation of the whole country and its different geographic regions. It is true that almost everyone in the Council represents either Cairo or Alexandria, the richest two governorates in Egypt. The objectives, opportunities, challenges and needs of those two governorates are probably very different from other governorates.

Suzanne states:

Seriously speaking, if you look at the constitution of the Council itself, the head of the Council is a university professor, the experiences and scope are very limited to higher education, and very limited to be a teacher. If I assume that the best people to be in this Council are university professors, then at least, I should have representation from Upper Egypt.

Suzanne expresses her astonishment that the Council neither includes the Minister of Education nor the Minister of Higher Education among its members. She shares some thoughts on how to improve the composition and representation of the Council, which can affect its performance in a positive way. Suzanne suggests:

If I want to form a council that is very near to the President, or advisory council, why do not I have the Minister of Education in this council? Why do not I have the Minister of Higher education in this council? Why do I have new people? Why are not the Ministers? Why are we taking two channels here? We have the Minister of Education, and then we have a Council that does not have the Ministry of Education represented in it. So, this is a problem of governance.

However, in February 2017, the head of the Presidential Council was appointed as the Minister of Education.

Lack of a Tangible Impact

Though the Council is relatively new, almost all participants agreed that it has not contributed to enhancing the pre-university education sector or its performance though it is composed of a group of distinguished scholars and pioneer university professors.

They refer to several reasons that reduce the effectiveness and impact of the Council. Mary, for example, criticizes its performance for not being able to review decisions taken by the MOE, though she praises its composition as it includes very prominent figures and distinguished scholars. She indicates that, in addition to the absence of the Council’s advisory role to the President, it has not realized concrete results or achieved tangible contributions so far. She explains:

The Council is made up of very prominent figures. Everyone has his own area and political background. But I think they may not have the full picture, the real entire panorama what the Ministry of Education consists of. People usually have bits and pieces of it. You have to see the whole structure in order to understand what the problem is. They are trying but so far, they have been there for two years now, I have not seen any meaningful or substantial decisions that can really affect the education sector. It is still entirely in the hands of the Minister who comes and stays for one year, two years, then he moves out because he has not accomplished anything, or he has accomplished what is expected from him.

Mary repeats and confirms that the Council, with all its distinguished members, has not succeeded yet in making real changes or significant improvements within the pre-university education sector. She emphasizes:

The Presidential Council, again I repeat, has a number of people who have their own merits, public figures, academics, professors, politicians of very high quality but for some reasons I do not see that they can put together the bits of the puzzle and come up with some recommendations or decisions. Nothing has happened so far. I have to say it again. Does anyone see any tangible outcomes? I admire everyone in that council but what they advised the President on? What are they doing about the Ministry or about Ministers?

Suzanne adopts a very similar point of view indicating that the Council has not yet impacted the education sector in a tangible way though its members frequently refer to the necessity of creating a new sector.

Suzanne shares:

In several meetings, the Council always is expressing their disbelief in the education system and say they are going to create a new system. This is very difficult. I think whoever say they are going to create a new system of education, they do not know about systems. This is the Ministry of Education. These are the schools. This is bad quality. Forget about it for a while. We will build a new system. This cannot be. With more than fifty-two thousand schools in Egypt, this cannot be. Inefficiency

Suzanne confirms that the Council contributes to wasting resources in inefficient ways through developing, adopting and implementing initiatives that do not directly affect the education sector itself. Since its establishment, the Council has not made a real impact towards overcoming any of the big challenges facing the education sector. Though the Council has implemented a couple of initiatives, their outcomes have not led to a real improvement within the education sector. As Suzanne explains:

Definitely, we are very happy with this establishment, but now after two years, if you see the outcomes of the Council, we have the Information Bank that is done with Harvard, Oxford and all these research centers to have access to researches in English online. This is one of their main projects they implemented, and I cannot see any impact on education. They would have done this with a much lower budget if they had given researchers credit cards to go online with. But today you are opening these search engines for multi million people. It is a project that no one knows about and ask people in the street; the multi- millions. I do not think you will find any one knows about it. I have heard about it in a conference. There is another project implemented called Teachers First. It is about giving online credit for teachers who go online and answer some questions related to their profession, then, they get some sort of points. When they accumulate some points, they can go to some stores and get refrigerators or IPads. So, it is not in the system where they are working. Of course, teachers are a very big issue in Egypt; but is this project going to solve the problem? I do not think so.

One of the participants, Jack, indicates that the Council is still working on other plans that may have a positive impact on the education sector. He refers to an initiative that would focus on enhancing local capacity and teacher training when he says:

I know there is an initiative also by the Presidential Council on Education to actually support capacity building at the local level. I know they do plans to do this and I have read there are ideas to actually raise the capacity and train large numbers of teachers. Teachers might not be at the leadership level, but they are implementing education at the school level. I see this as a good step. We need also to understand it is not only a matter of implementing capacity building, but we have to make sure that the training provided is of a very high quality so that teachers can benefit from it.

It seems that the Council has wasted a lot of time trying to crystalize new ideas instead of working directly on what should be done. In fact, training is one of the easiest things for the MOE to do for possessing huge training facilities all over the country; for example, the Education City that can offer training and residence for two thousand teachers and the Videoconference facility that can provide trainings for thousands of trainees in their governorates at the same time. However, normally training programs are implemented in a very routine way where the focus is on whether the trainees attend, rather than the actual benefits and gains resulting from the training.

It is always important to ask what the real impact of such training programs may actually be. Do training programs address the real needs of the trainees? Do they help education employees do their jobs in a better way? This is the type of questions that should be asked before designing and implementing any training programs.

II- Educational Leadership

Leadership is crucial for setting and maintaining clear ground rules, building trust, facilitating dialogue, and exploring mutual gains. It is a critical factor in bringing different stakeholders to the table and steering them through the rough patches of the collaborative process (Ansell & Gash, 2007). Leadership is required at all levels of the sector and cannot be limited to one level or another (Webber, Bosetti & Johnson, 1993).

Leaders can enhance the performance of their organizations in many ways. Sergiovanni (1999) explains that leaders develop visions of what is desirable for their organizations and focus on missions related to their present work. Being involved in and accountable for organizational activities, leaders bring an intensity of desire, commitment, and enthusiasm that make them different from other employees. They bring a freshness of thought, a set of new ideas, and a belief in a creative change.

Understanding the importance and characteristics of leadership and its impact on organizations is necessary to better understand educational leadership in the Egyptian context that is presented according to the following sub-themes: Educational Leadership Selection, Educational Leadership Performance and Educational Leadership Challenges.

Educational Leadership Selection

Leadership is an essential requirement for the success of any organization. Developing effective institutional leadership requires professional evaluations that assess methods of selection, recruitment, training, ethics and cooperative conduct in addition to technical expertise and managerial competence. Two negative political factors affect and conflict with developing effective leadership capacity of competence and integrity. The first is favoritism and nepotism in the appointments of senior positions. The second is political leaders’ obsession with loyalty, leading to the maintenance of a strong hold on all powers of decision-making (Jreisat, 2012). Unfortunately, these two political factors are obviously noticeable in the education sector where the selection of leaders represents one of the most serious challenges.

Educational Leadership Selection is presented according to the following sub-themes: Supply; Seniority; and Corruption and Lack of Clear Selection Criteria.

Supply

Though the MOE’s staff hold higher education degrees, they are not necessarily in the areas that may qualify them to operate professionally. Moreover, training opportunities available for those outside the central Ministry are even more limited except when donor projects require specific training (The World Bank, 2007). 74

Working in the education sector is not attractive to a lot of candidates, this is especially true for those who possess high quality education and strong professional qualifications. Indeed, such qualifications mean candidates can work for other organizations that can offer better employment conditions. The education sector is well known for its weak revenues compared to other governmental sectors such as finance, oil, and tourism. Additionally, education leaders find themselves under continuous waves of attacks and criticism from the media and press.

Adam explains that recruiting high caliber leaders and staff is not an easy task for the Government of Egypt or the MOE. He states:

Recruiting leaders for the Government is not an easy task. The supply is diminishing. I understand that the Government tries to approach different high caliber people to be Ministers and they refuse given the socio-economic political environment and at the same time as a result of the implementation of the maximum wage in the government. This is one of the challenges the Government is facing: How to make public services in general or making political position more appealing to good caliber. It is not related only to the Ministry of Education, but it is applicable to all Ministries.

Even the highest post within the sector, the Minister of Education, is no longer attractive for a lot of candidates. According to Education in Egypt (2016), President El-Sisi stated in one of his addresses that there are experts and specialists in the Presidency, probably referring to the members of the Presidential Council on Education and Scientific Research, who possess clear visions, strong experiences and respectable plans to develop education, however, when asked to take the responsibility of the MOE, they refuse.

Suzanne talks about several problems related to senior posts like Minister’s advisors and deputies. According to her, on many occasions, they are often externally hired from universities and research centers whose background and expertise are primarily focused on and related to academia. She notes:

Sometimes, they are well-qualified. Sometimes they are not. As I understand and as I see, they come from recommendations. Some of them manage to understand their tasks. But at the time they start working, they are released from their jobs because the Ministry changed. What I see, they come mainly from higher education. This is the norm that I can see with my eyes and I do not know what their qualifications are. My problem with higher education, they come as professors. There is a big difference between managing your class 75

and managing an education system. Education system people are those who studied education and have been working in the development of education. They are exposed to its different aspects. Actually, they cannot even define what governance is.

Adam puts forward arguments that justify why building the capacity of the MOE and other management levels should be given more attention. Adam especially suggests that if there is any improvement or development, it will come from inside the sector. For this reason, he recommends that the MOE should invest more generously in selecting and developing its capacity instead of composing external committees who do not have adequate knowledge of the sector or the commitment that those within the MOE have. He states:

I think the change will come from the Ministry of Education itself. If we have leadership, good management, at the Ministry of Education, that will have better results. Because education is one of the areas and sectors in Egypt that receives a lot of attention over time specially from international donors. As a result, we can talk about a series of diagnostic analysis of all aspects of the pre-university education in Egypt. This is why most people working in the Ministry of Education do understand exactly what is going on and they understand what main reforms that should be taken. The issue here is to implement, to have a commitment and work on the expected resistance for this kind of change. I think the investment in the Ministry itself is better than creating steering or supreme committees working on the pre-university education specially if there is a strategy.

Adam suggests that the Egyptian Government has to exert more efforts to attract a higher caliber staff indicating that it is a profitable investment. He explains:

The Government needs to think how to attract a higher caliber because we are talking about a sector with positive externalities. It is now a very established relationship. Spending more in pre-university education, increasing education level, lead to economic growth and less poverty and so on. So, I think investment in the caliber and investment in management is an issue the Government and the Ministry of Education need to work on.

From my personal experience, I saw it takes a lot of time and effort from the externally appointed leaders to understand what is going on around them, and when they start to understand, it is the time for a new change. On many occasions, those externally hired senior staff request to leave after spending short periods of time in the MOE for different reasons including their inability to cope with the rigidness and bureaucracy within the sector; the resistance they face from the MOE’s internal staff who probably feel they are in a better position

and possess more related and intensive experience to take those senior posts; and the huge workload they have to tackle due to the size of the sector

Seniority

While trust and connections represent the most important factors in recruiting external senior educational leaders, seniority is probably the most crucial factor in promoting internal staff to leadership posts. Seniority becomes a real concern and challenge in the promotion of internal employees; especially when they do not necessarily have the required experiences and adequate qualifications to manage their departments in a satisfactory way.

The late promotion of internal employees within the sector is another challenge as they are frequently promoted to leadership positions too late, probably just one or two years before their retirement at the age of sixty. Having spent the majority of their careers away from decision- making and leadership responsibilities, they cannot be effective, innovative, or visionary leaders. They experience a lack of confidence and power to make a real change. Thus, effectively managing their departments is a very tough and serious challenge to them and the sector.

Sarah indicates that seniority is the basic principle employed in the selection educational leaders. The risk of relying mainly on seniority as a criterion for selecting educational leaders may lead to a situation where the least effective candidates are promoted to the highest senior leadership positions; and this often occurs at the expense of others who are more qualified but with fewer number of years in service. Sarah explains:

[Leaders] are selected mainly by seniority. That is a fact. Only using seniority means you do not necessarily get the best people in leadership positions. You need to be more selective and invest more in developing those leaders. I think the Government needs to invest more in better selecting and developing those leaders. You do not wake up in the morning and find leaders. You have to prepare them since they join the system. Your selection is very important. You pick those that have the caliber to become leaders, you invest in building their capacity, train them and then give them the chance to apply for leadership positions.

While Sarah suggests that leaders should be prepared, and their making is a continuous process that starts with selecting the best candidates and continuously investing in them, Jack indicates that using seniority as the base for the promotion to leadership positions within the education sector cannot be avoided. Indeed, he states that governmental administrative system is based on seniority when he says:

I think the Ministry works under certain way or a hierarchy. But, I know the administrative system within the Government or within the country is basically relying on seniority of people. So, this is something that is not easy to veer from. I know that is something maybe the Ministry likes to change but law may not allow to make different changes.

However, the governmental administrative systems can be reviewed, revised and changed with the aim of realizing national development goals and enhancing the performance of different public sectors including education. Sarah, for example, presents a similar point of view and stresses the necessity to review legal and regulatory frameworks. For Sarah: “Laws related to recruitment and promotions should be revisited to be performance-based not seniority-based”.

Seniority maybe considered as preference criterion between two candidates where they possess equal or similar academic qualifications and professional experiences. In such a case, seniority may be accepted as a criterion for selecting leaders provided that it is not the only criterion of selection. Other criteria such as candidates’ academic qualifications, professional development programs, actual experiences and major achievements should be considered as well.

There are a number of leadership programs that are occasionally implemented in collaboration with national and international partners to build leadership capacities within the education sector at central and local levels. However, those programs are normally scattered initiatives that lack vision, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability. One example is the Middle Management Training Abroad (MMTA) that was supported by the European Union and implemented in two main stages. The first stage was implemented in two months in Ain Shams University in Cairo and the second stage lasted other two months and was implemented in several British universities. However, trainees returned to their regular jobs and were not given the chance to practise what they gained from that program.

The lack of effectiveness and efficiency of such programs may be due to the fact that there are no accurate and effective databases to enable decision-makers to utilize the available human resources; including those who participated in advanced professional development programs. Those who attend such programs are not necessarily given leadership posts in which they can implement their knowledge and skills. In this way, many professional development programs can just be seen as a waste of the sector’s resources.

Corruption and Lack of Clear Selection Criteria

Conventional government corruption was one of the main reasons for the revolution on January 25th, 2011. Government corruption in this context can be defined as the abuse of public office for private gain (Yingling & Arafa, 2013). Corruption also includes giving a post to someone with lower qualifications than other candidates with higher qualifications simply because of being supported by those with authority and power.

Ramzy states there is an absence of clear criteria for recruiting educational leaders. This situation opens the door for relying on favouritism and personal relationships and giving the posts to those who do not really deserve them. He shares:

I did not see any kind of criteria. The Minister convened committees interviewing people to be promoted. However, the output of such committees does not look to be taken into account. Two years ago, the Minister convened a committee to interview people for a certain position, people of the committee did not seem relevant to the task. At the end of the day, people are selected mostly based on favouritism and personal relationships. That is one of the drawbacks of the leadership at the Ministry.

Ramzy further suggests that:

People in the Ministry now, at the different levels, they feel: “If I am good to somebody, that is going to give me a chance”. So, that is the culture now. On some occasions, some people are having very good training programs but when it comes to selection, they are not included. I think there is a need to apply transparent criteria in selecting leaders.

One of the challenges of the education sector is the loyalty of educational leaders to those who appointed them rather than to the sector. Cochran (2008) illuminates:

The leader has the power, makes all the decisions, and gets educational changes through his private network of political and personal relationships… His loyalty is to the political leaders who appoint him …When he leaves, all his accomplishments are replaced by the new agenda of the next authoritarian administrator…This political administrative model and its consequences reduce the consistency and excellence of Egyptian education (p. 183).

Adam states that connections, which may also be seen as a sign and form of corruption, are a factor in the recruitment of newly hired staff within the education sector. He explains: “Sometimes connections: personal connections, political connections, family connections play a role in recruitment, but I do not think this is the issue at the highest level. This is an issue with newly recruited people”.

The appointment of education leaders, especially externals hired at the central level, cannot always be understood and justified in the light of their academic qualifications and professional experiences. Frequently, they are supported by connections who possess power and influence. “Vacancies are commonly filled by those with connections to power and privilege, often at the expense of more qualified but less well-connected individuals” (Chatham House, 2012a, p. 2).

Based on my own experience and observations, the issue of connections is much more serious than what Adam suggests. It is not only related to newly recruited employees but actually it affects clearly the selection of the highest level of educational leaders. Normally every new Minister comes with an external team of senior advisors and deputies based on the principle of trust with a lot of decision-making authority and benefits while relying on the MOE’s staff to accomplish the required tasks. They are often affiliated to the same university or organization where the Minster used to work. Almost 100 percent of those external senior advisors leave when the Minister who appointed them does. If they do not leave with the Minister voluntarily, they are later pushed to do so by subsequent Ministers.

Sarah criticizes the current practices regarding the selection of education leaders and staff. She suggests making a real change in their selection that should start very early with the applicants to faculties of education, adopting and implementing better selection procedures and enhancing pre- service and in-service professional development programs.

According to Sarah:

You need to start by selecting people who are really into teaching and learning, who like the job, not just those who got the score in high school and go to the faculty of education. You need a better selection than that at that stage. You need better pre-service training that really prepares students to the workplace. You need better in-service training and ensure that the transfer of knowledge and skills acquired through training to the workplace is ensured through giving motivation, giving proper supervision, giving proper feedback, doing better coaching. Why people are not performing? There are many reasons.

In this regard, Suzanne states that:

I think the curriculums of the faculties of education have to be reformed and assessed. You will find a lot of gaps based supposedly on good standards. These gaps should be covered by training in the faculties of education. Then give them good salaries.

The whole education sector suffers from the consequences of not investing enough for building leadership capacity. The consequences include the heavy reliance on externals; who typically come from academia and need time and effort to build their own understanding of the sector.

Educational Leadership Performance

The performance of educational leaders is criticized by most participants in this study, as they argue that the sector suffers from the lack of true leadership. Frequently participants mention there is a management rather than leadership system within the education sector. There is a lack of true leaders who possess the ambitious vision, knowledge and authority that would enable them to work towards reaching their vision.

Educational leadership performance is presented by expanding on a set of sub-themes: Weak Performance and Lack of Courage; Dominance of Top Management and Variance in Capabilities; Management not Leadership; Accumulative Professional Experiences; and Limited Motivated Capacity. 81

Weak Performance and Lack of Courage

Sarah describes the performance of educational leaders as weak for very different reasons. She says:

Performance is not up to the standards regarding what we want to achieve. That is for a lot of reasons. A lot of those people are not motivated to do their jobs. Many of them do not really know or understand what is expected from them; what they are supposed to be doing. Many of them do not get the required training. Many of them do not even see their job description. There is a lot that is required. I always believe in the power of human resources, but they have to be managed well. I think it is the power of human resources that makes the change not any other type of resources. Of course, all types of resources are very important. I am not undermining the importance of having an adequate budget and so on so forth, but I believe very much in the power of human resources when they are managed right.

Typically, educational leaders try to avoid making decisions, especially those related to finance. Sarah stresses the fact that educational leaders are not confident enough and resistant making required decisions. That resistance can be understood in light of their selection processes which may not adequately assess their capacity and qualifications. She states that:

The weak capacity makes them a bit skeptical and make them afraid of taking responsibility and that of course creates problems. You need somebody who takes responsibility at the end of the day. For example, as an international organization, I need a signature to start; from a governmental official in the country. That is because people do not fully understand what is expected from them, what their responsibilities are and what the sequences of mistakes are. Sometimes the sequences of mistakes are really difficult.

Education employees are paid according to salary tables that are based essentially on seniority regardless of the nature of their workload and their responsibilities. There is a lack of an effective incentive system that can really and fairly reward employees with high performance. These factors affect negatively the performance and motivating of education employees.

That lack of decision-making ability is not always the fault of the employees within the sector. It is also related to the way in which the sector functions and its inherited practices. Decisions are normally proposed to the higher management level to escape taking any responsibility and/or risks. It is an escape mechanism through which responsibilities and decisions are always pushed to the higher level. At the same time, this negative practice is frequently encouraged by senior 82

officials as a mechanism of firmly controlling their supervised departments, units and staff. It is a very long and slow process that makes the sector less effective and efficient.

At the end of the day, being a high or low performer within the education sector will not probably make a big difference or have a strong impact on employees’ careers and/or incomes.

Dominance of Top Management and Variance in Capabilities

Peter identifies the issue of the dominance of the top management level over all other levels. This dominance leads to the tendency for those at the top to control everything and keep all possible authority in their hands, which absolutely hinders the performance of the sector. Peter says:

There is sometimes a very strong difference in the capabilities between top management and middle management. Staff in top management may be different in their capabilities if compared to the rest of the management. On the other hand, they face challenges to delegate work to their colleagues. Hence, they hyper concentrate decision-making and also underline that they are the only ones who know what they are doing. I believe this is not a conducive type of leadership.

It is very true that senior leaders at the central MOE tend to control everything. While there are always calls for moving towards more education decentralization, what happens on the ground is totally different. Top educational leaders tend to resist giving up some of their authority as they fully understand if they start to delegate their authorities, different forms of advantages and benefits they gain will be reduced (Rizk, 2012).

Though Jack finds the selection of educational leaders to be acceptable if we take into consideration the whole surrounding context and conditions, he implies that their performance and capabilities vary widely. Indeed, he suggests that international organizations request the MOE to identify certain staff to work with:

I think the selection of leaders at the Ministry is good according to the circumstances that are available. But then again in working with international donors, international donors appeal to the Ministry of Education to avail certain individuals to work with them. Most of the cases, these individuals are actually very cooperative, and they do avail the opportunity to donors to cooperate and provide their technical assistance whether that might be at the central or the local level. 83

Management not Leadership

Leading an organization is much more than managing. Leaders should develop a shared vision and possess good interpersonal and teambuilding skills, be creative and innovative in leading staff members towards the accomplishment of organizational goals. They should pay sufficient attention to the organizational culture, behaviour and how those factors affect their organization, management and staff (Gamage, 2006).

Adam states that what exists in the education sector is managerial or day-to-day management rather than leadership. The sector suffers from the lack of leadership with a vision that can lead and realize a real reform. For Adam:

We have to make a distinction between the day to day operations in the Ministry of Education and the vision for reform. These are two different issues. If we are talking about day to day operations, how policies are implemented, how teaching is done, and how educational services are provided, how money is spent, it is their business and they are qualified. The system in Egypt is based on seniority and those people actually accumulated a lot of experiences over time whether we are talking about the central level or the local level. So, they are experienced.

Mary adopts a similar point of view describing educational leadership in the education sector as a managerial system where people are normally promoted in the light of one main criterion: seniority. She indicates that different Ministers have been advised to adopt performance-based management systems. However, the Labor Law and legal frameworks do not support that direction as she explains:

Throughout the system promotion is still based on seniority. We often advised several Ministers to adopt a performance-based management system, but it never happened. The cadre law heavily focused on professional development but it does not really give much value to performance. I can not even describe it as leadership. I can describe it as a managerial system.

Accumulative Professional Experiences

Professional experiences within the pre-university education sector are identified among governance strengths by several participants. Professional experiences are gained through working within the sector for prolonged periods and that enables the education personnel to

develop and possess accumulative knowledge, skills and practices. Adam, for example, confirms that the sector possesses a variety of experiences at all management levels from the central MOE down to the school level.

Adam clarifies:

The caliber in the Ministry, governorate, district and schools, they have the experience of day-to-day operations. The evidence is that the education sector continued working without any political leadership during the revolution and even without a Minister. This reflects that the Ministry has a caliber.

Adam’s understanding is that employees within the sector are successful in performing day-today operations even during the times of political instability. This day-to-day competence can be understood considering the capacity amassed from working within the sector for long times where most employees serve for their whole careers. Thus, employees gain rich accumulative experiences that enable them to do their jobs in a satisfactory way.

Jack brings a similar point of view regarding long-term employees. He, however, was the only participant who thinks that the huge numbers of teachers and administrators employed by the sector represent a strength. Jack maintains this position even though the large numbers of employees contribute dramatically to the sector’s inefficiency; even though those employees are paid less compared to their counterparts working in other public sectors. Jack explains:

Some look at the availability of the personnel as a weakness. The Ministry employs large numbers of teachers and administrators. You have outreach with numbers of personnel; whether they are administrative or technical; teachers or principals; at the local and central levels. If the capacity is built for all those individuals at different levels, this is a strength that is not comparable to any other Ministry within the Government.

Adam states that employees within the sector possess good experiences suggesting that the participation of the MOE’s staff in developing two strategies has positively affected staffs’ way of thinking. Adam says: “The Ministry experienced before the strategic management and prepared two strategies before. This, in a way or another, changed the mentality of some of the staff in the Ministry”.

Peter also refers to the professional capacity within the sector as a strength that can be built on. However, he seems less optimistic compared to other participants regarding competence of employees; describing it as basic when he shares: “People have some base of competence which is something that can be built on. There are other countries where these bases do not exist at all”.

Limited Motivated Capacity

Despite the state of dissatisfaction and the lack of motivation that prevails in the education sector and negatively affects its employees and their performance, Peter finds that there is a limited segment of the employees who are highly motivated and willing to contribute faithfully to the sector. He states that: “We see that some people are motivated, and they have capacities, but they are not many. There is also an institutional base that allows them to work”.

Considering the demotivating professional and socio-economic conditions surrounding education employees, Peter expresses his astonishment that a limited segment of those employees is very motivated:

I am always astonished finding that there are staff members who are very motivated and who are willing to serve their country. This is a strength. There are people who want to work and serve their country, but these people need to be empowered and need to be rewarded for their motivation and for their eagerness to serve instead of being put aside and somebody else being promoted by seniority or based on a good relationship with someone. I feel that administrative structures within the Ministry of Education specially related to the integration of performance-based assessment would be a huge contribution and bring a lot of potential to improve education as a whole.

However, as Peter suggests, motivated capacity constitutes a limited segment of the employees within the sector. In that way, it cannot be considered as a real strength within the sector.

Motivation of that limited segment of employees may be understood in the light of their personal and professional ambition as well as their seniors’ support and encouragement. Some managers can motivate and raise the performance of their supervisees using different strategies including, for example, verbal appreciation and praise. People normally tend to perform better when they are appreciated.

Educational Leadership Challenges

In Egypt, educational leadership and its performance represent serious challenges that negatively affect the performance of the whole education sector. Without effective educational leadership, the desired results cannot be reached. In the light of the participants’ responses, educational leadership challenges are presented according to the following sub-themes: Lack of Transformational Leadership, Instability, and Demotivating Environment.

Lack of Transformational Leadership

Adam explains that the sector does not possess transformational leadership that can develop a vision and work consistently towards its realization. He suggests that the quality of leaders within the central MOE is not the same as it used to be. This reality can be understood in the light of the demotivating environment within the MOE and the pre-university education sector. Besides, different recruiters including international organizations continue to absorb the MOE’s capacity; particularly those with strong academic and professional qualifications. Adam suggests:

What is needed is the transformational leadership; a leadership that has a vision and this vision should be reflected in policies and after that in management. I think the Ministry misses this kind of vision and this kind of leadership that can generate this kind of vision. The Ministry used to have a number of experts working with the Minister to provide technical points of views, ideas, and approaches. I think the current experts in the Ministry are not equal to the caliber that used to work in this Ministry before. So, I think there is a kind of lack of senior advisors and experts.

Mary states that the education sector lacks real transformational leaders who can develop ambitious visions to advance their departments or units and enhance their performance. True leaders are very rare within the sector and normally when they exist, they face clashes and conflicts if they call for or support a change. She argues that, within the sector, there are managers but not leaders and the sector does not actually support real educational leaders. As Mary states:

Very rarely you come across a manger who is really a true leader and when that happens they are obstructed by the system because if you stick your neck out, you get hurt. So, if you adopt a change, you need a change, so you are punishable. 87

Instability

Ramzy indicates there is a lack of stability within the education sector; especially at the top- management level stating that:

Leadership of the sector at the Ministry of Education is suffering from big problems. There is no stability of the system. The leadership suffers a sort of instability since 2011, top management, Minister and his team, changed like six times which casts shadows on the polices and strategies of the sector. So, the lack of stability will affect the future of the whole sector. The managerial style is mostly permissive autocrat where mangers make decisions unilaterally but gives subordinates latitude in carrying out their work.

Ramzy suggests that the change of the Minister of Education leads to a change in the strategy of the whole sector, which contributes to deepening its instability and inefficiency. He explains:

At the Ministry of Education, it is supposed that the Minister changes, but the strategy is there; but, unfortunately, the Minister changes and the strategy as well. That is happening within the sector. There is a sort of personal interest that every Minister wants to produce his own plan and says that is my document or this is my plan and so on. The result is that is the worst case of inefficiency and that is why we are all the time starting from the very beginning.

Sarah has a similar point of view and focuses on the high turnover of the senior MOE staff, especially those responsible for international cooperation and coordination with international organizations; which negatively influences partnership between the MOE and its international partners. She shares: “The high turnover of our focal points is a problem. By the time your focal point understands and gets along and starts, changes happen. Then you have to start all over again”.

Adam stresses the importance of realizing stability within the education sector and considers it as a priority because of its positive impacts on the sector and its performance. He clarifies:

Over the last years, a lot of changes happened in the Ministry of Education. We are talking about instability in the sector. I think stability is very important and should be one of the priorities because education reform is long-term and cannot be realized in short-term. This needs in a way or another some stability. These two factors I think are related to each other. When you have a strategy, and this strategy is not associated with one person. It is associated with the institution itself with a large level of participation. I think this creates a

kind of stability. So, even if the Minister got changed for a reason or another, there will be a kind of stability in policies of education.

In this regard, Ramzy refers to the issue of sudden unexpected changes within the sector when he recounts how:

There are some sudden changes, mainly somebody committed a mistake, so the Minister, or somebody else, does not like such a behaviour. So, in a second, you make a decision to move him from one department to another. There are a lot of examples for this.

Peter suggests that the lack of continuity represents a serious challenge to the education sector; indicating it is not always the fault of leaders themselves. Peter suggests:

The lack of continuity of course; which is not the fault of the leaders themselves; at least not at this level. Because if we have to deal with a new Minister every year, it is extremely difficult. This have been the situation here in Egypt since 2011. Demotivating Environment

Employees across the sector experience a general state of demotivation and dissatisfaction, from the central down to the school levels. Education employees are normally paid less compared to other public sectors; such as tourism, electricity and oil. In her paper, Louisa Loveluck (2012) refers to the problem of low pay within the education sector while discussing teachers’ social and economic status. She states that: “The teaching profession tends to be associated with a low social and economic status. This notion is reinforced by the meagre salaries” (p. 6). The Ministry of International Cooperation (2006) suggests that: “The incentive systems should be improved dramatically as the existing system pushes skilled teachers away from their careers to administrative positions as a requirement for promotion and salary increase” (p. 7).

Working within the pre-university education sector may be demotivating for many reasons. First, the low payment within the sector even when compared to other public sectors. Second, the sector lacks an effective incentive system that can reward employees with high performance and take serious procedures against others whose performance or behaviour is not up to the required standard. Third, there is no effective, supportive professional development programs that are tailored to address the employees’ needs and enhance their performance.

Egyptian education staff are the least well paid in the region. The low payment has led to deterioration in the quality of teachers and teaching. Teaching jobs are associated with low social and economic status. Because of low status and low wage, teaching jobs fail to attract better candidates (The World Bank, 2007).

Mary states that generally civil servants in Egypt are not motivated. The situation within the education sector in particular is much worse due to the low payment for administrators and teachers. Mary says: “Civil servants get hired and they stayed there for life and they do not work. All those are disincentives. If you work or if you do not work, you get the same thing. One other reason for this problem is the encumbered civil servant system”.

Though she focuses on teachers, Suzanne, considers increasing salaries as a priority that should be considered by the Government. She explains: “Definitely an issue that should be considered is the salary of teachers. If teachers get better salaries, you can attract better calibers and then you can reform education. This is a priority”.

Galal (2008) states that: “Teachers’ salaries are very low. This creates a strong incentive to make more income through private tutoring, which can earn them on average ten times their governmental salary” (p. 190).

Peter suggests that the environment within the education sector is demotivating; especially for employees with high performance as promotions are based mainly on seniority not performance when he shares:

There is a lack of transparency regarding the system of the career progression within the Ministry. So, we have feeling it is heavily based on seniority and not based on performance which is very demotivating for highly performing personnel. We have also observed that there were some staff members that had been very cooperative, and we were extremely pleasant to deal with in the sense that they were very reliable, and the quality of their work was very high. They were, however, not rewarded with the career progression they had expected. There is an additional issue in terms of the staffing of national institutions which may not be related to governance system of education itself in Egypt but to the presence of international development organizations. Sometimes the most capable and motivated staff members are absorbed by international development organizations, leaving only the less motivated within the Ministry.

Based on my personal experience, even the highest senior level in the MOE face a lot of difficulties to plan and implement successful reform initiatives for different reasons. For instance, because of the high level of centralization within the sector those officials (including the Minister) are extremely busy, from the very early morning until late at night. They are tasked with signing of notes, reports, and appeals, attending a lot of meetings with national and international delegations, and citizens. They meet with Parliament Members who are looking for solutions to problems of their districts and citizens they represent.

Frequently, I met citizens who traveled hundreds of kilometers to Cairo to transfer their children form one school to another within the same district. They did not receive help to solve their problems at the school, district or governorate levels, so they sought to get that help from the central level. Overtime, people lost trust in the local level and its ability to solve their problems and address their complaints. Accordingly, senior officials at the MOE, without any exaggerations, have to sign hundreds of complaints and appeals every single day which puts a lot of burden and pressure on the central level and its staff.

Mary argues that the labour law and legal frameworks do not reward those who do their jobs in ways that meet the standards indicating that very little can be done against employees with low performance. So, the sector lacks clear criteria for rewarding and encouraging employees whose performance is high and effective punishment measurements for those with weak performance. As Mary says:

People get promoted on seniority. You have a labour law that makes it almost impossible for someone to get fired. Have you ever heard in your life of someone getting fired? You do not get promoted on the bases of your performance. And you do not get fired on the bases of your performance.

Mary criticizes the professional development programs offered within the sector at all levels describing them as a kind of routine and does not have any real impact on the employees nor their performance.

Mary expands:

In-service training, what kind of in-service training. Have you seen any in-service training? If we talk about administrators, they have two or three days a management workshop or course, siting there, signing everyday in and out, and getting a certificate that means nothing. Absolutely zero. Then, going back to their departments and getting promoted. So, there is no training. I can give you like ten more reasons, but I think these are enough.

Peter states that education employees over-concentrate on their own tasks, probably limited in scope, with a tendency to neglect what is going on within that huge sector beyond their jobs and responsibilities. This prevents them from developing a comprehensive complementary understanding of the whole sector and how it really functions. He explains:

I believe there is the spirit of micro-managing things of creating task-packages which are so small that people are really not able to look at their larger horizon and get a systematic understanding or systematic thinking which will enable to solve the problems within the Ministry. So, this is one of the issues related to leadership we have observed.

One crucial factor that affects this issue is the feeling of employees within the education sector, especially at the local and school levels, that they have only to implement different sorts of decisions that travel, top-down from the MOE. Those at lower levels are not consulted or urged to understand the rationale, reasons, logic or justification behind those decisions. Local and school levels and representatives are not given the chance to take part in decision-making processes even when they affect them in a direct way. Consequently, resistance to educational reforms emerge frequently from the sector itself.

Thus, education employees at governorate, district and school levels frequently represent apparent and hidden resistance to the central MOE, its plans and initiatives.

Conclusion

The Egyptian pre-university education sector suffers from a lack of well-selected, highly- qualified, effectively trained, and adequately motivated leaders who can contribute to making a real change within the sector which can be observed at the central MOE, governorate, district, and school levels. In the absence of creative transformational leadership, the sector will continue to poorly function. It is crucial that the education sector should invest more in building its 92

leadership capacity, utilize its human resources in more effective and efficient ways, develop an effective and updated database that provides accurate data on all employees including their professional development programs, and put an end to the leakage of its well-qualified capacity.

While this chapter reviews political and educational leadership, the next one discusses partnership while focusing on two other key stakeholders: international organizations and the private sector. It illuminates how partnership with these stakeholders are initiated, built, and managed.

Chapter Six: Partnership

Introduction

Partnership in education is an agreement that involves two or more parties who come together for the common good to enhance teaching and learning. True partnerships are mutually created and characterized by ongoing trust, communication, and respect among the different parties involved (Cox-Peterson, 2011). Partnerships can contribute to innovation, broadening participation in decision-making and complementing public sector resources. However, cultural differences among partners are potential barriers to realize an effective partnership as the wider social, political, and economic setting may influence partnerships (Marriott & Goyder, 2009).

There are several key principles of educational partnerships. First, the government takes responsibility and accountability for the performance of the whole education sector. Second, all partners aim at synchronizing their processes to joint cycles and systems of appraisal, programming, review, monitoring and evaluation. Third, technical assistance is demand-based. Finally, partners are committed to openness, transparency, consultation, sharing of information and dialogue (Collins & Higgins, 2000).

Utilizing all the participants' comments pertaining to the presented themes, this chapter focuses on partnership between the education sector and two key stakeholders: International Organizations and the Private Sector.

I- International Organizations

International organizations have had strong presence in Egypt and made significant contributions to its pre-university education sector since the 1970s. In this chapter, partnership between the MOE and international organizations is presented according to the following sub-themes: Uncertainty; A Real Partnership? Partnership Launch and Mutual Interests; Organizations’ Interests and Ready-made Solutions; The Driver’s Seat; Partnership in Governance; and International Partnership Challenges.

Uncertainty

The January 2011 and June 2013 uprisings contributed to creating a new political and socio- economic context that provided an environment of uncertainty for international organizations and institutions that have supported Egypt over the last four decades (Amin, 2014). Most participants are not satisfied with the current level of cooperation between the MOE and its international partners. Though the image of this partnership seems to be gloomy, it still represents an open window for enhancing the education sector and improving its performance.

According to Mary, for example: “The picture I am giving is not a bright one, but we still have hope and we are still working with the Ministry of Education because there must be a reform. There is no other way”.

Adam confirms repeatedly that international organizations in Egypt are currently hesitant and they avoid getting involved in major programs. He says: “International organizations in Egypt, during this period of time, are hesitant to take initiatives. They prefer to work on very limited, very specific problems and activities rather than expanding and working on long-term plans. That is what happening currently”.

Following the revolution of 2011, it is still a time of instability and uncertainty. The state of political, economic and social instability has affected international organizations’ contributions to the education sector. International organizations normally contribute to programs and projects that probably lead to positive, concrete and significant impacts. However, in times of uncertainty those impacts cannot always be realized.

Adam refers particularly to the USAID, the major donor to the Egyptian pre-university education sector for a long time, indicating that the USAID reduced significantly its contributions to the education sector after the 2011 revolution. Adam states that: “There was the revolution and the role of the USAID in the Ministry of Education was very limited; focusing only on one of the projects serving girls’ education”.

Jack suggests that international organizations are willing, eager and feel responsible for supporting governance reforms in the pre-university education sector. However, they are interested to see more positive tangible results for their efforts. Jack explains:

The minute you provide an opportunity for doing something that is successful, you will find that donors will lavish these experiences and want to replicate them. So, donors are willing to invest more if they can see the benefits of their investments. I think donors are willing to invest because they feel there is a responsibility to invest in the education system of the country, but they need to see the results. They need to see there are good examples where they can be invited to invest. A Real Partnership?

According to most participants, cooperation between the MOE and international organizations cannot even be described as a partnership. They refer to those partnerships as being unsuccessful, ineffective and inefficient. However, as suggested by one of the participants, the MOE has to continue working with its international partners for realizing a better education sector.

Adam suggests that pre-university education represents the preferable sector for a lot of international organizations and it has a history of partnerships with UN and international donor organizations since the seventies. That long and rich history of partnership enabled the staff at the MOE to develop the required culture and necessary skills to deal with international partners. Adam explains:

The Ministry of Education used to have the lion’s share of international economic assistance to Egypt. The USAID, the World Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO, European Commission used to work with the Ministry. I think the staff of the Ministry of Education has the culture of dealing with international donors because this experience started in 1970s in Egypt.

Suzanne indicates that there is a paradigm shift of attitudes within the education sector towards cooperation and partnership with international organizations compared to the past when the MOE and its staff used to deny that the sector suffered from any challenges. For Suzanne:

Recently, they have good relations and projects. Because they changed attitudes that “we do not have any problems”. Before 2000s, we used to talk to the Ministry of Education and they said we do not have any problems. Our curriculums are up-graded; our teachers are

Okay; our students are excellent. After that they said: “We know we have problems and the whole attitude changed”.

However, to what extent can cooperation between the MOE and international organizations be considered as a real partnership? Mary, for example, indicates that cooperation cannot be described as a real partnership, but it is rather a donor-recipient relationship. She says:

They do not partner with international organizations. All the organizations working around the Ministry of Education. This is not a partnership. This is a donor-recipient relationship. On the documents of donors, we will have the word “partnership” and all the documents of the Ministry of Education have a lot of the word “partnership”. But what happens is not a real partnership.

The lack of an effective strategic plan for the pre-university education sector simply means that it cannot accurately identify its top priorities, estimate the required resources to realize certain goals, or determine challenging areas that need urgent interventions. At the same time, it opens the door for international organizations to bring their own agendas and introduce ready-made solutions based on their own priorities and interests instead of responding and supporting the actual priorities, goals, objectives and needs of the sector.

Partnership Launch and Mutual Interests

According to the participants, partnership between the MOE and international organizations can be started in two ways. First, it is probably launched as an initiative taken by international organizations when they offer to support the MOE or the pre-university education sector in a certain area(s) that have to be approved initially by the Egyptian Government. Second, sometimes it can be initiated by the MOE through requesting the support of international partners in area(s) such as pilots, capacity building, and/or technical assistance.

Peter confirms the same opinion that there are two pathways to the launch of partnership between the MOE and its international partners. He suggests that:

There are two ways in which these projects or programs come up. Sometimes international organizations or the Ministry have an idea they really care about … Our side suggests the idea to the Ministry of International Cooperation, and also shares this idea with the line Ministry; which in this case is the Ministry of Education. They always can say “we want

it” or “we do not want it”. The other path that can be taken is that the Ministry itself requests something through government consultations and government negotiations through bilateral meetings that take place between the representatives of the embassy and the Ministry of International Cooperation. Maybe also other Ministries are involved.

Peter states that partnership between the MOE and international organizations can start as an offer from the organizations or as a request of the MOE itself. However, he suggests that it is always up to the MOE to accept or refuse a certain program or project. For Peter:

It is a mixture of both, but it has to be a mutual agreement because we rely on the cooperation with our partner in order to implement. If the partner, the state, is not interested in a particular program, they block it. They really do block it. So, it is not conducive for us to try to implement something that has not been agreed with the partners.

Cooperation between the MOE and international organizations should imply a win-win situation for all parties. International organizations are not charities that donate their funds without considering their own interests and returns. Thus, partnership is sparked when mutual interests meet.

This argument can be supported by the fact that there are many examples when more developed countries get more assistance than other countries who suffer from worse economic conditions and demonstrate more need for international aid. The situation in Egypt provides evidence for this point. Egypt is categorized by the World Bank as a medium income country, yet as it has remained among top recipient countries of international aid since the seventies for strategic reasons rather than economic ones.

Partnership between the MOE and international organizations comes within the framework of mutual interests and should be understood as operating as such. When the interests of international organizations meet the needs and priorities of the MOE, partnership starts.

Jack suggests that partnerships are not imposed but coordinated when he explains:

International donors avail opportunities for the Ministry of Education to gain from funding. There is a gear towards certain elements donors see in need of support. And this is not happening except when the Ministry agrees to such support. So, if there is a mutual interest between donors and the Ministry of Education to provide support in a certain area, I think it is a mutual benefit for the Ministry to accept this support as long it is something that the 98

Ministry is interested in and as long there is an agreement from donors and the Ministry that this area is something that would help both. I think, at least from my own experience, this has been successful so far. Because donors come in and point out a certain issue or a certain problem that they would like to finance and support in. At the same time, the Ministry agrees and that gets to be an opportunity for both to cooperate on a mutually beneficial opportunity.

Partnerships are more successful when they are based on mutual interests and represent a win- win situation for different parties who work together towards the fulfillment and realization of their own needs and objectives.

I argue that because the MOE does not have a realistic and effective strategy to determine clear priorities, it does not have the capacity to invite different stakeholders, including international organizations, to contribute to the implementation of certain programs and projects of that strategy and fill in its gaps. Thus, partnership is often initiated by international organizations who offer to support the education sector in areas of their own interest. Unfortunately, in such situations with international partners and other stakeholders, the MOE continues to adopt its passive attitude.

Organizations’ Interests and Ready-made Solutions

Sarah argues that it is true that international organizations do have their own interests and they probably come with their own initiatives. However, the MOE can still benefit from those organizations and their experiences in areas where the MOE needs their support. Those areas can be the base of tailoring and starting programs and projects that match the mutual interests of both parties as Sarah explains:

One donor may say: “I am interested in increasing the access of out of school children; those who are excluded. We would like to get them back into the system”. Another may say: “We would like to work on early childhood education, children age 4 and 5. That is my target”. I have not seen any of the projects that I came across during my experience that does not match by one way or another one of the educational priorities. When you start doing the planning of it, how you do it and how you can make the best use of the available resources. You would have two things: Sometimes you would have a priority you want to go for and sometimes you would have an opportunity you need to take.

Sarah, however, suggests that it is still the responsibility of the Egyptian Government and the MOE to identify their educational priorities. This is important so that international organizations can work on areas that fit with their interests and at the same time fulfill the country’ educational priorities and needs. Sarah confirms:

Putting forward priorities is the responsibility of the Government and the Ministry of Education … and that is the importance of the strategic plan with its proper budget. When you have that in place and you do the proper awareness around that and you market it, then you are putting your priorities forward. So, when any international organization comes, they will match their interests with the priorities that will guide them.

Identifying the priorities and needs of the pre-university education sector clearly and accurately can provide international organizations with a clearer image about areas and gaps where their attention, support and assistance are mostly needed.

Adam confirms that international organizations normally introduce ready-made solutions based on their experiences gained through conducting research, implementing programs, projects and reforms in different contexts. They possess knowledge, technical assistance and well-qualified and highly-trained human resources that enable them to develop and share success stories, identify best practices, realize different sorts of challenges, design and tailor solutions to those specific challenges. Adam explains:

The fact that international organizations have ready-made solutions for main issues, the answer is: “Yes”. Why yes? Because international organizations work in different countries. They are implementing different initiatives in different countries. They have many successful stories. Some actions or procedures succeeded in a number of countries, so they prefer to scale up these initiatives specially if they are proven to be successful.

Adam suggests that with strong leadership and capacity at the MOE, ready-made solutions can be put into a context and be well utilized in the Egyptian settings. However, he agrees that ready- made solutions have their own negative impacts that affect partnership negatively when the recipient country lacks strengths to play the role of a true partner. For Adam:

If the government or the Ministry of Education is strong, it will be able to contextualize these ready-made solutions and tailor them to work within the Egyptian environment and based on priorities of the government itself. Contextualization should not destroy these initiatives. We talk a lot about Egyptian environment, and Egyptian privacy. We need to be 100

sure that these solutions are sufficient and are adequate to deal with our issues, but at the same time we should not actually distort these interventions under the claim that we have our own culture and we have our own privacy. Because at the end of the day, and currently, we are talking about globally approved or globally agreed upon solutions for specific problems. So, we do not have to reinvent the wheel. Some solutions are already experienced in a number of countries and give good results, so we have to adopt them. Some solutions we need to contextualize. Again, if the counterpart is not strong, the negative impacts of that kind of ready-made solutions, I think, are bad.

Thus, Adam suggests that ready-made solutions offered by international organizations have already been examined and verified in different contexts and supported by research-based evidence. So, there is no harm in exploring international organizations’ best practices and lessons learnt from their experiences in different contexts. However, those ready-made solutions must always be modified, adapted and contextualized to be more responsive to the Egyptian political, economic and social context and more effective in addressing the education sector’s challenges, priorities and needs.

Taking the Egyptian political, social and economic context into consideration is not only crucial but an essential requirement for enabling educational reforms in collaboration with international organizations. However, there should be no extra exaggeration or emphasis on the uniqueness of the national context that may undermine international partners’ contributions and efforts.

Mary agrees that international organizations normally approach national governments with ready-made solutions in the light of their intensive research, studies and their strong expertise in different contexts. However, the MOE still has the right to accept or decline those solutions as Mary explains:

Yes [International Organizations] do come with ideas. They do situation analysis. They come with comprehensive studies and research; the USAID, the World Bank and UNICEF, name it. When they come, they negotiate with the Ministry. The first strategic plan has made it a little easier, but the second strategic plan is really very bad. The Ministry has priorities, then, there is negotiation. So, it is a combination. I come with good ideas because I have done a lot of research, then I negotiate it with you. Usually they come with orientation. For instance, an organization will come and say: “I want to work on early childhood”. So, they come to the Ministry with this suggestion because they have the capacity to help; they have money for this and they have the experience. When they

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negotiate with the Ministry, the Ministry probably says: “It is a good idea. Let’s work together on early childhood”. The Driver’s Seat

The driver’s seat is used frequently in the literature on international partnership and international aid. For example, Riddell (2008) suggests that “the donors continue to do their own thing, and the government does not care to be in the driver’s seat” (p. 15).

It is a metaphor used to refer to the party that takes and possesses leadership in a partnership. Leadership is taken, not granted. So, if the MOE wants to sit in the driver’s seat, there is a set of prerequisites that should be realized to enable it to do so. The prerequisites include the availability of effective leadership, a sound and reliable strategic plan that reflects the real priorities and needs of the education sector, and strong highly-qualified and well-trained capacity at all management levels.

Mary argues that leadership of the MOE is very limited to accepting or declining programs and projects proposed by international organizations. However, unfortunately, it does not actually possess real leadership to lead initiatives and activities implemented by international organizations. She continues:

That is what we hoped for. This is exactly what we have been telling them when we started the idea of the strategic plan. Do the strategic plan and be in the Driver’s Seat. The Ministry of Education is in the Driver’s Seat in the sense that it can approve or disapprove, what donors are doing. It can approve or disapprove a program. But in the Driver’s Seat in the sense that it is leading the reform or leading the program, No”.

Mary justifies the inability of the MOE to sit in the driver’s seat because it lacks effective capacity to take leadership. She clarifies that international organizations’ capacity is significantly stronger than that of the MOE, consequently, those organizations take the lead:

In order to be in the Driver’s Seat, you have to be in control, right? How can you be in control if you do not have a monitoring and evaluation system? How can you be in control if you do not have the capacity to analyse data? The Ministry does not have these. How can you be in control? Donors have all these capacities, so they are in control of programs from A to Z. They need the help of the Ministry. They need the approval of the Ministry. The Ministry is in the Driver’s Seat when the Minister says: “I approve this program” or “I do 102

not approve”. But through implementing, it becomes very difficult for the Ministry. The Ministry is like shadowing the implementation. So, the program is implemented, and the Ministry is shadowing and mostly, unfortunately, donors like this shadowing because the Ministry can then facilitate the implementation. But this does not mean sitting in the Driver’s Seat. It is facilitation. The capacity of donors is way way higher than the capacity of the Ministry. Partnership in Governance

Governance reforms have become one of the top priorities for international organizations. Consequently, governance reforms, programs, projects, initiatives take place all over the world with the aim of reaching more efficient, effective, accountable, transparent, participatory and collaborative education sectors. At the same time, those reforms are and should be the top priority of national governments for reforming their education sectors and improving their performance. So, partnerships focusing on education governance reflect mutual interests and constitute a win-win situation for both parties.

As for partnership in education governance in Egypt, it is a priority for international organizations whose support to the education sector is extended to a wide set of areas such as conducting pilots, providing technical assistance, building capacity at different management levels, and empowering local and school levels. The USAID represents the major partner of the sector through supporting its governance reforms, programs, projects and pilots with a focus on decentralization; school-based reforms; technical assistance; and capacity building.

Jack indicates that international organizations contribute to enhancing governance and management of the education sector in many ways; whatever their interests or partnership programs are. Jack illuminates:

All organizations, all donor organizations who work with the Ministry of Education have to touch base with governance and management in whatever support they are providing. The support at my end is technical support but the technical support has to deal with management and governance. Primarily because we are dealing with the central level, and sometimes at the governorate and district levels. So, you are bound to deal with governance whether at the central level or the local level. And, also, at the management of activities that are related to the Ministry whether at the central or the local levels.

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In this regard, Ramzy suggests that enhancing governance represents a priority for international organizations as it can enable them to assess their assistance to the education sector. Ramzy makes this point by stating that: “International organizations want to see governance improved, because it is the best way to make sure that the money they give is used in an effective way”.

Educational reforms do not occur in a vacuum. Therefore, conducting reforms in a certain management level should be done while keeping an eye on other levels. Attention should be paid to how all levels implement and are affected by reforms and how they react to certain interventions. Jack states that:

If you are talking about decentralization, you have to work with the government at the central level because the government has to take decisions on the central level that do affect the entire local areas. These decisions cannot be taken at the local level. They have to be taken at the central level first. So, the government and primarily the Ministry of Education decides, for example, to lead the way in decentralization of education finance. This is a decision that is taken at the central level. If you end up working with governance at the local level, you will find out that as soon as you apply decentralization, there will be money allocated to the local level. The local level has to take decisions on spending this money. So, you will find out that decisions, part of them are taken at the central level, part of them are taken at the local level. It is a reaction of the central decisions.

Any successful reform should consider the uniqueness of the whole context and environment where this reform will be implemented. Implications and impacts of educational reforms on different management levels should be explored and predicted. For example, if we take into consideration over-centralization wherein the MOE controls the whole pre-university education sector, the central level may be then the most important level for international organizations. However, other levels should not be underestimated; especially schools where all teaching/learning processes happen and have absolutely the most direct impact on students’ learning outcomes.

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International Partnership Challenges

There are many challenges that hinder the effective partnership and cooperation between the pre- university education sector and international organizations. Some of the challenges raised by the participants are presented as follows:

Lack of a Clear Vision and Effective Strategy

Lack of a clear vision and effective strategy is among the most serious challenges facing the education sector in general and its partnership with international organizations in particular. Adam argues that having a clear vision can enable the MOE to cooperate with international organizations in a more effective and efficient way. If the MOE does not possess a well-defined agenda, then it has to implement the agenda offered by its international partners. In other words, if the MOE does not have clear priorities, goals, and objectives, international organizations do. Adam explains:

Having a clear vision regarding the future, regarding their plans, I think that is the milestone and the bone. It is a key issue. A cornerstone is to have a kind of vision, clear vision and clear policies, and implementation plan. Based on that, you will be able to deal with international donors. Rather than that you are working on the agenda of international donors. You accept the projects they provide. There is no doubt that some of them are very useful, but it is very important and efficient to make all the work of these international organizations supporting the Government.

Mary finds that a sound strategic education plan is a crucial but missing pillar of effective partnership with international organizations. She confirms there are opportunities and possibilities for realizing more effective partnerships between the MOE and international organizations as there are joint work-teams composed by both parties. She suggests that international organizations, on the contrary to the education sector, work and report in a very systematic way:

Partnership means the Ministry of Education should develop a sound strategic plan and should call the donors to come in and to take their partnership roles. It is a teamwork. So, all donors work together as a team in a partnership with the Ministry in order to execute a 105

strategic plan. This never happened. It never happened. Donors come with their money and they have their own system for reporting, their own system for disbursing funds. They have a results framework. They work very systematically. So, at the macro level, there is no partnership.

Developing a clear vision and a sound strategic plan can help the MOE realize a more effective and efficient partnership with international partners and maximize the impact of international aid.

Mistrust

There is low trust between international organizations and recipient governments. International organizations often fear that aid will not be managed appropriately by national governments because of the lack of adequate policy or effective management. Recipient governments often distrust international organizations because of unpredictable aid flows including short-term, variability, changes in conditionalities, unreliable disbursement or even suspensions (Amis & Green, 2002).

In this regard, Peter confirms the state of lack of trust between the MOE and international organizations, which can be observed particularly during certain activities such as conducting studies or entering schools indicating that international organizations cannot even do what they should because of certain security measures. Peter shares:

I feel a little bit a lack of trust which is very unpleasant for us because that is the basis for work. We need a lot of security clearances specially to do studies, we try to do evidence- based decision-making. It is very difficult to enter schools these days. You need to go through the whole security apparatus. Sometimes, we need security clearance for us. Sometimes, we do not go to places because we do not get the clearance even if we ask for it quite some time in advance. The other aspect is that sometimes some members of the Ministry are reluctant to share information with us that we need in order to carry out things they ask us to do. Sometimes there is a request from the Ministry with very superficial information, which is not enough for us to carry out the task properly. So, we find ourselves in a locked-up situation. We say: “Okay. But we need this information to carry out the process”. They say: “No. That information is not of your business”. We say: “Okay. But we cannot do things” and they say: “Why not?”

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Peter suggests that the lack of trust between the MOE and its international partners negatively affects the quality of cooperation in different ways. That is not only because of the lack of information and reluctance of MOE leaders and staff to share information and data they need for their work, but also because of the impact of frustration they feel for not being trusted by their partner. Peter explains:

These situations are a bit frustrating. Another big issue is the lack of moderation between the Ministry and different international organizations. It is extremely important that the line-ministry that is hosting all these international development organizations, takes ownership and leadership for the work that is being carried out.

Lack of Efficiency

According to all participants, partnerships between the MOE and international organizations are inefficient. Funds are not always spent in a wise way, which leads to a waste of resources in a country that already suffers from a tight education budget. Aid delivered to the education sector through partnerships with international organizations can absolutely be utilized and maximized in a much more efficient way.

Though Adam agrees that the education sector receives a significant share of international assistance to Egypt, he raises a lot of doubts regarding the efficient utilization of resources allocated by international organizations. Adam suggests this is due to the inability of the Government of Egypt and national authorities, to maximize the impact of international aid to realize real significant changes within the education sector. In Adam’s words:

To which extent that was efficient? And to which extent the Government of Egypt or the Ministry of Education uses that assistance to realize breakthroughs in the pre-university education sector? This is I think quite low. Based on my experience, I think the most efficient initiative that included most of these donors was the preparation of the pre- university strategy in year 2007 because at this time there was good leadership at the Ministry of Education and most of these international organizations contributed in a way or another to the development of this strategy.

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Relatedly, Mark states that:

Honestly the outputs of the programs, I can say are less than the cost of the programs. I believe that a large percentage of finance is misused in terms of spending, holding all these luxury, and using SUV cars. I believe it needs to be managed a little bit.

One example of the lack of efficiency of using international aid to Egypt is the concentration of different international organizations on providing trainings. Pratt (2002) suggests that donors in Egypt focus on training, as it is the easiest thing they can do in the absence of a unified clear plan and it also helps them meet the spending benchmarks.

Mark critically presents a similar argument stating that:

[Training] is also the quickest thing to do. It does not need so much effort and honestly you cannot measure accurately the impact of such trainings. We did that and that and that. Our impact is that and that and that. But you cannot know what is going into the education sector after all these training programs.

Frequently, bilateral donor agencies organize a wide range of trainings in five-star hotels for teachers and administrators from different levels. The teachers and administrators are then invited from all over the country to one of the tourist or resort cities to attend their trainings – an extremely costly process. The same quality training can be organized with much less cost if organized in one of the MOE’s training facilities such as the Education City or through the Video-Conference Network. However, it is important to ask if those training programs really contribute to enhancing the education sector and improving its performance.

Lack of Capacity

Suzanne clarifies that lack of strong capacity is a serious challenge that affects negatively partnership between the MOE and its international partners. It is a phenomenon that is observed within the education sector as well as other public sectors in Egypt:

For example, how many projects does the Ministry of International Cooperation have on education? Do they have somebody in the Ministry of International Cooperation that can assess a project on education? They do not have. But they approve the projects. The problem is that people responsible for the projects are with no specific expertise except for monitoring the funding money. The issue is not money. The issue is the goals,

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implementation mechanisms, indicators. They do not have indicators. Who is approving these projects and who is monitoring? Who is locally or nationally monitoring these projects?

Because of its low salaries compared to other public sectors, the education sector witnesses a continuous leakage of its strong capacity; especially those who hold graduate degrees or/and advanced professional development programs as they are typically absorbed by international organizations, NGOs or other recruiters that can better reward their experiences. Because of the lack of an effective salary and incentive system, as it explained before, well-qualified and highly trained staff leave the education sector for better opportunities within Egypt or oversees. It turns to be a vicious cycle of brain-drain, continuous wastage and significant inefficiency.

Jack states that building capacity of the education sector will impact its performance in a very quick and positive way when he says:

Again, I will repeat this. Building the capacity at different levels. I think the minute you do this, there will be better service delivery. There will be better management. It is not the same capacity at all levels. You build different capacities at different levels and for different individuals.

Mary suggests that international organizations should continue their efforts in building the education sector’ capacity stating that without building the national capacity, no reform can be sustained. She explains: “What donors should do and have been doing is building the capacity of the Ministry of Education. This is what donors can do. Building capacity to scale up successful pilots”.

It is true that international organizations give significant attention to building the capacity of the education sector at its different levels. However, they should not mainly focus on the MOE’s staff.

Lack of Sustainability

Sustainability has seldom been realized after project implementation. International assistance was often based on scattered projects entirely led by donors with the lack of strong support at the national level. That is why projects often failed to be sustained once donor support was

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withdrawn (West, 2004). Initiatives supported by international organizations worldwide cannot be sustained once those organizations decide to terminate their projects or programs because of the lack of leadership, required resources and capacity at the national level.

Mark suggests that the MOE in particular and the whole education sector in general should take more responsibilities and make more contributions to projects supported by international organizations to ensure sustainability. Those responsibilities and contributions should not be limited to negotiations or discussions, but they should be expanded to include projects’ implementation. Mark says:

I believe all donors’ projects should not only be discussed but also implemented by the education people themselves … If you have a project and comes down with specific targets, and the money is gone, the project is gone. It is going to collapse after that: No sustainability or continuity.

Mary presents a very similar argument that projects conducted with international organizations are limited to where they are implemented and cannot be expanded or mainstreamed. Normally, that is because of the lack of ownership from national authorities towards those projects. For Mary:

At the micro level, when I talk about projects at the district or school levels, partnerships are possible. Because you have teams working together. You have Egyptian and foreign experts working together in a close relationship with the Ministry people, with school leaders, with teachers. It works. But if it is a partnership, there must be a mutual trust, respect, contribution, sharing, and empowerment. However, when you work at that level and you can achieve wonderful results, it stays at that level. And if it stays in that level, it is not institutionalized. Your achievement does not become part of the system.

The Lack of sustainability and the inability of mainstreaming international projects represent common pitfalls of international projects. That is why Ratcliffe and Macrae (1999) refer to international projects as islands of excellence.

Duplication and Conflicts

Duplication of efforts and conflicts among different entities are obvious within the pre-university education sector not only in initiatives, projects and programs implemented in collaboration with international organizations, but also in those implemented by the sector itself. Teacher 110

supervision, for example, is implemented by the central, governorate and district levels. The issue of duplication and conflicts can be justified by the lack of accurate and clear identification of authorities and responsibilities of different management levels and departments.

Peter suggests that the MOE is partially responsible for the duplication of international organizations’ efforts as it opens the door fully for those organizations when they are interested in funding a certain project or program regardless of what the sector’s actual priorities and needs are. International organizations also take partial responsibilities for duplication due to the lack of coordination among them that sometimes reaches the level of a conflict or even a collision. Peter describes the situation as follow:

We see the Ministry here says: “Ok. whatever. You know everyone comes, everyone brings money. So, do whatever you want”. And that will lead to duplication of work and collisions with other agencies. Unfortunately, this is also related to the setup of international organizations. Sometimes, they have the interest to carry out a particular program and do not coordinate with other agencies. Even if there is another organization that is doing almost the same, they say: “Hey, I have my orders, so I will implement”. The only entity that can really stop that type of very inefficient work is the host government that says: “Nobody is going to do that because we already have people here and we like their approach. There is no need for another agency with a different approach. Sorry, this topic is covered. However, we still have these areas, join in if you like”.

Peter suggests that effective leadership at the MOE level is essentially required to reduce duplication of international organizations’ efforts that probably will continue to exist because of the complicated environment where they work, which is not limited only to Egypt. He says:

A strong assertive leadership is needed. Even currently the situation improved a lot but still there are some situations in which one agency is working in a school and then has to leave the school because a new agency comes and sets up something completely different that relates to the same topic. I guess there is always going to be some sort of friction in this environment which is very complex.

Mariam stressed the fact that in Egypt there is an obvious competition and competitiveness rather than coordination, cooperation and partnership among international organizations working in the pre-university education sector. That competition negatively affects those organizations’ contributions and efforts. Enhancing coordination among international partners can maximize their efforts and impacts on the education sector. 111

Sandy suggests that the lack of leadership at the MOE is a crucial factor that negatively affects the coordination and partnership among different international organizations as well as their efforts and contributions to the sector.

Bureaucracy

Mary suggests that the bureaucratic environment within the education sector represents a real challenge to international organizations. Within the education sector, there is heavy bureaucracy and there is a tendency of educational leaders not to take any decision before getting the approval of their seniors in the hierarchy.

Mary says: “The Ministry of Education is a very difficult place to work with. If you get caught in bureaucracy or in the system, you cannot do anything. So, donors’ strategy is to stay out as much as they can, help the Ministry, and focus on one aspect or another”.

Mary describes the environment within the MOE as being highly bureaucratic and very contradictory to that of its international counterparts. Indeed, international organizations adopt more advanced management systems and apply systematic monitoring and evaluation approaches so that they can report to their headquarters. Mary explains:

It is very complex and complicated in the Ministry of Education; very complicated. It is very difficult to work in a close partnership. Plus, donors work in a very systematic fashion, results framework, monitoring and evaluation which the Ministry does not have. They disburse money, a lot of money that has to be reported and be accounted for.

Most policy-making and/or decision-making committees are characterized by a bureaucratic style and their members are usually appointed, not elected (El-Baradei and El-Baradei, 2004). Members of those committees are appointed by the Minister himself or his advisors, and consequently their loyalties are normally to those who have appointed them, and their continuity can be guaranteed by working towards the agendas and objectives settled and supported by those in authority. Sometimes, they find themselves in a situation where they either cope or leave (United Nations, 2001).

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UNESCO (2008a) calls for a change in the organizational and management culture in the MOE, stressing the importance of moving away from traditional management practices towards new ways of doing things.

Project Implementation Contracts

Normally there is a Project Implementation Contract signed by Egyptian national authorities and international organizations after reaching a concrete agreement regarding the implementation of a certain program or project. That contract identifies responsibilities of the different parties and serves as the legal framework for their partnership. Peter suggests that the contract acts as the base of international organizations’ work and presents regulations of partnership. He says:

In Egypt, it requires a so-called Project Implementation Contract, which is a binding contract signed by both parties. It mentions the activities, the people, the indicators and the contributions of both sides. This contract is the legal base that allows us to work here, to operate here. Usually, it also includes things and regulations like where we will be working. Usually, it is the hosting Ministry that provides the premises of the project.

Peter, however, indicates there are some occasions when Egyptian authorities agree to certain projects, but do so without signing the contract. The refusal of Egyptian authorities to sign the contract creates a very difficult situation for its partnering organizations simply because they work without legal bases or frameworks for their presence which is a difficult situation that organizations try always to avoid as Peter explains:

There are some projects that do not get these Project Implementation Contracts signed. Maybe there is a broad consensus of the two parties that maybe a program in this area should be implemented, but when it comes to the actual signature of the Project Implementation Contract, sometimes the Egyptian side decides not to sign which puts us in a very difficult position. Because then at any point, at any movement, there is not only a commitment but also there is no legal basis for us to work. Sometimes, we arrive to the country before these things are signed because we have to plan in advance. People have to be hired. They have to have a place to live, but if you have no legal base to work, the partner, the Ministry, the government could say at any point: “What are you doing here? You are not allowed to be here under this program design, please leave”. So, this is of course to us very dangerous. This is a situation that we really really try to avoid.

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II- The Private Sector

The private sector represents a principal partner in education. Sometimes, it is referred to through talking about education privatization, normally with negative connotations and sometimes through talking about Public-private partnerships (PPPs), usually with positive connotations (Klees & Qargha, 2014).

Robertson (2012) suggests that:

Partnership between the public and private sectors is increasingly touted as an advantageous way of financing and delivering education in developing countries. Within this context, there is a general belief that partnerships with, and philanthropy by, private foundations are ideologically neutral and procedurally effective and efficient (p.128).

Partnerships between governments and the private sector can lead to mutual benefits. To realize an effective public-private partnership, there is a need to achieve effective coordination and regulatory mechanisms that enable dialogue and negotiation between governments and the private sector towards reaching a common education vision (UNESCO and UNICEF, 2013).

Partnership between the education sector and the private sector is presented according to the following sub-themes: Contributions and Impact; Public-Private Partnership; Donation not Partnership; Potential Expansion; Private-Sector Lead; and Private-Sector Challenges.

Contributions and Impact

The private sector plays an essential role in the Egyptian economy with a share of roughly 60 percent of the GDP and an employment share of 74 percent (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 2017).

The private sector contributes to the education sector in many ways. Chatham House (2012b) describes in Egypt “The government is short of financial resources and needs the help of the private sector which can also offer some innovative and flexible thinking” (p. 14). Similarly, Saif and Ghoneim (2013) explain that “Partnerships between the public and private sectors are needed to profoundly change the educational and training systems” (p.25).

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It provides educational services to more than 2.1 million students (10% of the total) in 7741 schools (14.4% of the total schools) (Ministry of Education, 2018).

There is an increase of the private sector’s role in the pre-university education sector and the education process; which is especially the case in Cairo and urban governorates. However, the private sector’s role decreases in Upper Egypt due to low incomes (NCERD, 2015).

The main purpose of the private sector’s contributions to education is profitability. This fact can be understood and linked to its strong presence and increasing role in the two richest governorates in the country, namely: Cairo and Alexandria whereas its contributions are weaker in governorates of Upper Egypt where there are high rates of poverty.

Sarah indicates that:

The private sector does have a role and it needs to be improved. The Ministry of Education needs to understand what is required from the graduates because what the graduates are prepared for does not match or is not relevant to the labour market that is managed by the private sector.

However, Mary considers the contributions of the private sector to education to be very limited. She explains: “Partnership with the private sector is not well developed. Only fourteen percent of the system are private schools. So, this is very small”.

Adam suggests that the private sector can positively impact the education sector and its performance in different ways, such as:

Working with the private sector requires a kind of advanced management in a way because the private sector has its own management systems in terms of management and finance and it needs a kind of a strong counterpart. So, this indirectly affects the performance and management in the Ministry of Education.

Thus, the private sector has several strengths that can be transferred to the education sector through partnership and cooperation between the two parties. Those strengths include, as Adam suggests, advanced management systems of the private sector that normally relies on highly effective and efficient approaches.

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In this regard, Mary suggests that the private sector can impact positively the education sector by bringing new and different ideas and approaches. She states: “The private sector if it is properly involved it could be a good partnership. I do not mean by that they build schools or donate money, but they come with their thinking on how to resolve problems”.

It seems that all participants are convinced that the private sector contributes to the education sector in many ways though its contributions are still limited. However, they suggest that contributions of the private sector to the education sector should not be limited or understood only in the light of its financial support to the sector in the form of donations as it can positively affect the performance of the education sector through introducing innovative solutions, bringing new ideas and enhancing management and financial systems.

Public Private Partnership (PPP)

While discussing partnership between the education sector and the private sector, most participants focus on the Public-private Partnership initiative that is implemented through the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and aims at enhancing cooperation on school construction. The private sector is an effective partner especially in technical education; a significant provider of different educational services; and a major recruiter of technical secondary schools’ graduates.

Adam suggests that: “Public-private partnership is one of the approaches to improve education. I think there are a number of initiatives between the Ministry and the private sector, but it is not in a well-established manner”.

Jack refers to the PPP as an effort of collaboration between the Egyptian Government and the private sector:

Public-private partnership has been an effort for the Ministry of Education specially in access. The Ministry has started the project long time ago and I know they renew this project now. It is called three Ps, Public-private Partnership in school building. This is done through the General Authority for Educational Buildings. There was a project that started with the Ministry of Finance in mid-2000s and I think that availed some opportunity for the Ministry to implement public-private partnership only through access. I know they are working now with another type of public-private partnership through the General Authority for Educational Buildings to avail lands in new suburbs in new areas 116

outside Cairo, in Sixth of October City, and in New Cairo. They are opening these opportunities for the private sector to own and operate and then give these buildings later on to the Ministry of Education after they have actually re-copped their financial investment. So, there is a Public-Private Partnership between the Ministry and the private sector.

Sarah refers to the PPP as one of the initiatives implemented by the Egyptian Government, represented mainly by the MOF, and the private sector that aims at enhancing cooperation in school construction. She describes how:

The government is launching a new Public-private Partnership with the Ministry of Finance and the private sector. They are encouraging the private sector to construct schools and operate them. So, the government does understand the importance of having the private sector fully on board with them on two levels: Service-delivery and the quality of the graduates that education system produces. Donation not Partnership

Mary refuses to describe the cooperation between the MOE and the private sector as a partnership. She indicates it is rather a donation from the private-sector partners to the education sector and that is what the MOE is looking for and interested in. Cooperation with the private sector lacks a set of crucial pillars that can make it a real partnership. In this line of thought, Mary states that:

The Ministry of Education wants to take the problems off its shoulders and put it on someone else’s shoulders. It is not a partnership. They want the businessmen to put money. If you are a businessman and you are a rich tycoon like whoever, why do you put money? Why? So, the Ministry of Education is not asking for a partnership or for a real support or thinking together or solving problems together. They want a partnership where people pay money or people build schools. The word partnership means collaboration, sharing, win- win situation, sharing responsibilities for solving problems. Participating and contributing to solving these problems. No, I do not find this. I find the Ministry of Education is looking for businessmen and asking them to build schools here and there, donate money, or whatever. It is not really a partnership.

Mark emphasises the same issue of donor-recipient relationship, implying that the MOE has to stop thinking of the private sector as funders. He clarifies that the private sector, however, has precious opportunities for enhancing its roles, increasing its responsibilities and expanding its services. The cooperation between the public and private sectors can and should be a more

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effective partnership; not a passive recipient-donor relationship. The private sector has gained more opportunities to open new educational institutions and expand the scope of its educational services provision. Mark says:

Partnership means partnership. You do not look at the private sector as a donor. If you do look at the private sector as a donor and money provider, then it is not a partnership. A real partnership is how you can encourage the private sector to do its job and improve the quality of education under the supervision of the Ministry of Education. So, this is a partnership. It is not about businessmen donating money for schools. You really do not want this kind of partnership. Potential Expansion

The private sector has a number of motivations to take more educational responsibilities and provide more and better educational services. Among those motivations, for example, education has become a commodity, sometimes a very precious one with very high profit rates, which makes education, educational projects and services attractive areas of interest and focus. Besides, it is the private sector that receives the graduates of the education sector and consequently its performance and growth are highly impacted by the quality of those graduates.

It is estimated that in Egypt over the decade 2015-25, total enrolments of the private sector would grow by 2.3 million enrolments at an average annual rate of 230,000 to reach 21.5% of total school enrolments (OECD, 2015).

Sarah suggests that:

If they are service providers, they need to be transparent about what they are doing as much as the government needs to be transparent about their management and their roles. Even as a key player in the labour market, they are the ones who receive the product of the education system. In many instances, they always complain that the product they get which is the graduate is not ready for the labour market and we need to train them again.

Adam suggests that the private sector plays a significant role in the education sector and in the delivery of educational services. Its roles and responsibilities have a huge potentiality to increase and expand for many reasons. For example, due to the lack of trust of the public in governmental schools because of its poor-quality services, if they can afford it, parents normally send their

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children to private schools, which are generally believed to provide higher quality services. Looking at the issue from that perspectives, it can be understood there will be always an increasing demand for the private sector’s educational services. This is especially true when considering the high direct and indirect costs of public education services; even though the Egyptian Constitution stipulates that education is free at all levels.

Adam states that:

There is a huge potentiality for the work of the private sector especially the private education in Egypt now accounts for around 15 percent of students. We can talk about the potentiality of renovating and establishing new schools and so on. Also, one of the areas that the private sector wants to work on and there was a kind of success on it is the vocational and technical education. But still the government needs a lot of work on this area.

The private sector is expected to take larger roles and more responsibilities in education and educational services in the future. It has opportunities to expand, increase and enhance its educational services due to the lack of quality in most public schools and the high profitability of educational services. Considering the lack of public resources, the tight budget of the education sector, the poor quality and chronic deterioration of public educational services, the way is paved to the private sector to get more responsibilities in education and provide more educational services.

Private Sector Lead

Adam criticizes the passive role of the MOE that is unable to develop an effective strategic plan to get the private sector more involved in the education sector, stating that partnership initiatives normally come from the private sector; not from the MOE. As suggested by many participants, the private sector always takes the lead in establishing those partnerships while the MOE is passively waiting for initiatives and actions of the private sector and other partners. In the absence of a clear strategy, the MOE is unable to integrate the private sector’s in a more effective way to enhance its impacts and maximize its efforts and contributions to the education sector.

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Adam states that:

We cannot talk about a policy in the Ministry of Education to attract the private sector to be part of the education service in Egypt. It is often supply-driven rather than demand- driven. Initiatives often come from the private sector through international organizations or non-profit organizations that try to make this kind of networking and the linkage between the Ministry and these institutions. But we cannot talk about a clear direction from the Ministry of Education to work on this.

Ramzy stresses the absence of a strategy as a hinderance for successful partnership between the MOE and the private sector when he says: “There are a lot of examples of partnership between the education sector and other partners … However, for this you do not have a strategy. You do not have a plan. It is not sustained”.

Sandy suggests that the lack of a clear vision is one of the main barriers that prevent the MOE from inviting and enabling the private sector to contribute in a more positive way to the education sector that is why partnership initiatives are often started by the private sector. The MOE should work towards getting the private sector more involved and responsive to the education sector’s priorities, objectives and needs.

Private-Sector Challenges

The private sector contributes to the education sector and the delivery of educational services in many ways; with huge potentiality of growth and expansion. However, there are various challenges that need more attention from the government and the MOE.

Quality Variation

The private sector has made significant contributions to the education sector, “with a full spectrum of quality from the excellent to the barely adequate, and beyond” (Rose, 2015, p. 6)

Suzanne refers to quality deterioration of educational services provided by the private sector as an area of concern; especially in the absence of clear impacts of some regulatory bodies such as the National Authority for Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Education (NAQAAE) and

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the Professional Academy for Teachers (PAT). Quality variation and deterioration of private educational services can be clearly observed in teachers and curriculums. Suzanne explains:

Quality when you compare to international schools. Curriculum is an issue and their ability to hire good teachers. The Professional Academy for Teachers does not work so far because the Minister is chairing it making them a second-level partner. How you can certify my teachers if you work under my management? They are involved in a lot in training and they are not supposed to do training; but to certify training providers, accredit training courses according to standards and then they should accredit teachers.

In Egypt, there is a great variation in quality of educational services provided by the private sector and there is absolutely a great gap in the cost between low and high-quality educational services. Enhancing quality of educational services provided by the private sector requires close collaboration among different stakeholders including national regulatory organizations.

Privatization versus Equity

As it is mentioned before, privatization can be used to refer to the process of getting the private sector more involved. However, as Klees and Oargha (2014) suggest, privatization is normally associated with negative connotations.

Suzanne suggests that the education sector suffers from a big crisis related to its equity that will probably continue to get worse. The inability of public schools to offer quality educational services is seen as an opportunity for the private sector to expand and grow. However, that expansion is not always welcomed especially in a country like Egypt with high poverty rates.

Suzanne states that:

Education system is not able to deliver quality education that is suitable for all students, all social standards, and all backgrounds. So, equity in education is quite disturbing. You have international schools with very high fees and then you have governmental schools on the other end. And then, in the middle you have schools that are run and offer better quality than the governmental and lower quality than the certified ones. People are paying a lot of money to international schools because of an important reason. You do not have another option. I know some people working only to pay the fees of these schools. In a good education system, there is equity. When you look at the whole system, you pay less, and you go for very bad quality education or you pay the bulk and go for international schools. This is a real problem. 121

It is true that a lot of families do their best and invest generously to provide their children with high-quality educational opportunities that can ensure they will get good jobs with high revenues in the future. However, it is here that the dark side of the private sector’s contributions to the education sector appears and complicated issues of equity and justice emerge.

The poor may find themselves at the end of their educational journey stuck in the vicious cycle of poverty due to the low-quality education they received compared to their peers who got higher quality education in international or private schools. The public schools are the only available option and the sole window of opportunity for the poor families’ children; if they can afford their direct and indirect fees.

Lack of Commitment

Peter, for example, suggests that the practices and performance of the private sector’s organizations widely vary. He suggests that some of the private sector’s organizations are not committed, do not invest enough in students and may even get involved in exploitive practices. He states that:

Sometimes we face challenges while dealing with the private sector especially when it comes to investing in the students. There are some companies that are, unfortunately, do invest very little in students and may exploit them, let them do things that are not related to their curriculums; let them work in conditions that are not healthy, not safe and not conducive for them. So, in these areas, we do see challenges, that some companies are committed, some companies that are not very committed and some companies are not committed at all. So, we as an external actor or external body, feel challenged because the incentives or the will should come from their side to develop their own human resources further. Conclusion

There are two major challenges facing the MOE and clearly prevent establishing effective partnerships with international organizations and the private sector. The first one is the lack of a well-prepared and well-written strategic plan that could help the MOE identify clearly its top priorities, sit in the driver’s seat and act in a more effective and efficient manner through inviting partners to fill in the gaps and provide support where it is really needed. Possessing a sound strategic plan is the only way to ensure that the MOE is moving forward with its partnerships, 122

avoid the duplication of efforts and reduce conflicts among different international and national partners.

The second issue is the passivity of the MOE in initiating and managing its partnerships with international and national partners. Unfortunately, it is the partner that normally takes the initiative. Consequently, those partnerships are not always a reflection of the MOE’s actual priorities and needs. In the absence of a realistic strategic plan and well-defined priorities, the MOE will continue to adopt its passive and reactive approach.

If the MOE wants really to sit in the driver’s seat, it should develop the education sector’s clear vision and sound strategic plan, build its capacity and invite partners to contribute where their support is really needed. Otherwise, partners will continue to focus on their own agendas, interests and preferences.

While this chapter examines partnership, the next one focusses on participation through reviewing roles, responsibilities and challenges of three key stakeholders, namely: local communities, the BOTs, and NGOs.

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Chapter Seven: Participation

Introduction

This chapter discusses participation in the education sector by reviewing three stakeholders: Local communities, the BOTs and NGOs, their contributions to the sector, and their key challenges that prevent them from realizing more significant impacts from the perspectives of international organizations’ officials. It contains all the participants’ responses related to the presented themes.

Participation includes a wide range of processes and refers to “Spontaneous cooperation between people, their agreement to work together and to contribute actively to the choice and implementation of development projects and programs that help achieve society’s goals” (UNDP, 2003, Preamble, Para. P.4). Participation includes problem diagnosis and definition, information collection and analysis, priorities articulation and goal settings, resources assessment, programs deciding and planning, designing implementation strategies and apportioning responsibilities, programs management and progress monitoring (Shaeffer, 1994).

The World Bank (2002) states that:

International research and experience suggest that active participation and shared decision- making is much more likely to foster genuine ownership of reform programs. It is also likely to increase the possibility that solutions to local problems can be found at the local level (p. 48).

Both top-down and bottom-up approaches are used by policy-makers with the aim of improving accountability. Empirical research suggests that the effectiveness of the top-down approach is limited. Therefore, the bottom-up participatory approach has received increasing attention. Decentralization and school management are adopted to utilize the information advantage that communities possess regarding their children’s needs, harness their strong incentives to monitor the performance of teachers and principals, and make the best use of their comparative advantage in monitoring (The World Bank, 2011).

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I- Local Communities

According to the United Nations Development Programme Evaluation Office (2004):

International experience shows that the effectiveness of education can be enhanced through using community-driven changes appropriate to local opportunities for employment, productivity and life-skills - thus generating higher returns to education (pp. 4-5).

Similarly, the World Bank (2013) suggests that “communities tend to express greater satisfaction with decisions in which they participate, even when participation does not change the outcome or when outcomes are not consistent with their expressed preferences” (p. 10).

Thus, participation is important not only for increasing and mobilizing resources required for implementing educational reforms but also for its contribution to enhancing the level of satisfaction among communities and beneficiaries as it gives them the chance to take part in decision-making processes and get actively involved in governance and management of the education sector.

Recent trends in international projects in education show a participative approach by increasing the involvement of local stakeholders. International organizations and governments have to work harder to ensure greater cooperation at the local level as there are increasing expectation among communities and local governments they should be more involved in decision-making processes at all levels (International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), 1999). Thus, it can be argued that participation can enhance governance through empowering local communities and getting them more involved in decision-making. In other words, enhancing participation can impact governance positively.

Mba and Ongolo-Zogo (2010) state that:

Good governance includes institutional reforms for a better visibility of public initiatives, a greater sense of accountability of the leaders and the mobilization of management competences. The supporters of deconcentrated and decentralized powers think that good governance is justified by the fact that the communities are in total control of the management of social services (p. 4).

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The Egyptian Ministry of Education (2007) seeks to develop the responsibilities and roles of local communities to become more involved in supporting education improvement especially at the school level. It aims at mobilizing the local capacity and resources for improving planning, organization, accountability and monitoring processes.

Local communities have contributed to several pilots, initiatives, and achievements to support the education sector; such as the Alexandria experiment and community schools that have been recognized by international organizations as successful practices.

The Alexandria Experiment

The Alexandria Experiment was launched after signing a memorandum of agreement among the MOE, the Governorate of Alexandria, the USAID, and the Alexandria Development Center (NGO) for implementing a pilot program that aimed at enhancing participation, implementing advanced decentralized management, delegating authorities and responsibilities to the school level, and providing teachers and administrators with advanced training programs. In support of this initiative, the MOE delegated unprecedented authorities to the Governor of Alexandria. The initiative enabled the mobilization of community resources with a high degree of disbursement- flexibility for providing incentives for employees, purchasing equipment and furniture, enhancing education process and implementing awareness campaigns (UNDP, 2004).

The success of that initiative in promoting decentralized decision-making and empowering local communities encouraged the MOE to implement similar initiatives in six other governorates, namely: Cairo, Fayoum, Beni Suef, Minia, Qena and Aswan (Hammad, 2012).

Unfortunately, the success of the Alexandria Experiment that was recognized by national and international stakeholders failed to be mainstreamed in other governorates and was not even sustained in Alexandria.

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Community Schools

Community Schools represent a good example of effective community participation to the education sector in Egypt where local communities normally donate the land for building schools. Community schools aim at providing educational opportunities for the most deprived regions through utilizing a student-centered approach where teachers facilitate the educational process and adopt multi-level classes (Ministry of Education, 2002).

Since their inception in 1992, Community Schools supported by UNICEF have served disadvantaged areas and offered a second chance to dropouts and those not enrolled in primary education. They support learners and communities, provide suitable opportunities for girls, and demonstrate benefits for students and their families (Ministry of Education, 2014). In 2016/2017, the number of those schools reached 5000, accommodating 123,672 students; 89,439 girls and 34,233 boys (Ministry of Education, 2017).

Taking into consideration the whole context of community schools, they implement a number of facilitation and flexibility criteria. For example, they do not comply with the specifications defined for school-buildings; two facilitators from the local community work in those schools; learners do not pay expenses or commit to a school uniform; and the flexibility of hours to allow learners to fulfill their personal and professional commitments and activities (NCERD, 2015).

Local communities are presented according to the following sub-themes: Weak Community Participation, An Environment for Success, and Participation Challenges.

Weak Community Participation

All participants agree that participation in the education sector is weak which negatively impacts its governance. Jack, for example, confirms the weak participation in the education sector though he is confident that donors will address this issue in their programs and projects. He states that:

I do not think there is enough participation from society into problems that face the Ministry of Education. This is my personal point of view. But I am sure that donors are

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working on this and they can avail opportunities for the public to participate in the decision-making as well at least at the local level.

Adam presents a very similar opinion suggesting that although community participation in Egypt is low, even when compared to other developing and neighboring countries, there is a potential opportunity to increase its level in the education sector. This opportunity can be understood in the light of the expansion of the NGOs’ sector. Adam explains:

Participation is limited but growing. The bottom line we are talking about growing participation from civil society in education policy-making, but it is still limited relatively to other countries; even other developing and Arab counties. The number of organizations working on education is increasing.

Adam confirms the weakness of participation in Egypt and justifies it in the light of political and cultural aspects rather than economic ones. He suggests that the lack of participation can be better justified by the political and cultural environment:

In Egypt, I think the lack of participation is a tendency and related to the political and cultural aspects rather than economic aspects. My understanding is based on what happened after 2011. After 2011, there was unexpected level of participation in elections, constitutions and so on. So, the lack of participation is not actually related to poverty because the revolution has not provided prosperity to Egypt up till now. The political and cultural environment of the revolution, surrounding what happened, I think gave people a motive to participate.

Sandy indicates that the lack of awareness of the public and local communities is a powerful factor that affects negatively the level of participation in the education sector suggesting that raising awareness of local communities regarding education, its importance and the change they can make in their schools will improve participation.

An Environment for Success

Adam implies there is no one single stakeholder or factor that makes the success of educational reforms. He explains the importance and elements of the supportive environment for enabling success. He gives the example of the “Alexandria Experiment”, where the efforts of different stakeholders interacted and led to its success. Success factors in Alexandria included: political leadership from the governor of Alexandria and educational leadership at the governorate level;

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partnership and contributions of international organizations, represented by the USAID through Education Reform Program (ERP), and the private sector; and participation of local communities, the BOTs and NGOs. Adam explains:

In Alexandria, we are talking about good political leadership, Abdel Salam Al-Mahgoub, was a very good governor and very popular at the same time. He had a very good relationship and a trust relationship with the private sector. The private sector put money in this and international organizations found the good raspy to go ahead and participate in this kind of initiatives. We talk about many success factors worked together at the same time. When you have leadership, motivated private sector, some ideas, packing from the international organizations, non-governmental organizations and civil society, you can talk about this. Lack of participation in Egypt is not embedded in the country. It depends on the circumstances. The experience of Alexandria is really a very good example of this. When you have the environment ready for this, people participate.

To clarify what he means by a successful environment, Adam uses the following metaphor: “When the success ingredients come together, you have a good dish”.

His perspective is in accordance with other participants’ views that suggest that people become more involved, motivated and enthusiastic to participate in education when they realize there are serious efforts from different stakeholders; especially those emerging from the education sector.

Participation Challenges

There are several challenges that face the effective participation in the education sector emerged from the participants’ perspectives and are presented according the flowing sub-themes: Poverty; Lack of Participation Culture; Lack of Motivation; Lack of Trust; and Barriers and Negative Participation.

Poverty

Egypt is not a poor country according to international standards and is ranked as a middle- income country by the World Bank. However, poverty continues to be a serious challenge (UNESCO, 2008a). The national poverty rate has risen from 16.7 percent to 26.3 percent in 1999/2000 and 2012/2013 respectively. There is a great discrepancy among different geographic

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regions. In Upper Rural Egypt, for example, over half of the population live under the poverty line (Ministry of International Cooperation, 2016).

Poverty may be a strong factor in reducing the level of participation, but it does not prevent it totally. Even in governorates with high poverty rates, participation exists in different forms.

It seems that most participants have an agreement regarding poverty’s negative impact on the level of participation. Participation may take different forms that do not always include the financial contributions. For example, in different governorates, people contribute to schools’ maintenance activities with their own efforts and time.

Peter, for example, is convinced that poverty negatively impacts the level of participation. He suggests that enhancing participation in general requires financial resources. In response to a question on whether he thinks that poverty contributes to the weak participation to the education sector, he states that:

Yes, [poverty] contributes to the lack of participation. Setting up these dialogues, is time consuming and it is costly because you have to arrange places; you have to carry out outreach measures; you have to invite people; you have to inform people that this is taking place; and the information material has to be prepared. This is not something that anyone can do. The whole thing requires financial means.

This comes in accordance with the United Nations Development Programme Evaluation Office (2004) that suggests: “The very poor do not have a voice in official participation structures because they are too busy seeking out the means of survival” (p. 27).

Peter indicates that the poor are less likely to participate as they are more focused on addressing and fulfilling their own basic needs. Thus, participation is not a priority for the poor, as he suggests:

I think the extent to which people are eager to participate or engage in this type of processes is dependent on their income, on their capabilities. So, if you are struggling with your basic needs, and someone asks you to join the Boards of Trustees, you will say: “Sorry, I have better things to do”; which is understandable.

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Suzanne confirms that poverty has a negative impact on participation stating that: “Definitely; poverty is an issue. Surely the more poverty, the less support to education you will find”.

Adam, however, suggests that the results of studies that explored the relationship between poverty and participation come inconsistent and could not show one single trend:

One of the main themes in development is the relationship between political development and economic development like the relationship between the level of participation and the standard of living and the poverty incidence and so on. Let’s say that the results of most empirical studies on this issue is mild. There is no trend saying that poverty will lead to lower participation because we have specific international experiences, in poor countries, but they have very active people in services like education, health and municipalities.

Adam’s opinion is in accordance with United Nations Development Programs (UNDP, 2003) that states: “Though the evidence is inconclusive, the low level of political participation would suggest that poverty is an obstacle to people having a proper voice in the decisions which affect their lives” (p. 49).

Nadia, also, indicates that poverty is not a barrier for the effective participation in the education sector, but the lack of awareness is. She refers to the importance of local communities’ awareness and commitment in enhancing participation in many positive ways.

It can be concluded that poverty is a barrier to participation in education, but it does not prevent it. Evidence from the ground demonstrates that even the poor contribute to the education sector in many ways. They can offer their time, efforts and skills to improve schools’ environment, repair schools’ furniture, conduct maintenance, and paint classrooms. However, they still need to be informed and given more chances and channels to participate.

Lack of Participation Culture

The lack of participation is justified by the lack of that culture as Ramzy suggests. He states that people tend to be more involved and engaged in education and educational services that are monitored and provided by the private sector, because they have to pay for those services. Consequently, they would like to make sure they pay in return for getting quality educational services. 131

Ramzy explains:

Participation is very poor because people do not have the culture to participate. It is the problem of free education. If you compare the public education with the private education, you will see because parents pay a big amount of money to private schools, they go and are very serious. There is also a bad tradition in public schools. When parents come, the school starts asking them for donation for improving the school and things of that sort. So, parents are very reluctant to go. You need to create a new culture and you need new ways to get people involved. If you listen to media or talk to any person on education, any person, they will criticize education and say: “What is this kind of education?”. But these kinds of opinions go nowhere because there is no channel to receive or discuss this.

Ramzy explains that parents are more reluctant to participate in any school activities or attend any school events. They tend to keep away from participating in school activities such as the meetings of the BOTs, formerly Parents-Teachers Councils (PTCs), as in those meetings they are normally requested to donate funds to schools.

Mark also indicates that the lack of participation culture is a factor in reducing participation impact on the education sector, its governance and management; even with the existence of governance structures such as school boards. He asks: “How a citizen can participate effectively in the schooling system? You have Boards of Trustees but still the culture it is not there. So, I see the level of participation is not that good”.

Lack of Motivation

Adam justifies the lack of participation in the education sector by the absence of a clear motivation. He suggests that people would be more engaged and involved if they witness that their contributions lead to real improvements and changes. He says:

I think participation is related to motivation. If people realize that their participation leads to change, they will participate. If the political environment gives them a message that your participation is indifferent and will not lead to a real change, people will respond by not to participate rather than insisting on that position. This is a difference between Egypt and other countries. In some other countries when you say your participation will not lead to change, this leads to more participation and more insistence on change. But in Egypt when people feel their participation is not counted so they do not voice and avoid.

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Sarah gives a very similar point of view, suggesting that people are more motivated and interested in contributing to education reforms and initiatives when they see serious efforts exerted by the education sector at all its levels. She states that community efforts to support the education sector can take different forms such as supporting schools’ improvement plans, mobilizing resources, providing necessary equipment and materials and implementing school maintenance:

When the community sees serious initiatives from the school or from the Ministry that they want to do something that is really good for their children and starts to see good quality services provided for their children, they really support. In community schools, for example, they donate locations to the Ministry. In inclusive schools, they bring shadow teachers for disable children. They provide materials and extra resources for children with disabilities. They are willing to do anything for their children. They demonstrated that very well in all that they pay and invest in private tutoring. Lack of Trust

One of the most serious challenges facing the education sector is the lack of trust among its different stakeholders. It is a phenomenon that can be clearly seen in almost every single aspect of the sector. Lack of trust within the sector is associated and justified by the lack of transparency; the lack of information, data and statistics; and the lack of data sharing and flow among different stakeholders.

Sarah blames the MOE for its inability to gain the trust of different stakeholders including communities and parents. She suggests that the MOE has to raise their awareness of reform efforts and get them more involved in consultations and decision-making processes. She argues:

If the government can really regain trust of the communities, people and parents, that it is really serious on doing something good for their children. The problems and weaknesses are all over the place. Everyone is talking about them. The good things are not as much, and no one talks about them even the Ministry. So, if they could publicize more on what they are trying to do, start involving parents and communities with them, start listening to them and having them as active partners, not just listening to them and then going and doing their own things, but really involving them and really strengthening good governance. When you give the community the responsibility of the school and ask them: “Please come and help us”, I think this will make a lot of difference.

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Barriers and Negative Participation

Peter suggests various barriers that lower the effective participation in the education sector, suggesting that those barriers are not necessarily related to the political environment. He indicates that people may have different reasons for not participating including their avoidance of taking more burdens; their feeling that they lack the required capabilities; their inability to contribute in a meaningful way; insecurity to express their points of view; low income and the lack of education. As Peter sees it:

Participation is even hindered by things that have nothing to do with the political environment. If we are talking about city that is as huge as Cairo, and my commute is very long to the place or the school or wherever the Board of Trustees is going to meet, so this is going to hinder my participation. Sometimes people feel they will not be able to contribute anything meaningful. They may feel their capabilities are not enough. They may feel insecure for expressing their views or articulating their ideas in such an open place. Sometimes if you have platforms that include people from different backgrounds, or that are meant to include people from different backgrounds, people from the lower income or have limited education might feel it is not their place. They will not be able to express their ideas in a proper way. They will say: “This is not for me. People will not take me seriously. People will laugh at me. This is not for me.

The UNDP (2003) describes the challenges facing participation in Egypt as follows:

There are other psychological and cultural obstacles facing participation, including the suspicion of government and all its related agencies, the suspicion of other individuals, complex and ambiguous laws, individualism, lack of initiative, the weakness of collective work, passivity, and indifference. These and other cultural and psychological features that are in contradiction with the culture if participation, hamper both local and human development (p. 66).

Nancy identifies the lack of coordination as a challenging area that the MOE should work on to enhance participation and maximize its impacts on the education sector when she states:

The participation of civil society in pre-university education sector is very important and promising. The efforts exerted by civil society and non-governmental organization are huge and cannot be ignored. The Ministry of Education can benefit from these efforts if it leads efforts towards better coordination.

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Mary suggests that sometimes voices of communities, families and parents can have very negative impacts on education and its reforms. Those voices can be described as negative participation when they constitute strong resistance that undermines initiatives introduced by the MOE to reform the education sector and overcome its challenges. Mary states that:

Participation has also disadvantages in the sense that secondary education system needs to be reformed. It is a very flood system. However, even when the Ministry gets some good ideas and initiatives to try and reform that system, it is the people, families, parents, citizens who obstruct the process. So, overall there is a very strong and powerful voice for people in education, but sometimes that voice is good and sometimes it is not. II- The Boards of Trustees

The BOTs have an important role to play in the education reform strategy in Egypt. The principal rationale behind their establishment was to intensify the role of communities in the education reform. They have been envisioned as the vehicle through which a wide range of stakeholders can participate in educational planning, development, monitoring and the evaluation of the educational process (Education Reform Program, 2008).

The importance of the consistent approach between school and home could be influential on students’ performance and that is why it is important to have parents’ involvement in school activities. However, in Egypt, there are no regular and frequent meetings or class observation days (JICA, 2016).

After being piloted in collaboration with the USAID in seven governorates, the BOTs have been implemented all over the country. In 2005, the ministerial decree, No. 258 was issued to mainstream the BOTs in all Egyptian schools for increasing the involvement of different stakeholders in supporting the education sector, contributing to its governance and management, participating in decision-making processes, and enhancing monitoring of school processes and activities (Ministry of Education, 2005). However, the BOTs still face significant challenges to realize their desired goals towards empowering schools and enhancing their decision-making authority.

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According to the Ministerial Decree No. 289 of 2011, regarding the reorganization of the BOTs, the school BOT is composed of thirteen members: five elected members representing students’ parents; four public figures chosen by the Governor or a delegated representative; three teachers from the school elected by their colleagues; and the principal. The school BOT is responsible for realizing decentralization in management, monitoring, evaluation and decision-making processes; encouraging local and voluntary efforts to enhance community participation in supporting education; improving the educational process and overcoming its challenges; and fostering cooperation between parents and teachers (Ministry of Education, 2011).

The BOTs are presented through the following sub-themes: A Golden Opportunity; Impact; and The BOTs’ Challenges.

A Golden Opportunity

BOTs play a significant role in providing advisory support to school management through bringing the communities, families, and experts closer to schools and developing an environment of trust and support to those schools from their local communities (UNESCO, 2008a).

Despite facing several challenges in their implementation that undermine their purpose and roles, the BOTs are considered a real opportunity to move towards a more decentralized education sector through giving a voice to communities and families in education governance and management.

Jack describes the BOTs as a golden opportunity that can enhance community participation in the Egyptian pre-university education sector when he says:

The Boards of Trustees is a golden opportunity for participation from the communities and parents in the education process. It is not limited to the school level. Obviously, there are different levels of Boards of Trustees at the district level, the governorate level and the national level as well. I think this is the main avenue for citizen participation in the education system.

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Mary stresses the importance of the BOTs in the Egyptian society and the education sector as they can contribute to improving the relationship between schools and families. Before the establishment of the BOTs, there were the Parents-Teachers Councils (PTCs) that were associated with the idea of inviting parents to schools mainly for collecting donations, which made parents reluctant to participate or even attend those meetings. Mary explains:

Boards of Trustees are good. The relationship between school, parents and families improved. Previously, parents and community members were afraid to go to schools because the moment they stepped in they were asked for money. Now there is this body and they have tried to work with it. It is doing well. They help schools with ideas, they participate in decisions-making. They help in school-improvement plans. They help schools towards accreditation. What is most important is that community feels they have a say in the school belonging to them.

Mary concludes that an effective leadership at the school level, represented in school principal, is very crucial for the successful implementation and effective contribution of the BOTs stating: “In order to have a good BOT, you must have a good school leader”.

In general, school principals, however, lack the necessary knowledge, the required professional capacities and the positive attitudes that enable them to take the initiatives they should (Rizk, 2016).

Impact

Suggesting that the authorities of the BOTs in Egypt are very limited, Hammad (2012) refers to the BOTs as “pseudo participation” where the focus is on activities related to supervising of school activities and resources mobilization. However, issues like policy design, curriculum development, staff hiring and firing, and textbooks design stay untouched to a great extent.

Many participants indicate that the BOTs have achieved several positive impacts within the education sector though there is still a huge room for improvement. Ramzy, for example, confirms the existence of good practices in some governorates in Upper Egypt and stresses the importance of identifying and spreading good practices and the remarkable achievements of the BOTs at their different levels. Those practices can represent guidance a model to follow. According to Ramzy: 137

I noticed some good practices in Qena, Luxor and Fayoum. However, the main challenge is how to get the best output of such a board. That is one thing. The other thing is to take their suggestions seriously and to authorize and delegate them. Give them responsibilities they can use to improve schools. If, for example, you have a good school, good district, or good governorate, you have to make these practices shine. You can say the Board of Trustees in this school has done this and this and because they did that the school improved and students are happy to go to this school. Look at that district, they are very good at strategic planning at the district level. That board managed to make that district number one in students’ achievement.

Mary suggests that the BOTs contribute to generating new ideas and concepts. She stresses the importance of raising awareness of local communities, families and parents and the positive effects this would have on education when she shares:

The Boards of Trustees raised some new ideas, some new concepts in the Egyptian society. People who are interested can be members in the Boards of Trustees. This is a governance body. A very important governance body. There are lots of contributions. Many people, individual citizens at micro level have raised interest in education. They are donating their time and money. They are building schools. Definitely, awareness is a factor, and education is a factor. Every family is suffering from the education system, so many individuals are motivated enough to try to help out if they can help out.

Jack suggests that the BOTs are important, however, they are not sufficient. He refers to the BOTs as one arm of the two arms of community participation at the local level. He states that community participation can be enhanced with the presence and involvement of the elected local councils that would provide more room for participation and open new windows for citizens to get their voices heard. He explains:

The BOTs are just one arm. Right now, we do not have elected councils at the local level. I think if this takes place, and I know the country in the process of doing this after doing this at the central level. If this takes place along with the BOT, I think there will be an available structure for citizens to vote their opinions and to voice their concerns and be heard at the local level. I think this is important. Right now, it is only the BOT and maybe it is not sufficient.

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The Boards of Trustees’ Challenges

There are several challenges hindering the effective implementation of the BOTs in Egypt including their weak roles, the lack of awareness forums that encourage parents and local communities to participate and support schools to realize their desired objectives. Some schools have not even activated the BOTs and do not participate in local community activities. Moreover, there is a lack of cooperation between the BOTs and other organizations to implement activities that benefit schools and a lack of using school buildings and resources to provide community services and activities (National Center for Examinations and Educational Evaluation) (NCEEE), 2015).

The participants identify a set of challenges that negatively affect the BOTs and their performance including scaling-up failure, the lack of effectiveness, the lack of incentives and monitoring, and the lack of awareness.

Scaling-up Failure

Mary refers to the inability of the MOE to scale-up successful pilots as one of the most serious issues that undermine the success of education reforms. She justifies the scaling-up failure by the lack of clear regulations, the lack of capacity, and the lack of financial resources. The BOTs are not an exception. The implementation of the BOTs was successful in some governorates such as Alexandria because of the availability of successful factors that are not necessarily available in other governorates. Mary suggests:

Scaling up is not only a problem for the BOTs. Scaling up is a problem for everything. Donors spend money on projects as pilots like the Alexandria BOT. That is one example, but they do not get scaled up because the Ministry does not know how to scale up. The Ministry needs capacity for scaling-up. In order to do that, you have to change the law. You need to change certain regulations and legislations. You need to have a budget. You need to have a scaling-up plan and the Ministry does not have the capacity for this. The BOTs are not scaled up and many other similar initiatives. It is because you have a model. The Ministry takes the model and puts it in a decree. This model was not created out of a decree. This was created out of an initiative. In order to have anything scaled-up, you need to create the same conditions. The reform must be inside a context. If you take it out of its context, it does not succeed.

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Mark explains that the implementation of the BOTs and their performance in Egypt vary widely from one governorate to another. That variation can be justified by the great discrepancies among governorates in their resources and capacities as he explains:

It is different from one governorate to another. But when you talk about Alexandria, you are talking about urban governorate, where there is a huge awareness, and a number of the Boards of Trustees’ members are big businessmen in Alexandria. They have large amounts of money that can support education system in Alexandria. So, it was successful. This is not applied to other governorates. If you measure it on a measure from zero to ten, you may have from two to seven for instance.

Sandy stresses the fact that the impact of the BOTs depends to a great extent on their members as the composition of those boards vary widely among schools. Members’ education, socio- economic, positions and connections can absolutely influence their contributions and affect their performance.

Lack of Effectiveness

Suzanne suggests that the lack of effectiveness is one of the serious challenges that hinder the successful implementation of the BOTs in Egypt. Though there are various efforts exerted by the BOTs all over the country, those efforts should have a clear direction to ensure their positive impacts on the education sector. For Suzanne:

You have the Boards of Trustees. You have infrastructure for this participation. For each school, you have a Board of Trustees that is supposed to come from the community and from parents. This is, definitely, a good thing. You will find a lot of work done at schools by people. Even at the local level, you will find people donating to schools. There is an interest in supporting the whole system, but it is not directed in the right direction and there is no coordination for these efforts.

Adam indicates that the BOTs are good structures with opportunities to enhance governance and improve participation within the education sector. However, he concludes that reducing their authorities and limiting their roles have resulted in reducing their positive impacts. He explains: “Boards of Trustees are good, but a change happened through taking out some of the responsibilities of these boards which decreased their impact. The system in Egypt is not that institutionalized and this is the case in many developing countries”.

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Ramzy suggests that controlling and tying the BOTs with a lot of rules and regulations hinder them from implementing their school improvement plans and doing what they should do. He states: “If you are going to tie them with a lot of rules, that is going to prevent them from implementing what they want for their schools”.

Lack of Incentives and Monitoring

Peter indicates that the BOTs are supposed to enhance participation in education. However, he suggests the necessity of taking the required measures to activate, empower and encourage them to take their responsibilities and realize their goals. One of the mechanisms he recommends is the use of incentives, not only financial, but also in their different forms. In Peter’s view:

Now you have these platforms that are supposed to enable participation. You need a series of measures to enable them to work which means proper outreach, proper moderation, maybe sometimes also incentives for people to participate. When I talk about incentives, I mean incentives in a broad general way. It does not always have to be related to money. It can be recognition or satisfaction that something, an idea that you provided, is now being implemented.

Sarah criticizes the negative position of the MOE in monitoring the performance of the BOTs and ensure they practise their authorities and take their responsibilities effectively. She raises concerns and doubts about the lack of support required for enhancing the BOTs’ performance as well as the knowledge and skills of social workers who are supposed to facilitate the work of the BOTs when she asks:

What is the role of the Ministry of Education? These are the people who are elected, then what? You just leave them? Go and do whatever they want to do? Even social workers who are responsible for the Boards of Trustees, what knowledge and skills they have about this? How much do they know about good governance? How much do they know? What needs to be done and what should be done? Lack of Awareness

Sarah refers to the lack of awareness from the BOTs’ members as one of the biggest challenges facing the effective implementation of those structures. She suggests that the BOTs’ members should fully understand their roles, responsibilities and authorities to succeed. She explains:

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They need to understand the responsibilities before they nominate themselves to be elected. There are responsibilities they have to take. Maybe the government needs to revisit roles and responsibilities and level of authority given to the Boards of Trustees and whether the individuals who are sitting in those boards are prepared for these roles or not. Are they aware of what is required from them to start with? Do they understand what their roles are? Do they understand what it means to be a member of the board? Does any entity monitor the performance of the boards? What happens if the board is not really performing or helping the school? If you are elected in the board and you do not perform, and do not show up, what happens? I am taking it back to awareness because those who are not that much educated, you can help them.

Sarah, in response to a question on why she thinks the implementation of the BOTs were successful in Alexandria and are not doing that well in other governorates, stresses the importance of enhancing awareness of the BOTs and local communities when she shares:

There were more awareness campaigns about what they are; what is expected from the communities; schools were open to the communities to go and see; not just to pay money and are not involved. People were well informed about what is happening. There was proper monitoring so on and so forth. When you go to scale, you lose all these things. III- Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)

NGOs are “interest groups of active individuals outside the governmental framework. They act independently on different issues” (UNDP, 2003, p. 68). The difficulties associated with scaling- up and ensuring sustainability is one of the common obstacles facing the interventions of NGOs in general as they are often local and project-based on a small scale and many of those projects prove to be short-lived. That can be understood in the light of the lack of resources and qualified well-trained capacity (Ulleberg, 2009).

Egypt is described as possessing one of the largest and most vibrant civil society in the developing world (Ministry of International Cooperation, 2016). However, such generalizing statements should be considered carefully and critically, as there are a lot of serious challenges that face NGOs and hinder their work.

Though the history of civil society in Egypt can be traced back to the nineteenth century, they still face serious challenges and severe restrictions. They are not allowed to receive any foreign funds without permission from the Ministry of Social Solidarity. They are not allowed to engage

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in any political activity unless they are registered as political parties. The Ministry of Social Solidarity has the right to dissolve any NGO that performs illegal operations. In June 2015, the total number of NGOs reached 45,034. The highest percentages of NGOs are located in governorates of Cairo, Giza and Alexandria; (18%, 10% and 7%, respectively), whereas South Saini has the lowest with a percentage of 0.3%. This can be justified by the population of governorates and the low attention towards establishing NGOs at the frontier governorates (Amin, 2015).

NGOs are presented according to the following sub-themes: Implementers and Service Providers; Suspicion and Strict Control; Capacity Variation; Unsupportive Climate and Bureaucracy; and Foreign Fund Dilemma.

Implementers and Service Providers

Suzanne describes NGOs as powerful implementers with strong and varied experiences and effective outreach mechanisms. However, she stresses that NGOs are totally ignored and avoided by national authorities. Authorities normally look at those organizations with a lot of suspicion and doubts, especially those who receive international funds. Suzanne explains:

NGOs have good experiences at the school-level. They have good experiences with students. They have good experiences with teacher training. There are a lot of teachers’ trainings going on by NGOs. Even dealing with students directly for supporting the fees of the school. I think they are not involved. They are out of the picture in a way. But, I think they are ignored. They are totally ignored.

Mary praises the potential huge contributions of NGOs and their capacity to do excellent work at the grassroots level with communities and schools if they are provided with the right supportive atmosphere. She finds that NGOs possess several strengths in certain areas such as awareness campaigns, outreach, resources mobilization, and school construction. She continues:

NGOs can make excellent work, with communities and community schooling. They have already in the past, but the Ministry needs to have oversight. NGOs are very good at raising awareness. They are very good at campaigns. They are very good at helping communities to mobilize resources. They are good at establishing community schools. But these are not good days for NGOs; maybe in the future. NGOs are very important. They are implementers. They are grassroots implementers and they are the closest to people, 143

families, and communities. They have more outreach especially in villages, helmets and areas with poverty.

Sarah confirms that NGOs in Egypt contribute to the education sector in many positive ways. She states that:

NGOs have done lots and lots of very good pilots for education reform; Community Schools is one example. They did a lot of curricula to help children, educate and provide them with life skills. Particularly in non-formal education, they have done a lot of good things. In technical and vocational education, they work with business owners. They can reach communities that the Ministry of Education can not reach because they are on the ground and know how to reach different communities.

Adam describes NGOs as service providers rather than decision-makers within the education sector concluding that certain educational areas need more involvement of NGOs such as the nexus between education and disabilities. Adam clarifies:

We have organizations working on education but mainly they provide services. They are not interested in decision-making and accountability aspects. Currently, some of the organizations start working on accountability and policy-making aspects. During the preparation of Egypt 2030 strategy, the Ministry of Planning and the Ministry of Education invited a considerable number of civils society representatives to participate in the formulation of this panel. I think there are issues like disabilities that receives no attention from the civil society and so on. Till now, I think, it is very limited. Suspicion and Strict Control

For long times, NGOs working in Egypt were met with suspicion by national authorities even before the January 25th revolution 2011, and this was especially true for those organizations focusing on political themes such as democratization and political rights. One of the strongest reasons the government deals with NGOs with a lot of suspicion is that some of them have hidden agendas including the spread of extremist thoughts and recruiting new members for extremist groups.

NGOs, working in Egypt, have no friends. That was the way Mary describes the state of suspicion, isolation, neglect and avoidance NGOs face. She states: “NGOs are not the friends of the Ministry of Education. they are not the friends of the Ministry of Social Solidarity. They are

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nobody’s friends. They look at them with suspicion, a lot of suspicion even before the revolution”.

Suzanne describes that the Government of Egypt cannot be blamed and has strong justification to deal with NGOs with suspicion as many of them proved to have malignant hidden agendas. She, however, blames the government for not assessing NGOs, understanding their previous experiences, advising and directing them when she says:

I do not blame the government for being suspicious towards NGOs. We have a lot of cases. High percentage of the children come from poor families. Sometimes NGOs are not allowed to get into the schools. Even those implementing projects for donors sometimes are not allowed to enter schools. Definitely, they look at them with suspicion. Sometimes it is justifiable and sometimes it is not. However, there is no a proper assessment of NGOs. What are their previous experiences? They can sit with them, assess them, advise them, and direct them, but this link does not exist.

Sarah presents a similar point of view stating that:

Currently, they are now in a very awkward position particularly with security. During last period, some NGOs were discovered to have political interests that made them on the spot. It is the same as what is facing us as well. Security clearance every step of the way makes it really very difficult.

Mary refers to the issue of "control" that undermines the impact of various efforts of NGOs and prevents them from contributing to the education sector in a more effective way. She indicates that the MOE wants to fully control those organizations and their activities. That can be understood in the light of the suspicion and doubts associated with NGOs. In other words, because the government deals with NGOs with a lot of suspicions and doubts, it puts them under strict control, which impacts negatively their performance. As Mary sees it:

NGOs have two challenges: The Ministry of Education wants to control them completely. So, when they are completely under control, it is frustrating. Number two when they start working with the Ministry, governorate, district, they get caught. That is why it is very difficult for donors and very difficult for NGOs to work with the Ministry.

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Capacity Variation

The NGO sector in Egypt witnesses a wide variation among different NGOs’ capacity. Sarah suggests that most NGOs still need a lot of training and get their capacity built. In making this point, Sarah notes:

Capacity of the staff working there, they need a lot of support in this regard. In this sector, you will find few good NGOs at a high level who are familiar with proposals writing and getting funds so on and so forth. Then, you will find the grassroots community associations. This space in the middle is a bit empty. That is what is required and that is what we need. We need to train more NGOs to do better work in education. Unsupportive Climate and Bureaucracy

In Egypt, the mechanisms of participation by NGOs are weak for several reasons including the restrictive NGO laws; weak NGO infrastructure; and the feeling among the populace that their involvement will have little impact. More efforts need to be done to enhance participation such as decentralizing decision-making and facilitating the roles of the NGOs involved in providing social services (El-Saharty, Richardson and Chase, 2005).

Peter implies that what can be seen on paper is very different from what is observed on the ground. That is because of the lack of supportive climate for such reforms. The government normally blocks a lot of NGOs on purpose because of its suspicion of their agendas. This practice from the Egyptian authorities does not only affect NGOs and their performance, but also international organizations and their initiatives as they rely on NGOs as implementers. As Peter clarifies:

Setting up participative platforms is very nice on paper and is really useful whenever there is an enabling environment for this type of processes to take place. What we observed here in Egypt is that currently the government is not enabling this type of processes. A lot of civil society engagement is blocked. We have some programs which were heavily based on NGOs to implement certain things especially related to outreach to certain communities. We do not know how to reach or have not built trust yet. And we found strong difficulty to implement these programs because of the current climate we have and the legal framework. 146

Mary identifies the bureaucracies and complexities within the education sector as main challenges facing different national and international, including the NGOs. They undermine exerted efforts in many ways and are responsible to a great extent for the lack of effectiveness and efficiency within the sector. For Mary:

These are the challenges: The bureaucracies and complexities of the education sector and the fact they need to be controlled. It may take four or five months, for an NGO to get an approval to work with the Ministry of Education. Hopefully, this will be only temporarily. Foreign Fund Dilemma

NGOs in Egypt are under threat and as a result many organizations reduce their activities, cease operations, or move outside the country. Egypt accuses NGOs of acting as agents for various nefarious actors, which creates a climate of hostility that discourages the pursuit of NGOs’ work. The government made it very risky for NGOs to pursue foreign funding, which undermines their ability to maintain staff, continue operations and implement their activities. The government officials often declare that funding approval is an issue of transparency or combating foreign plots (Ruffner, 2015).

Peter mentions that a lot of cooperation between international organizations with NGOs is blocked because of the unsupportive climate controlling NGOs. Sometimes, international organization are not able to pay for NGOs to implement some activities because of the suspicions associated with foreign funds. This means that efforts and initiatives of international organizations are affected directly in a negative way by the challenges facing NGOs.

Peter stresses the importance of political will of the Egyptian authorities in facilitating and supporting such cooperation between international organizations and NGOs. Without that political will, that cooperation cannot work. In Peter’s words:

It is difficult to pay a civil society organization to do something because it is foreign funding. On paper, we all know it is very important and it has to be done and that it is useful when carried out. But, first of all, it requires the political will of your partner. If it does not see it as a priority, then it will be a terminal for us to do it in any way because it will not work.

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Conclusion

In Egypt, the lack of community participation or the lack of effective participation in the education sector has a lot of interactive factors within a very complex, complicated and demotivating context. Those factors include the lack of trust between the public and government; the high incidence of poverty that makes people more focused on getting and fulfilling their needs; and the lack of awareness and education. It is true there are several positive examples of community participation even from the side of the poor who contribute to enhancing education process and school environment in different ways. However, the participation level is not satisfactory and there is still huge potential for improvement.

One of the participants refers to the negative participation that impacts education in a negative way when communities, families and parents resist some reforms suggested by the government or the MOE if they realize that those reforms are against their will or interests.

Enhancing participation can be seen as one of the top priorities and solutions to be adopted by the government; especially with over-centralization of the education sector and its very tight budget. It is one of the most effective mechanisms to improve education governance by getting communities, families and parents more involved in education and taking more responsibilities in decision-making processes. It is the gateway for increasing and utilizing available resources required by the education sector. To encourage and support effective participation within the education sector, there are a lot that need to be done to enable the context and create a more positive environment

While this chapter focuses on participation in the education sector, the next one diagnoses the governance of the education sector and presents its strengths and weaknesses from the perspectives of international organizations’ officials.

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Chapter Eight: Governance Diagnosis

Introduction

This chapter focuses on diagnosing the governance of the education sector and identifying its strengths and weaknesses as stated by the participants in their responses to direct questions on education governance and weaknesses. It adds to the understanding of education governance in Egypt presented earlier in chapters five, six and seven. Understanding governance’s strengths is the starting point in developing and maximizing them, whereas identifying its weaknesses comes as the first step to face them through remedial procedures to eliminate, or at least reduce, their negative impacts whenever possible.

The chapter contains all the participants’ responses that are relevant to the discussed themes and is presented according to the following two sections:

I. Governance Strengths II. Governance Weaknesses I-Governance Strengths

All participants perceive and recognize the Egyptian pre-university education sector as one with no or very few strengths. When they were asked about governance strengths of the education sector, it seemed that they all faced difficulties in responding to this question as it could be read from their faces, gestures and reactions. Many of them took few moments before responding as if they were looking for words. Probably, they were not convinced that the sector possesses real strengths or could not identify any.

Mary, for example, when was asked about governance’s strengths of the education sector, responded: “That is a very hard question to answer”. And she moved directly to talk about governance weaknesses instead. Suzanne, when was asked the same question, she responded in a very similar way: “It is a difficult question. I must say”.

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Another participant, Sarah, refuses to talk about governance strengths but rather governance opportunities when she states:

There are opportunities that can be built on and add to the strengths of the sector like the Boards of Trustees for instance. That is an opportunity if more attention is given to them, they are well trained, well-informed, and be monitored well on their performance. This really will add to the quality of the services provided. I do not see [decentralization] as a strength but as an opportunity to build on. It is a good side in the sector, but it is not fully operating as it should be. It has been piloted and accepted. It is there but it is not really performing as required. It needs more support.

Nadia, also, agrees that supporting and achieving more decentralization in the education sector can add to its governance strengths. She concludes this should be prioritized and given more attention from the Egyptian Government and the MOE to empower the education sector at the governorate, district and school levels.

Sandy prefers to talk about governance priorities that the Egyptian government and the MOE should give more attention that include enhancing leadership at all levels; increasing financial resources and allocations to the sector; building decision-making capacity at the central and local levels; enhancing decentralization; and improving quality.

According to the views of the participants, governance strengths of the education sector are presented according to the following sub-themes: Structures; The Outreach of the Sector; Functional EMIS; and Medium-Term Expenditure Framework.

Structures

Adam suggests that the structures within the education sector are a strength that can be utilized and built on. There are a lot of organizations and organizational structures that are affiliated to the MOE and the education sector. Adams explains: “The Ministry has institutional framework. There are organizations and assets to build on”.

Within the pre-university education sector, there are organizations and assets that should be activated and utilized in a more effective way. However, their roles and responsibilities should be revisited to avoid duplication of their efforts. Those organizations include the National Center

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for Examinations and Educational Evaluation (NCEEE), the National Center for Educational Research and Development (NCERD), The Center for Curriculums and Instructional Materials Development (CCIMD), the General Authority for Educational Buildings (GAEB), the General Authority for Literacy and Adult Education (GALAE) and the Professional Academy for Teachers (PAT). Fortunately, or unfortunately, all those organizations are supervised by the Minister of Education according to the decrees organizing their work.

The performance of those organizations is always criticized and described as being unsatisfactory. This is especially true for the research centers as their productions and contributions to studies and research is little taking into consideration the large numbers of professor and researchers they hire. They fail to present evidence-based solutions and recommendations to policy- and decision-makers to enhance the quality of the decisions taken and overcome the chronic challenges of the education sector. Generally, there is a wide gap between studies conducted by those centers and the real challenges that face the sector.

Mark focuses on the Professional Academy of Teachers (PAT) and the National Authority for Quality Assurance and Accreditation of Education (NAQAAE) and sees that they should be utilized in abetter way for realizing a better education sector. He concludes:

One of the strengths is the Professional Academy for Teachers. We have also the National Authority for Quality Assurance and Accreditation of Education. It started working. You can not say it is the same job done in the United States or United Kingdom, for sure not. But you have it first. After that you fix and try to develop it.

Those organizations can absolutely play a more important role in enhancing the quality of schools, teachers, teaching, as well as other aspects with the education sector. They already exist but they should be activated and empowered. Their roles and responsibilities should be modified to support the education sector and its performance.

Suzanne indicates that the education sector possesses structures that are seen among governance strengths. She refers to the hierarchal levels of the sector, including four management levels, from the MOE down to the school level when she says: “Definitely; you have the structure. You have the Central level. You have the governorate level; the district level; and the school level”.

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Peter suggests that the sector possesses, at least, assets, structures and capacities that are missing in other countries: “Compared to other countries, there are structures that exist”. However, he describes those strengths as bases which reflects a very low estimation from international organizations’ officials of the education sector.

Generally, structures cannot be considered as a real strength; especially when they are frequently described as being basic.

The Outreach of the Sector

Jack identifies the enormous outreach of the sector as one of its governance strengths describing it as huge. The sector provides educational services to more than 21 million students, at different educational levels, in approximately 54 thousand schools (Ministry of Education, 2018).

Jack describes how:

The sector has an immense outreach. Look at the education sector at the local level, you have more than 52,000 schools around the entire country… The outreach of the Ministry of Education is unsurpassed by any other ministry. The availability of the local level, it touches most of the citizens in the communities and at the same time it helps hearing the voices. That is incomparable to any other ministry. I think the outreach of the Ministry of Education is a huge strength. Functional EMIS

Although the education sector possesses a functional Educational Management Information System (EMIS), several related challenges are identified including the multiplicity of units involved in information technology, the lack of coordination among those units, the multiplicity of databases that use different codes and patterns and produce inaccurate data, the lack of transparency and availability of information, and the failure to make optimum use of the technological structures including multimedia labs and videoconference facilities (Lent, 2009).

Ramzy refers to the Educational Management Information System (EMIS) as one of the governance strengths. He suggests it is not an advanced system but there is valuable potentiality there; especially if it is developed and its administrators are given more attention for enhancing

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their knowledge, skills and attitudes through more effective professional development programs. Ramzy states:

As for the Information System at the Ministry of Education, I can see the Ministry of Education has a functional system. I cannot say it is a very good system but if it can be improved a little bit and you make the best use of it. It can help very well in making good governance. You have capable staff, you have software, hardware, you have practices all over the country. This kind of information is number one in transparency because if you want to be transparent, you have to declare quality figures. There is another point. It is a channel of participation. You can use the system in collecting opinions on different aspects of the Ministry of Education.

This comes in accordance with Hua (2007) who suggests that the education sector in Egypt possesses a number of databases and each one manages a list of important educational variables. Some databases contain extensive data on school enrollment and teacher profiles, others include data on school assets, facilities, and others have examinations results for terminal grades. Each data system serves the basic functions and planning needs of each center or unit and cannot produce sufficient information for policy planning and decision-making within and beyond each individual center or unit. He suggests that if those multiple data variables from different sources are integrated, the value of new synergistic data can be enormously extraordinary.

The issues of the EMIS and data represent real challenges for governance and management of the education sector and should be among the top priorities of the MOE. In the absence of an effective EMIS and reliable accurate data, it will be always difficult to effectively mange such a huge sector and make the right decisions.

Medium-Term Expenditure Framework

Ramzy refers to the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) as one of the governance strengths that can enable the education sector to link planning with finance. He states that:

As for the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, it is a practice developed by the European Union to help the Ministry of Education combine planning with finance. The department of planning works together with department of finance in developing a three- year plan. The good thing about that it is not only about transparency but also about efficiency. It has good elements of accountability because everyone knows what they are supposed to do. There are people at the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Finance who 153

work on this. But, unfortunately, if you wait for more two years, those people may retire, and you have to start all over again. This is really a good chance to have a good governance.

He suggests that the MTEF can contribute in a very positive way to enhancing governance, efficiency and accountability of the sector. As it is implied by the participant, the MOE does not have the ability or will to utilize its capacity. Through different forms of partnerships and cooperation with national and international organizations, many employees from the sector participate in advanced training programs, in Egypt or overseas. However, because of the advanced training programs they have attended, those employees can get better opportunities in other organizations that probably offer higher salaries, employment benefits and conditions. It is a vicious cycle of inefficiency; leakage of capacity and brain drain out of the sector that negatively affects its performance in the short and long terms.

It is important to note that even those participants who refer to some governance strengths, just mention bases that are normally found in any functional educational sector, such as structures. On more than one occasion, those strengths are described by the participants as being limited or basic, which implies that there are not real strengths. I should admit that I felt it is unfair to describe the strengths of such a huge education sector as being basic.

II- Governance Weaknesses

As for the governance weaknesses, they are too many and widely varied. Sandy, for example, lists a number of governance ’weaknesses, including the lack of data and information, over- centralization, the lack of trust, and the lack of monitoring and evaluation systems. Mariam refers to the lack of a clear annual plan for the sector, the lack of documentation, and the lack of positive attitudes among education employees.

Weaknesses identified by the participants are presented according to the following sub-themes: Lack of Strategic Directions; Over-centralization; the Lack of Motivation; Overstaffing; Inefficient Use of Resources, Budget and Finance; Fragmentation and Duplication; Lack of Data and Information Sharing; and Lack of Transparency and Standards.

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Lack of Strategic Directions

A vision is a very essential pillar and foundation upon which a country can formulate, implement and evaluate short and medium-term plans for both the public and private sectors. It provides detailed information and justification for the population’s aspirations and strategies to realize those aspirations (Winkler & Cohen, 2005).

According to the Ministry of International Cooperation (2006), the education sector suffers from:

The lack of a clear vision and strategy that set the framework of the education process, defining the roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders. Absence of such a framework meant that the quality of education deteriorated to a great extent. This was exacerbated by the deterioration in the teacher’s status in terms of salaries and training (P.6).

Adam describes reaching an agreed upon vision as a top priority that the MOE should work on when he says:

The top priority is to have an agreed upon vision and to link this vision not only to education but also to economic growth and development. You do not work in a vacuum. You work in a context and this context is local, regional and global. It is very important to create this kind of link between education and the outputs of this system and to which extent should these outputs contribute to the development in Egypt and match the market’s needs. These kinds of issues should be addressed through a strategy.

Ramzy for example, states that:

As for the weaknesses within the education sector, they include the absence of a strategic vision; leaders and the public do not share a broad and long-term perspective on good governance and human development; along with a sense of what is needed for such development.

Adam raises questions regarding the quality of educational strategies and their level of implementation. The first national strategic plan 2007/2008-2011/2012 is described frequently as being very ambitious due to the lack of the required resources for its implementation. In 2014, the MOE issued the Strategic Plan of Pre-university Education 2014-2030 that is criticized because of the lack of consultation and its long-term scope, while the country is experiencing a state of transition after two revolutions. For Adam:

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The first strategy of education according to many assessments, only about 30% of the activities were implemented; as a result of the lack of resources and the revolution of 2011. The new one prepared under the regime of Muslim Brotherhood, prepared in a different way. It was not participatory enough and at the same time it was based on the previous one without taking into consideration the changes happened in the system itself and in the environment. This is why it was not realistic and even was not implemented at all. The Ministry now should prepare a new one. So, I think the leadership at the Ministry should work on this issue in a participatory approach and based on previous studies.

Nadia criticizes the Strategic Plan of Pre-university Education 2014-2030 stating that its focus is too broad; it is not the result of consultations with different stakeholders; the lack of clear identification of the sector’s priorities; and the lack of sequencing. This comes in accordance with Ali (2014) who criticized the plan for adopting a rather long-term scope though the country experiences a state of instability and undergoes transition after the two revolutions, which makes it very difficult to set long-term objectives, its broad scope and ambitious objectives.

Adam suggests that the strategy should be ambitious and realistic at the same time:

Any strategic plan should be ambitious but should also be realistic. We need the right mix. It means to which extent we dream and how to dream realistically if we can say that. Because at the end of the day, we are talking in any strategy about a future vision; how you want to see the education services in Egypt in twenty years. So, we have to be ambitious and we have to dream. Given the current situation, we are behind, we are very behind. This is why we have to be very ambitious. But to which extent this is realistic? to which extent should that ambition is organized in terms of specific activities, sequence and responsibilities? I think these are main issues.

One of the most interesting quotations in this study is made by Peter who states that:

I feel strategies are very vague and very ambitious. People are very ambitious, and they are ambitious to the extent that is harmful. I feel people, sometimes here, are reluctant to look at themselves in the eyes and realize what their possibilities are; what their competences are; what their means are; and then based on this assessment, develop a plan based on what they can do. Some people say: “Okay. Set yourself a high goal that will motivate you, push you to go further than if you set yourself a not so high goal”. But we have observed here that these goals are never reached, and nothing is improved. So, maybe it is the time to set yourself more achievable goals. These strategies if they are a way beyond what is reachable, they become meaningless. And because they are unreachable, they become completely worthless.

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The lack of a clear vision and sound, effective strategy seems to be a cross-cutting theme. It is brought up by all participants indicating its negative impact on leadership, partnership and participation. In the absence of a clear vision and effective strategy, the sector cannot determine or realize its strategic objectives, mobilize the required resources, establish effective and sound partnerships with local and international partners, direct and utilize community participation, monitor and evaluate progress realized at the different management levels.

Clearly the education sector lacks strategic directions due to the lack of a clear vision; the unavailability of a sound strategic plan; the instability within the education sector; and the tendency of each new Minister to work on his own plans instead of pursuing what previous Ministers have already started.

Over-Centralization

The education sector is frequently described as being highly centralized where almost all educational decisions are made at the MOE (Boex, 2011; World Bank, 2002). Governorates, districts and schools should implement decisions made at the central level, normally without their contribution to making those decisions that probably do not express their needs, expectations and hopes.

Decisions are not only made at the central level but at the top of its hierarchy. At the MOE, Directors General, heads of General Departments, typically report to their undersecretaries responsible for Central Departments; who report to First Undersecretaries in charge of the Sectors; who probably report to the Minister’s Office or to the Minister himself.

The MOE is responsible for the planning and development, educational materials, evaluation and setting educational standards and teacher qualifications. The MOE makes decisions on curriculum development, national evaluation criteria, hiring, salaries, incentives and training needs for teachers and administrators (UNDP, 2004). Despite a lot of pilots and efforts implemented in collaboration with international organizations to move the education sector towards realizing more decentralization, it is still highly centralized.

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Indeed, the education sector is not governed by the central MOE alone. Some decisions are made mainly outside the education sector. For example, decisions related to personnel are made by the Central Authority for Organization and Administration (CAOA) and the MOF, and to a lesser extent the MOE. National civil service rules dictate most hiring, wages, incentives, and career trajectories of all employees including teachers. Based on requests from the MOE, the CAOA approves hiring requests and coordinates with the MOF to fund the requested positions. The MOE has some control in allocating the remaining budget and the approved personnel and hiring decisions across governorates. Thus, initial staff deployment is highly centralized (World Bank, 2005).

Peter identifies strong centralization as one of governance weaknesses suggesting that over- centralization deprives managers at the middle and low levels form taking decisions. He explains: “We see strong challenges especially related to high centralization of decision-making. We see very very limited possibilities for people in lower and middle management to take decisions of their own and be held accountable for that.”

To realize actual real decentralization of the education sector, more support is needed from the highest level of political leadership in the country. The school and district levels should be given the highest attention as they are the closest levels to their beneficiaries, communities, students and teaching/ learning environment and processes which can impact directly students’ learning outcomes.

The USAID suggests that school is the core of the reform process while the district level is viewed as the lowest tier of management to which many financial and administrative powers can be devolved (Capacity Building International, 2007).

Mary states that the sector is highly centralized and associates that state with bureaucracy that negatively impacts its performance and aspects when she shares:

[It] is an intense bureaucratic system which is bureaucratic in its negative sense. It is a very highly centralized system where decisions are made at the top by the decision-makers. Then, decisions flow down from the Ministry to the school in a very poor communication

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system. Even those decisions that are made at the top leadership level do not incorporate or involve leaders at any other level.

Mary suggests that education decentralization cannot be achieved without putting it in its financial and legislative frameworks. Leaders should be empowered by giving them financial and decision-making authorities. For Mary:

One very important aspect of leadership strains is the absence of decentralization. And you cannot use the word decentralization without understanding it is financial and it is legislative. If you want a leader to be a leader, you have to empower him with finance and decision-making authority. None of these exists. None of these exists. So, we have a full proof that it is a bureaucratic system.

Mark confirms that no real decentralization within the education sector can be realized in the absence of actual financial decentralization. He stresses the importance of the MOF and its Minister in supporting such a shift:

The Minister of Finance is the one. If he does not approve financial decentralization, do not talk about administrative decentralization. People are concentrating so much on the Ministry of Education, but I see the game should be played in the Ministry of Finance not the Ministry of Education.

Mary indicates that international organizations work frequently on enhancing decentralization adopting the school-based reform approach for empowering schools and local levels. She expands on this idea by saying:

You have a bureaucratic management system at each level of the sector, from the Minister down to the school leader. We tried on several occasions to adopt school-based reform approach, bottom-up not top down, and to build leadership skills. We tried to empower, engage and motivate school leaders so that they can have ownership of the reform and they can support schools to improve.

Mark states that over-centralization is one of the governance weaknesses. It is a general challenge in Egypt that affects different public sectors including education. He links over- centralization with the lack of efficiency; a very important linkage in a sector that suffers from its limited resources and tight financial allocations. He also suggests that decentralization can enhance the quality of education:

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It is everywhere not only in Egypt. Wherever you have a centralized system, it is less efficient for sure. So, many countries moved their education systems to be decentralized in terms of administrative and financial decentralization. I believe personally in decentralizing the education system in Egypt in the context of social and political environment, because the degree of decentralization differs from a country to a country; and from a society to a society. So, we need to identify the orient or the optimal point of decentralization. What are the roles of the government and the roles of units at the local level? I believe, personally, it is going to be very helpful in improving the quality of education in Egypt.

Mark indicates that the Egyptian Government exerts intensive continuous efforts towards more decentralization. However, these efforts have not been fruitful yet taking into consideration the state of instability since 2011 because of the revolution. For Mark:

The level of centralization needs really to be solved. The Government of Egypt is working and trying to decentralize the system since 2006. They do their best to do it; ten years now. But do not forget that since 2011 and now, lots of things and efforts are on hold or stopped.

Suzanne refers to the issue of over-centralization while focusing on the post of the Minister of Education who chairs several research centers and general authorities based on the decrees organizing their work which makes centralization even tougher. According to Suzanne:

One of the problems in governance, for example, is that the Minister of Education is the head of the National Center for Examinations and Educational Evaluation. In this respect, this an issue of governance. He is the head of service provision which is education. He is the head of the National Center for Educational Research and Development. He is the head of the General Authority for Educational Buildings. He is the head of the Professional Academy for Teachers; even the Education Support Fund. So, he is managing everything. There is no quality assurance. This is the main issue. He is the one that gives the service and the one who assesses the service. This is a big problem.

Suzanne suggests that moving towards real effective decentralization and more authority delegation from the central to local levels, according to clear standards, can solve a lot of problems and enhance efficiency of the sector. In Suzanne’s view:

If you look at the recruitment of the 30,000 teachers in the last two years, even the procedures were weak. Very simple, very general qualifications were listed in the advertisement. Then, they were hired centrally at the Ministry level. How can you hire centrally for 52 thousand schools? That process cost them millions and millions. It was much easier to hire according to certain standards at the school level. How do you hire at the central level and assess two million applications? 160

Suzanne suggests that decentralization and the release of decision-making authority out of the MOE can enhance performance in many ways. She states that:

They have to release decision-making authority. I think this is the top priority. Decentralization is extremely important which requires capacity building. The separation between assessment and service provision at the central level. You cannot manage both. You cannot supply the service and accredit the service. Professional Academy for Teachers should be released from the Minister of Education. I think these will put some forms of the quality assurance. I think people heading these units will be in power to work better and to deliver something with value. It could help a lot in reforming education sector without funding or support. The NAQAAE can contribute to enhancing education governance and management of education.

It seems there is a great deal of hesitation from the Egyptian government in moving towards more decentralization and transferring greater authorities to the local levels (UNDP, 2004).

Decentralization requires more focused efforts from the political leadership and the Egyptian government. Besides, there is a doubt that local levels can practise successfully the new authorities once they are delegated. Moving towards decentralization should be based on reviewing authorities and responsibilities of the pre-university education sector and intensive consultation with different stakeholders.

Overstaffing

Overstaffing is one of the most chronic weaknesses within the education sector, which is the largest recruiter in the country. It is a situation that leads to continuous wastage of resources, inefficiency and deterioration of the sector. As the World Bank (2005b) suggests: “The growing number of education personnel and the growing volume of the wage bill in pre-university education are obviously likely to raise the overall cost of public provision of basic and secondary education” (p. 11).

Overstaffing of employees, especially administrators, has led to disguised unemployment, where the number of employees is more than what the workload really requires and increases the inefficiency of the system. Approximately 89% of the education budget is allocated to wages (Ministry of Planning, Monitoring and Administrative Reform, 2016); leaving very little to implement any major reforms or improve the quality of educational services. The sector is 161

diagnosed as being “inefficient and incapable of producing a qualified skilled labor force that meets the requirements and needs of the job labor market” (Ministry of International Cooperation, 2006, p. 16). The administrator/ teacher ratio is very high and ranges from 0.65/1, 0.63/1 and 0.68/1 in primary, preparatory and secondary levels, respectively, which reflects inefficiency and inflation in the administrative workforce (The National Center for Educational Research and Development (NCERD), 2014b).

Mark refers to the issue of large numbers of administrators and the inability of the sector to utilize or fire them. He suggests that these huge numbers can not be reduced as there are legal regulations that protect employees and once they are hired by the government, they probably can never be fired. He explains: “You have a number of administrators that is exaggerated, very exaggerated. You do not need all those administrators while you have shortage in teachers. But, unfortunately, you can not fire them”.

Mary identifies the large number of employees, teachers and administrators, within the education sector is a serious weakness, which adds more to the rigidness and bureaucracy of the sector. She outlines the fact that:

You have seven million civil servants in Egypt. In the pre-university education sector, you have 1.8 million employees; teachers and administrators. When you have such a system, how many do you need? In Egypt, out of the seven million, we need one; and you have seven million. So, when you have too many employees, too many layers, you are sticking people in huge rooms where you have like ten people cramped together. They are doing nothing but endorsing each other. All these are obstructers to management. Inefficient Use of Resources

Suzanne indicates that the sector is unable to use its different sorts of available resources efficiently. It continues to print students’ books every year though there are many studies and recommendations on how to use the funds allocated for book printing in a better way. The sector fails to attract good candidates and when it happens, it probably fails to retain them. Suzanne explores this weakness when she shares:

You can save money from printing books. You do not have to print every year. Give students the books and take them back by the end of the year. There are millions and 162

millions and millions of pounds that should be spent on teachers. You may need to print every five years only. A government with very little resources should do something like this. You will be able to attract good people to the faculty of education. Good calibers. Bridge the gap. There are solutions, but you have to think out of the box. You are going for solutions of building new schools and you are building new catastrophes.

Ramzy also identifies inefficiency as one of the governance weaknesses within the education sector. He states that: “Weak efficiency of using the different resources including human resources”.

Adam refers to the lack of resources within the sector stating that salaries and incentives absorb almost the whole budget leaving very little for executing any serious reforms. For Adam:

There are no enough financial resources because almost 89 percent of the expenditures is going to salaries and wages and only about 11 percent is going to maintenance and quality and so on. This is very very very limited budget given that printing textbooks and building schools get the majority of this 11 percent. It ends up that very limited amount is going to renovation, institutional capacity and reform.

Providing education employees with better training opportunities can reduce the wastage of the sector’s resources. Suzanne suggests that lot of resources are not utilized as they should which adds to the sector’s inefficiency because of the lack of suitable training. She explains:

I have seen smartboards distributed to schools and most of them are not working. Before you deliver smartboards, you should teach them how to use them. At least teach one in each school; a trainer. The training units at schools should be activated. We have training centers. Take it seriously. If you do not need it, cancel it. Budget and Finance

The sector suffers from various weaknesses regarding its financial and budgeting systems including the lack of transparency and effective monitoring and evaluation systems. The lack of monitoring and evaluation of public spending is not limited to the education sector, but it is a weakness that affects negatively the whole public budgeting system.

A former Minister of Finance in Egypt states that:

When I was a Minister of Finance, I planned to change the whole system of budgeting and reporting. Because when you report, you report that these were the allocations and they 163

were spent or not spent. But, what is the efficacy? Was it spent properly? There is no system of monitoring and evaluation of public spending whether investment or otherwise that I know of (Puddephatt, 2012, 13).

Budgeting within the pre-university education sector is very complicated, scattered and distributed among three components: 1) the budget of the central MOE; 2) the budgets of education governorates; and 3) the budgets of the services authorities including organizations affiliated to the education sector such as the General Authority for Educational Buildings (GAEB). Each of these entities negotiates individually with the MOF their own budgets (European Union, 2009).

Adam suggests that education budget and finance represent major governance weaknesses within the education sector. He states that the budget is scattered and the linkage between policy and expenditure is very weak. He continues:

I think the main issue is education finance. This is very important because the budget of education is very fragmented. We do not have a consolidated budget for the pre-university education. We have a scattered budget. So, the Ministry of Education has its own budget. The authorities working in pre-university education each of them has its own budget and each of them discusses and negotiates its budget with the Ministry of Finance. Each of the 27 education governorates has its budget. So, the linkage between spending and policy is very limited.

Sarah indicates that the sector is unable to track accurately education expenditures from different resources which opens the gate for corruption and inefficiency when she says:

It is a bit difficult because the way the budget is divided makes it really a bit difficult to know where the funds are. But how much of the budget is spent, for example, on improvement so on and so forth. And then, how much of donors’ money is spent where? That is an important issue. Does any one in the government have the full picture of knowing how much is being invested by international donors and where this money is being spent? We report to the Ministry of International Cooperation; how much is the fund we have and how much we spend every now and then we are requested to submit a report as such. However, the question is: Is there one single person in the Ministry who has that full picture of how much is being invested here and there? This is a part of the weaknesses of governance. If you are not able to track the budget, what governance we are talking about?

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Adam criticizes the current budget distribution and financial performance within the sector suggesting that governorates should be given clear responsibilities:

We need to consolidate the budget. We need to have a kind of functional map for this sector and assign activities for each of these levels. After that we make this kind of revenue assignment and distribute budgets. If you look at the education law in Egypt, you will see that the functions of the Ministry of Education are the same functions of governorates and the functions of districts. We do not have differentiation among all these levels. Sometimes the government claims that this is decentralization: “We have governorates and they are independent in terms of budget” but this is not decentralization. In decentralization, we are talking about expenditure assignment. You give full responsibilities to governorates to be responsible fully or even partially for specific activities. This is not the case in Egypt. It is a kind of fragmentation rather than decentralization. Fragmentation and Duplication

Fragmentation and duplication of authorities and responsibilities are seen as serious governance weaknesses that negatively affect the effectiveness and efficiency of the education sector.

Mary states that the sector suffers from the lack of coordination and witnesses a lot of duplication and overlap of authorities and responsibilities among its departments which lead to more inefficiency and wastage of resources. For Mary:

Each unit works alone. It works very well vertically and very badly horizontally. I get the orders from my supervisors and send orders to my supervisees. Reports go up and down and flow well but what the neighbouring department is doing? Coordination is very bad. This another weakness. We call it the silos. As a result of this, there are a lot of duplication and overlap.

Mary suggests that restructuring the MOE will make it more able to overcome problems related to fragmentation and duplication. Indeed, she suggests it should be the top priority to reform the education sector: “Restructuring the Ministry is number one because it is so overwhelmed and so complicated and fragmented”.

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Lack of Data and Information Sharing

Sarah refers to the lack of data within the education sector as one of its weaknesses that hinders not only policy- and decision-makers within the sector, but also different external stakeholders including national and international partners. Lack of valid and reliable data and information prevents the decision-makers from making and taking quality educational decisions.

Sarah explains: “There is a lack of data. That is one issue. That is crucial particularly on children with disabilities and out of school children. When you go on depth to the district level or villages and so on, you lack data”.

Peter states that sharing information is very poor which impacts negatively the performance and contributions of different stakeholders including international organizations. Besides, there is a duplication of information gathering efforts, as Peter explains:

The sharing of information, knowledge management is very poor in my view. There is information that is being gathered several times by different bodies within the same Ministry and it is not shared between the different projects of the Ministry. A lot of duplication of work.

Peter explains that there is a type of leaders within the sector who tend to keep information and data for themselves and do not share with others to emphasis their position and secure their existence which affects negatively the way the whole sector functions. According to Peter:

I have observed that information is not shared among different bodies and that is due to a certain attitude of leaders in these institutions who try to keep as much information for themselves. Maybe to strengthen their positions in their organizations. There are many possible reasons for why they behave like this. So, it might not be an exclusive type of behavior for the Egyptian Ministry of Education, but maybe it is general to all ministries in Egypt.

It is very important to note that there are difficulties that affect the information, data and statistics exchange even among the different departments within the MOE. Absolutely, the situation is harder, and the difficulties are more serious to external stakeholders who try to get information, data and statistics from the MOE. 166

Lack of Transparency and Standards

The education sector lacks transparency that can be justified partially by the lack of data and information as well as the difficulties to access available data. Lack of transparency is normally associated with poor governance and corruption.

Sarah suggests that enhancing transparency can contribute to enhancing the performance of the education sector and improve the level and quality of efforts and contributions of different stakeholders including international organizations. She concludes:

More transparency on these issues is needed and who is involved in the decision-making regarding these issues. Are available funds used in the best way possible? Can we increase the efficiency? Can we increase effectiveness? So, more transparency on these issues can help a lot to improve what is there and improve the involvement of international partners as well. I assume there is no one in the government that has a complete picture of how much funds are poured in education.

Suzanne finds that the sector lacks standards that should cover every single aspect of its work, which will result in a very positive impact on the whole sector and its performance. She emphasizes:

You have to have standards. For example, what are the standards of laboratories? What are the teachers’ qualifications? Their level of experience? When to hire and when to fire? You have to have a system. You have it on paper maybe, but you do not have it implemented. People working do not know about it maybe. It is up to the principals of schools. Some are able, even with the circumstances and the low pay, to maintain their schools. So, they need training and need to be qualified. Who is the principal and how he could be a principal? They know nothing about education except what they are themselves educated with.

The Ministry of Education (2003) developed the National Educational Standards covering five domains of the educational process: 1) Effective School, 2) Teacher, 3) Excellent Management, 4) Community Participation, and 5) Curriculum and Learning Outcomes (Ministry of Education, 2003). However, revisiting, updating and implementing educational standards are still crucial challenges for the education sector.

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Conclusion

Diagnosing governance and identifying its strengths and weaknesses come as the first step towards enhancing governance of the education sector. Determining weaknesses can enable policy- and decision-makers to confront them and reduce their negative impacts and consequences whereas identifying governance strengths can enable different stakeholders to build on them and maximize their positive impacts.

Probably the first step the MOE should take is to develop a sound strategic plan that can articulate the sector’s goals, objectives, priorities, future path, and directions. The MOE should invite key stakeholders into intensive consultations and get them more involved in the education sector, its plans, and governance. That would reduce key stakeholders’ resistance to the MOE’s initiatives, better mobilize and utilize available resources and ultimately enhance the sector’s efficiency and effectiveness.

The MOE’s Policy and Strategic Planning Unit (PSPU) possesses well-trained staff who participated in strong professional development programs at the World Bank headquarters, UNESCO IIEP, American and British universities and other institutions. They are qualified to prepare an effective strategic plan in collaboration and consultation with different stakeholders and possess hands-on experiences gained through developing previous strategies. Unfortunately, due to the discouraging and demotivating professional environment, many of its employees have already left for better professional opportunities. Capacity leakage is a permanent challenge that will probably continue unless the MOE takes some serious measures and procedures to face it.

The MOE should work immediately and directly on enhancing the professional environment within the whole education sector for keeping, developing and motivating its capacity. Strategies such as offering education employees better professional and financial conditions; increasing their salaries and incentives; and providing them with quality need-based professional development programs should be considered.

The next chapter explores some the dynamics and interactions among the key stakeholders in areas of leadership, partnership and participation. 168

Chapter Nine: Governance Dynamics

Introduction

This chapter gives an overview of governance dynamics with examples of the interactions among key stakeholders for realizing a deeper understanding of the Egyptian pre-university education sector’s governance. It is presented according to the following sections:

I. Leadership and Partnership II. Leadership and Participation III. Partnership and Participation I- Leadership and Partnership

Political leadership is very crucial and essential pillars for the successful implementation of any major educational reform. It can guarantee the highest level of support, bring together different stakeholders and their efforts and contributions, get them positively and actively involved in educational reforms and overcome and reduce resistance of certain stakeholders who may represent potential threats to suggested reforms.

In Chapter Five, on leadership, the participants suggest that the education sector does not receive actual concrete political support. Political leadership fails to translate its verbal and theoretical support to the education sector into tangible actions that can be best observed through increasing the sector’s budget and allocations.

It is likely that political leadership aims at making a real change in the education sector, enhancing its performance, and improving the quality of its services. The lack of financial resources and accurate and reliable information and data constitute serious challenges that prevent the political leadership of doing what should be done. Political leadership, however, should consider education’s strong economic impacts and high returns on individuals and the state.

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A lot need to be done by the Government of Egypt and the MOE to overcome the different challenges that prevent the establishment of sound, effective, and efficient partnership with national and international partners. Some pathways include enhancing mutual trust, wherever possible reducing security barriers and procedures imposed by the national authorities that are seen by partners as serious challenges to their efforts, facilitating and encouraging the efforts of partners, creating and enabling a more positive environment of partnership and cooperation.

Political and educational leadership should work towards realizing more effective and successful partnership with their national partners, represented by the private sector, and international partners, represented by international organizations. Those forms of partnership should be based on mutual interests, common agendas, common benefits, and trust.

It is obvious that the Government of Egypt faces financial challenges to efficiently and effectively fund the education sector. Considering this situation, the MOE should work closely with other stakeholders to explore potential partnership opportunities and possibilities at the different levels to get their support where they are really needed.

Partnership between the Government, represented in the MOE and the Ministry of International Cooperation, and international organizations can offer opportunities for implementing pilots that constitute the base for moving towards major educational reforms. Partnership with international organizations can support the MOE also in areas such as educational research, assessments and evaluations of the education sector, its performance and how to improve it, and building and developing national capacity within the sector at the central, governorate, district and school levels.

In this regard, Jack suggests that:

If the Ministry is interested in converging more, meeting with these donors and asking them to set a strategy for their upcoming support to the Ministry of Education, try to coordinate among all these donors, and tell them that is what we want, what each one of you can provide the Ministry of Education? If they provide this, they can coordinate among themselves and the Ministry can enforce and coordinate what they want at the same time, develop this with coordination with donors.

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The MOE should take leadership in its partnership with both its international and national partners. If the MOE does not lead, others will do. Since leadership is not granted but taken, the MOE should have a clear vision, an effective, realistic, yet ambitious strategic plan, and strong capacity. In the absence of a clear vision and reliable strategic plan, the MOE will continue to adopt its passive role and accept what is offered by its international and national partners rather than taking the initiative.

It is the time that the MOE should move towards taking actions rather than adopting reactions. When the MOE possesses an effective strategic plan, it can take the lead and invite its international and national partners to implement certain programs or projects within the plan that contribute to the achievement of the education sector’s goals and objectives. This approach would reduce the current trend of passively accepting what is proposed by its partners; probably based and focus on an area(s) of interest of the partnering organizations and may not always represent a real need or priority for the MOE or the education sector.

Strong, well-qualified, highly-trained capacity is essential for enabling the MOE to take leadership. Fortunately, capacity building is one of the top priorities of international organizations in Egypt. However, the central MOE always gets the lion’s share of those opportunities, especially the advanced professional development programs.

Unfortunately, because of low salaries, the demotivating professional environment within the sector and the lack of an effective incentive system, there is a continuous leakage of capacity among those who are qualified to move to other better professional opportunities.

Without strong capacity, the Government of Egypt and the MOE will continue to face serious challenges towards imposing leadership and establishing successful effective partnerships. The MOE should explore different possibilities and exert more efforts to keep its strong capacity if it really wants to take leadership in negotiations, agreements, arrangements, and realize more successful partnerships with its national and international partners.

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Ramzy suggests that there are successful practices the education sector can acquire from its partnership with international organizations such as the results-oriented plans. He states that:

If we can implement results-oriented plans. For example, that is the level of your school according to certain standards which can be developed by the Quality Assurance Authority. Here where you are, and we want you to achieve this level and we are going to give you some resources. If you achieve this level, we will give you some more resources. It is something that you can see in the programs of all international organizations. If you go to the World Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO, or EU, you will find improvement of governance. So, the country can have a good chance of making the best use of such a support.

In this regard, Peter suggests that:

We try to support decision-makers here to develop strategies. We try to support in this process but there is always a small meeting where people say: “It is our strategy not yours, so we should write it”. We should bring the ideas which is totally fine. But then, the product is a strategy that maybe looks nice because we were involved in it and we were involved in the whole structural aspect of the strategy. It has its overall goals, objectives outputs, outcomes, and has this whole framework that makes a strategy looks like a strategy. But the content is not tangible because the goals are not reachable, and the decision-makers are really resistant to think through these goals. Do I have the means to do that? Is it likely I will get funding for it? Sometimes we have these conversations with our partners at the Ministry.

The education sector can realize a variety of advantages and benefits from its partnerships with the private sector, which should be more active in taking social responsibilities especially in education and training. It is true that private organizations have some good practices with the education sector such as the implementation of the dual system where students study in technical schools and attend vocational training in private organizations. However, there is still more room for potential partnership with the private sector.

A lot can be done if partnerships between the MOE and the private sector move to higher levels of cooperation, trust and transparency. Partnership with the private sector can contribute to transferring good practices, efficiency, and advanced management approaches to the education sector. However, the country should always maintain firm control over the private sector’s roles, responsibilities and interventions in education. Indeed, it is the responsibility of the state to maintain its role as the main provider of educational services considering the high incidence of poverty rates that affect millions of Egyptians and their lives in many negative ways. In such a 172

context, education represents the only window for millions of Egyptians to get out of the vicious cycle of poverty and enhance the quality of their lives.

II- Leadership and Participation

Although participation in education faces a lot of challenges, political and educational leadership can directly contribute to enhancing participation. The state should develop and implement plans for raising awareness of local communities regarding education, the importance and necessity of their contributions to education and decision-making processes, build trust with the public within a framework of consultation and transparency, and enable and encourage the public to get more involved in decision-making processes.

Sarah suggests that:

To enhance governance, transparency is a key. People need to understand how things are done; how decisions are made; and how teachers are recruited. How for everything is required. Because that helps to build trust and helps to show there is a good system in place.

There is strong evidence that the devolution of power from the central authorities to local governments, communities and schools, with input from parents, can greatly improve educational service delivery (UNDP, 2004).

Moving towards education decentralization is really beyond the control of the MOE alone. It needs strong political leadership and will to move towards realizing a more decentralized education sector. It requires an intensive and strong involvement of the MOF, the Ministry of Local Development and other national organizations. Real education decentralization cannot be realized without making the required financial and legal arrangements.

The World Bank (2002) indicates that moving towards decentralization of decision-making in the education sector is one of its main challenges and suggests adopting several policies including devolving decision-making to schools; strengthening teachers’ and communities’ role in governance and getting key stakeholders involved; stimulating the use of information policy in decision-making and; improving information on practices and outcomes. However, those policies

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have not been implemented sufficiently and over-centralization is still the most dominant characteristic of the education sector.

Sarah suggests that more authorities and responsibilities should be delegated and redistributed to local and school levels. She explains:

If we take, for instance, decentralization more seriously through giving real authorities and responsibilities to the local levels, schools and governorates, and involving the communities more that could help a lot, add to transparency and make people understand why decisions are taken and how. What is being done? Things of that sort.

Suzanne stresses the importance of capacity building that can enhance leadership of the education sector and improve the selection of educational leaders with more delegated authorities. She concludes: “You need to build the capacity at the national level. They have to select good people for the governorate levels and they have to release some of the decision- making process down at least for the governorate level”.

Jack confirms the importance of capacity building within the sector; especially at the local level. Capacity building at local levels will contribute directly to improving local leadership and participation according to Jack: “If you build the capacity of these people at the local level and let these people care about what they are doing and do what they are doing in a better way, you will find out you would have a much more robust system.”.

Adam stresses the importance of getting different stakeholders involved in the education sector, its governance, management and decision-making processes when he states:

The Ministry of Education, the rest of institutions working on the education sector, the private sector, nonprofit organizations, international donors, and Boards of Trustees. These are the main stakeholders and they are identified and known but their participation differs from time to time and according to the issue itself. I think they need more encouragement in the decision-making processes.

Mary stresses the importance of encouraging the contributions of communities and the BOTs stating: “Communities and the Boards of Trustees should be encouraged to continue. They are doing well, and it is a breakthrough. A very important breakthrough”.

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Based on my work experience at the MOE, I understand the resistance of senior leaders at the MOE, consciously or unconsciously, to delegate or give up partially the authority they possess as one of the reasons why decentralization efforts have not led to their desired effects.

Educational leaders probably have two different positions: the declared and the hidden ones. On one hand, they support decentralization, frequently lead events including conferences, workshops and seminars and present enthusiastically the necessity and advantages of moving towards a more decentralized education sector. On the other hand, they continue to interfere in the management and decision-making processes at other management levels and firmly control their authority and autonomy. In that way, they represent a direct opposition to real education decentralization (Rizk, 2012).

The MOE should make essential changes and radical improvements regarding governance and management of the education sector through intensive consultation with local communities. The MOE needs to delegate or devolve more authorities to the local level that is more able than any other stakeholder to define local challenges, set their plans, determine their objectives that express and address the unique needs of their local environment in accordance with the general education policies drawn by the MOE.

Throughout my own experience, I also noticed that managerial leaders tend to avoid taking risks, especially those who have neither previously been appointed in leadership positions. Such managers feel more comfortable moving their proposed decisions and initiatives up across the hierarchy. They follow that approach even when they do not have to get the approval of their senior staff. Actually, senior staff want their supervisees to report almost every single detail as a way to strongly realize a firm control over their units, departments, sectors or/and staff.

The long and slow administrative processes lead to more bureaucracy and rigidness within the education sector. Most seriously, it leads to more inefficiency and wastage of time and efforts; especially of those at the top of the hierarchy who should be more involved in exploring and implementing global reforms and innovative initiatives to improve the sector and enhance its performance.

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The MOE should invest more in developing leadership capacity; not only at the central level, but also at the governorate, local and school levels. Professional development programs implemented by the education sector for its employees should be need-based. It is not acceptable that different employees get the same sort of professional development programs to move to higher positions regardless of their specialization or the sort of work they are doing.

The state and the MOE should pay more attention to the BOTs, the golden opportunity, as described by one of the interviewees. The BOTs need more work to take the right decisions for the best of schools and students. For realizing a better performance, it is crucial to revisit the roles and responsibilities of those boards and conduct intensive consultations with all stakeholders on how to improve their impact on education and schools. The BOTs, especially at the school level, are extremely critical in drawing school-improvement plans and implementing them.

Schools, as explained earlier, are extremely important as they are the main and basic units of educational management, reform, development and improvement and they are the level where all learning/teaching processes take place. Effective leadership at the school level, represented by school principals, is very crucial for the successful implementation of the BOTs and their plans. Because principals can always make the difference, their selection and professional development programs should be totally reconsidered.

NGOs are effective implementers of educational projects and they successfully contribute to raising awareness campaigns, teacher training, outreaching, resources mobilization and school construction. They have the power, capacity and skills to reach areas that cannot be reached easily by other organizations. They are successful in establishing strong relationships with local communities in villages, helmets and remote areas.

However, contributions of the NGOs to the education sector can greatly be improved. They still face a lot of challenges and barriers that prevent them from playing more important roles. These challenges include the suspicion of authorities regarding their intentions, an unsupportive environment, and their weak capacity. Generally, they go through intensive security reviews,

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which is sometimes justifiable. However, security procedures and their time should be reduced whenever possible to enable them to work in an environment of trust.

The state represented in its political leadership, the Cabinet, the Ministry of Social Solidarity and the MOE can contribute to enhancing the capacity of NGOs, which will be reflected positively on the quality of their performance and the impacts of their projects.

Furthermore, community participation represents an excellent opportunity for the education sector that suffers from the lack of resources. Enhancing participation can mobilize, increase resources and improve the communities’ level of satisfaction by getting them more involved in decision-making processes.

III- Partnership and Participation

Participation at community level is supported and encouraged by international organizations and the private sector. International organizations and private sector normally adopt initiatives and call for empowering local communities, enhancing participation and encouraging them to be more involved in decision-making processes within the education sector. Both international organizations and the private sector normally rely on NGOs to implement their projects due to their ability to reach and communicate, successfully and effectively, with communities in small villages and remote areas. They are qualified to build strong relationships with local communities.

Jack stresses the importance of capacity-building at different management levels and not concentrating mainly on the central level. For Jack, this is because technical support delivered by international partners will have no real impact in the absence of strong effective capacity at the local level. He states that:

Building capacity is probably needed more at the local level. Part of the donors’ fund that does go to the Ministry of Education targets the capacity building. It is very important for everyone who is working with the Ministry to take this into consideration. Without capacity building, most of technical support is not going to pay a fruit.

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On some occasions, an international organization may provide the funds for a certain project and then contract an NGO to implement it. However, because of the heavy security procedures and the lack of trust from Egyptian authorities towards NGOs, especially those implementing projects with foreign funds, the project is hindered. That is really a serious challenge to NGOs, international organizations, and also to the education sector. Those procedures may prevent the sector from realizing benefits and advantages that can be obtained from implementing certain projects and initiatives.

Normally international organizations call for decentralization and empowering local communities, which is really an opportunity the Government of Egypt should take. Normally local communities are excluded form decision-making processes; a challenge and concern that should be addressed by the Government and the MOE. International organizations, who give a lot of attention to themes of governance, decentralization, delegation and devolution of decision- making authorities can support that movement towards realizing a more decentralized education sector. However, moving in that direction need the support, commitment and will of the highest political leadership levels and be based on intensive consultations with different stakeholders.

Cooperation between international organizations and NGOs can and should be a win-win situation. Normally international organizations rely on NGOs in implementing their programs and projects. At the same time, they support NGOs and build their capacity, which will be reflected positively on their performance and the projects they implement on behalf of international organizations.

In developing countries, the relationship between NGOs and international organizations can be explained through the concept of coercion where international organizations possess power through controlling funding and setting the agenda and conditions required for releasing funds to NGOs (Henderson, 2002; Markowitz & Tice, 2002; El-Gawish, 2015).

Poverty is one of the main areas where partnership and participation meet. It is one of the challenges that face the effective participation in education. International Organizations, especially the World Bank, can work with the Government to implement a poverty reduction

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strategy for reducing poverty rates, fighting the negative impacts of poverty, enhancing the poor’s quality of lives, and improving their level of participation.

It is important in this respect to refer to the Alexandria Experiment as one of the successful initiatives and a representation of the interaction between partnership and participation under effective political and educational leadership at the governorate level with very significant contributions from different stakeholders. One way of better understanding that initiative is to analyze the contributions and efforts of different stakeholders who contributed to making that success. That initiative was supported and implemented by the USAID, local communities in Alexandria, business owners, under the umbrella of strong political and educational leadership. Individuals of local communities contributed in different ways, even those who could not contribute financially, they participated in schools’ maintenance, repairing furniture, and enhancing schools’ environment.

Participation can be enhanced, and local communities can become more motivated and involved in governing the education sector. Local communities can play a more important role in education and educational reforms and participate more positively in decision-making processes if they are politically supported and encouraged. This participation will also be further bolstered when communities can see the seriousness of different stakeholders, especially the Government, to improve education. International organizations can contribute to enhancing community participation through conducting pilots, empowering communities and organizing awareness campaigns.

Partnership and cooperation between international organizations and local communities can be more successful if supported and guided by strong and committed political and educational leadership.

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Conclusion

The dynamics among different stakeholders are not always very positive. As indicated previously some stakeholders may negatively affect the roles and contributions of others. For example, participants agree that NGOs working in Egypt face a lot of challenges, some of which are imposed directly by the Egyptian authorities including the MOE itself. Thus, relationships among stakeholders are not always ones of collaboration and partnerships. Sometimes, they are ones of competition and even conflict. For example, conflict may arise between two or more international organizations when they insist on working on a specific area.

In such situations, the Government and the MOE should work towards encouraging partnership among different stakeholders to work in a more participatory, collaborative and supportive environment. National authorities should facilitate and support different stakeholders to contribute more effectively and efficiently to the education sector. The MOE should take the lead and invite different stakeholders to support the education sector where their support and efforts are really needed; according to an effective strategic plan that clearly and accurately identifies the sector’s top priorities and real needs.

While this chapter discusses an overview of governance dynamics of the education sector, the next and final chapter presents a summary of the study and suggests strategies that could be considered by the Government of Egypt and the MOE to enhance education governance and management. It also presents the significance and the limitations of the study.

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Chapter Ten: Summary and Suggested Strategies

Introduction

This chapter summarizes the thesis and presents suggested strategies, reached through analyzing the perspectives of the participants. These strategies should be considered by the Government of Egypt and the MOE to enhance governance and management of the education sector which represents the entry point and the launching platform for improving the performance of the whole sector, enhancing its effectiveness and efficiency, and increasing the quality of its services.

I- Summary

This study aimed at exploring and understanding the perspectives of international organizations’ officials regarding governance and management of the pre-university education sector in Egypt. The rationale of this study was based on the literature that suggests enhancing education governance can positively impact the performance of the whole education sector through enhancing its effectiveness, efficiency, transparency and accountability.

The conceptual framework of this study built on the definition of governance introduced by Pierre (2000) who suggests it the process of “sustaining coordination and coherence among a wide variety of actors with different purposes and objectives such as political actors and institutions, corporate interests, civil society and transnational organizations” (pp. 3-4).

The study adopted qualitative analysis and relied on qualitative data gathered from semi- structured interviews conducted during the summer of 2016 with twelve international organizations’ officials working on the pre-university education sector; nine from international donor agencies and three from UN organizations. It ultimately reached and suggested applicable strategies for enhancing governance and management of the pre-university education sector that may be considered by the Egyptian Government and the MOE.

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It is true that both Egypt and international organizations have a common goal towards improving education and enhancing its quality. However, it is, and should always be, the responsibility of the Egyptian Government, the MOE, and other national authorities to make the necessary and required changes to correct the sector’s path and enhance its performance. Reforms should be emerged, launched, implemented, directed, and led by national authorities.

The most serious and obvious challenges that face the MOE include the lack of a clear vision and the lack of sound strategic plan. Besides, the MOE is unable to utilize its huge human resources of teachers, administrators and managers who participated in advanced professional development programs because of the lack of accurate updated databases through which decision-makers and the Central Department of Human Resources can identify the employees within the sector with certain qualifications to make the best use of them. Moreover, promotions within the education sector are not always justified by clear merit criteria as they are often based on trust and connections with externals and on seniority with internals.

The MOE can partner with international organizations in areas such as the implementation of pilots that can be replicated later if there is evidence of their success. One good example of those pilots is the mainstreaming of the BOTs at the national level that had been initially started as a pilot supported by the USAID in seven governorates.

Because of their strong capacity and intensive material resources, international organizations are qualified to conduct high quality research that can provide the MOE and its leaders with evidence-based recommendations and enhance the quality of their decisions, which will be reflected in governance of the education sector and its performance.

II- Strategies for Enhancing Education Governance and Management

It is important to understand the pre-university education sector and its challenges from different perspectives, especially those of international partners and their officials who possess knowledge, expertise, resources, capacity and intervention mechanisms in developing and developed countries. The inputs and perspectives of those officials can help decision and policy- 182

makers in Egypt to understand how international partners perceive the education sector and enable them to construct a better understanding of this critical sector through different lenses and angles.

Considering the themes of leadership, partnership and participation, this study suggests the following strategies to enhance governance and management of the education sector. These suggested strategies are presented under the following two main categories: The Government of Egypt and the Ministry of Education.

The Government of Egypt

Leadership

1. Realizing a more tangible political support to the pre-university education sector. Political leadership and support to education cannot be limited to addresses, statements and declarations. They should be crystalized and translated into more tangible concrete forms through leading national consensus on suggested educational reforms. 2. Increasing budgets and resources allocated to the education sector. Education suffers from a tight budget that is mainly absorbed by wages leaving almost nothing for conducting any serious reforms. 3. Reviewing and enhancing the way resources are allocated, spent, monitored and reported. These procedures may contribute to enhancing efficiency, effectiveness and reducing corruption. In this respect, the MOF is a key partner in enhancing governance and management. 4. Restructuring the MOE to enhance effectiveness and efficiency of the education sector, avoid duplication of efforts and overcoming fragmentation. Restructuring the MOE should be accomplished in collaboration with other national organizations and authorities including the MOF; the Ministry of Planning, Monitoring and Administrative Reform; and the Ministry of Local Development.

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5. Reconsidering and revising laws and legal frameworks that regulate hiring and promotion to provide better chances for employees with high performance, advanced academic qualifications and strong professional experiences to move to leadership posts. 6. Seniority should not be the main required criterion for promoting internal employees. Developing more effective processes and comprehensive systems for selecting and promoting leaders is a necessity within a framework of transparency. 7. Investing more in attracting, hiring and maintain better caliber staff for the pre- university education sector. Unfortunately, there is a continuous leakage of the sector’s highly-qualified and well-trained staff that are absorbed by other recruiters, including international organizations. 8. Developing an effective incentive system and increasing salaries within the sector. These reforms can positively impact education employees’ motivation, professional satisfaction and professional performance at the different levels. 9. Reconsidering and reviewing the composition, representation, roles, responsibilities and impact of the Presidential Specialized Council on Education and Scientific Research. 10. Reforming faculties of education and enhancing pre-service programs. These reforms should be a priority for the Egyptian Government, the MOHE and the MOE. This can contribute to enhancing the quality of graduates who will join the education sector later in teaching and administrative positions. 11. Developing, adopting and implementing procedures that aim at enhancing transparency and accountability which can foster the sector’s governance, enhance its effectiveness and efficiency and reduce corruption.

Partnership

12. Supporting international and national partners to contribute to the education sector in a more effective way through developing a framework of partnership, enhancing mutual trust and understanding, as well as reducing the partners’ challenges. 13. Reducing and accelerating security procedures imposed on employees of national and international organizations whenever possible. Such procedures constitute a serious 184

challenge facing national and international organizations, their projects and efficiency as they consume a lot of their time and efforts and cause their frustration. 14. Improving availability, flow, access and sharing of statistics, data, and information for enhancing partnership. This should be undertaken with different stakeholders, to build trust, enhance their contributions to the sector, and improve the quality of their decisions. 15. Encouraging and supporting the private sector to take more positive roles in the education sector. However, the state should always be the main provider of educational services. This is imperative considering the high incidence of poverty rates; especially in Upper Egypt where education represents the only open gate for the poor to enhance their socio-economic status and escape the vicious cycle of poverty. 16. Ensuring the quality of educational services delivered by the private sector. Supporting and empowering the National Authority for Quality Assurance and Accreditation of Education (NAQAAE) affiliated to the Cabinet are very critical in this respect.

Participation

17. Reviewing and redistributing authorities and responsibilities of the pre-university education. It is crucial to intensively consult and carefully investigate what authorities and responsibilities are to be delegated or devolved from the central level and to what level. 18. Moving towards a more decentralized education sector supported by the highest level of political leadership and will. Achieving decentralization is a mutual responsibility that requires strong political commitment, will and collaboration among different national organizations including the Presidency, the Cabinet, MOF, the Ministry of Local Development, the Ministry of Social Solidarity and the MOE. It has been demonstrated on the ground that the current rigid bureaucratic management education system cannot efficiently and effectively manage that huge sector.

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19. Implementing financial decentralization as a key step for moving towards actual education decentralization. It requires a direct intervention and support from the MOF. Without financial decentralization, there will be no real decentralization within the education sector as finance always controls the decision-making processes. 20. Enhancing awareness of the public and local communities regarding the importance of education and the possible ways they can contribute to the education sector. That can enhance the level of community participation in the education sector. 21. Attracting, encouraging and empowering NGOs to contribute more effectively to the pre-university education sector. 22. Reducing security procedures and barriers imposed on NGOs considering NGOs as real partners and powerful implementers to maximize their contributions to the education sector.

The Ministry of Education

Leadership

1. Reaching a widely accepted vision with a consensus from different stakeholders. This vision can draw a clear future path for the education sector, mobilize efforts towards specific goals, improve contributions of different stakeholder and reduce resistance of certain actors against suggested reforms. 2. Developing and adopting ambitious but realistic strategic plan. The plan must set clear achievable goals and objectives for the education sector. It should be based on intensive consultations with different stakeholders while considering the reasons that led to the incompletion or failure of the previous strategic plans. 3. Concentrating on continuity and focusing on accomplishing incomplete strategies. If the MOE cannot complete a certain strategy, it does not mean to totally give it up. 4. Developing a comprehensive plan for enhancing governance and management of the education sector. This would be in opposition to the current scattered initiatives that address different governance issues.

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5. Achieving and maintaining more stability within the education sector, especially at the leadership level. Increased stability could reflect positively on the performance of the sector and the implementation of educational plans. 6. Avoiding unnecessary and sudden changes in educational leaders. The consistent changes in leadership add more confusion to the education sector, its governance, management, and performance. 7. Focusing on strategies rather than on Ministers. When the Minister changes, everything starts from scratch which adds more to the complexities, inefficiency and instability of the sector. Concentrating on strategies can be an effective remedy for this challenge. 8. Relying on available capacity within the education sector. The reliance on existing capacity would entail avoiding hiring externals in senior posts whenever possible. 9. Relying mainly on national and local capacity in developing and implementing educational reforms. At the end of the day, it is the responsibility of the MOE to take the lead and ensure the sustainability of educational reforms. However, the MOE should benefit wisely and efficiently from various forms of support offered by different stakeholders. 10. Developing, adopting and implementing clear and transparent criteria for selecting and recruiting educational leaders who can make a real change within the education sector. 11. Building and maintaining capacity of the education sector at the central, governorate, local and school levels. 12. Enhancing the quality of professional development programs that should be tailored according to the employees’ needs, roles and responsibilities. 13. Developing, adopting and implementing effective monitoring and evaluation systems that cover all aspects of the education sector. 14. Updating, activating and implementing national educational standards. Clear standards should be developed for enhancing the quality of different aspects of the education sector. 15. Developing and implementing results-oriented plans to enable the education sector and its decision-makers to assess and evaluate their impacts. 187

16. Eliminating duplication, fragmentation, overlapping and conflict among different departments within the education sector to enhance its efficiency and effectiveness.

Partnership

17. Inviting and encouraging partners to contribute to the education sector in areas where their assistance is really required according to a sound strategic plan. 18. Realizing real partnership rather than a donor-recipient relationship. If the MOE wants to move forward in this direction, it should develop its clear vision, applicable strategic plan and strong capacity. 19. Enhancing coordination with and among international organizations. Better communications would create pathways towards realizing more coordination and collaboration among international partners, avoid duplication of their efforts and reduce their potential conflict. 20. Enhancing trust and collaboration with partners through creating and enabling a supportive environment. 21. Adopting a more participatory approach by conducting consultations with different stakeholders and taking their perspectives into consideration as partners and supporters to different education initiatives.

Participation

22. Encouraging and supporting participation of local communities to maximize their contributions to the education sector, allow them to take part in monitoring, evaluation, decision-making and management processes. 23. Reviewing responsibilities, authorities and roles of the BOTs to maximize their impact on the education sector, its governance and management and decision-making processes in a more effective way. 24. Empowering and enhancing the performance of BOTs at all levels. The BOTs, especially at the school level, can have a very positive and direct impact on enhancing school environment and learning/teaching processes.

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25. Providing effective training programs and building capacity of the BOTs. Once recruited, BOTs’ members should be trained and supported to ensure their effective inputs and participation. 26. Encouraging and attracting well-qualified and enthusiastic members to the BOTs. 27. Rebuilding strong relationships of coordination, consultation and trust with NGOs. Cooperating with NGOs as real partners and contributors to the education sector would facilitate, enhance and maximize their roles, responsibilities and contributions.

Implications for Research

Understanding of a certain phenomenon has no limits (Antonacopoulou, 1999). Research on Governance has no limits as the term “governance” is very broad and cannot be defined precisely. As it is noted earlier, governance has witnessed an explosion in research by individual researchers as well as organizations. It is a very broad area of study where researchers may focus on one or more of its aspects. Governance research can be extended to include almost every single aspect of an education sector.

It is very beneficial and instrumental to explore and understand perspectives of different stakeholders, key-players, or beneficiaries of an education sector. Research on governance may explore and better understand perspectives of internal and external stakeholders. It may examine how a certain stakeholder affects and/or contributes to the decision-making processes within the sector; for example, the MOF.

Future research in Egypt could explore the perspectives of senior officials on governance at the MOE and other categories of employees within the education sector. Perspectives of former Ministers of Education, senior MOE officials, school principals, parents and students will be extremely important and interesting to explore. Furthermore, future research could shift its focus among the four management levels: The MOE, governorate, district and school. Focusing on the school level is extremely crucial as schools represent the main units of management, improvement, and development. Such research could be especially beneficial considering the different initiatives implemented at Egyptian schools.

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Significance

The current study gains special importance as it focuses on governance; one of the top priorities on agendas of international organizations and national Ministries of Education. Despite the immense importance of this theme and the increasing attention it receives, governance and its reforms remain unclear even for practitioners. The lack of clarity probably stems from the fact that there is no one single precise definition that really explains what is accurately and precisely meant by governance.

Although there has been an explosion of governance research examining actors, initiatives and approaches, practitioners are not yet confident they know how to improve governance (The Institute of Development Studies, 2010). This study comes as an attempt to help policy-makers, decision-makers and practitioners to better understand education governance, its strengths, weaknesses, its impact on the education sector and how to improve it within the pre-university education sector.

This study presents genuine, authentic and valuable contributions and inputs of highly-educated, well-trained and experienced professionals, in their own words, that cannot be found in official studies and reports that tend to avoid criticizing national contexts, education sectors, their leaders and performance in a direct way. That makes this study unique and instrumental in providing knowledge, data and information that is difficult to obtain from other resources.

It focuses on the Egyptian pre-university education sector, which is the largest in the MENA region and among the largest in the world. Egypt’s education sector formerly contributed to and supported other education sectors in the Middle East and Africa, and still does so in a limited way, through the provision of experts, management staff, principals and teachers.

This study also holds practical importance as it presents specific applicable strategies to the Egyptian Government and the MOE that could have a positive impact on education governance, management, and performance of the pre-university education sector.

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Limitations

This study was limited by a number of factors and a couple of them are discussed here, namely, the timing and the sensitivity of its theme. The time in which this study was conducted was not the ideal as it is perceived by international organizations as a time of uncertainty and instability. This reality caused international organizations to avoid getting involved in major programs and projects. The drop in the number of programs and projects at the time of conducting the interviews for this study absolutely led to a significant decrease in the numbers of officials working for those organizations who represent the population of this study.

The sensitivity of the theme of the study represented another limitation as discussing governance required the participants to criticize the pre-university education sector, its governance, leadership as well as the broader political, social and economic context. Based on my experience working with international officials, they do not usually feel comfortable discussing such issues. It is likely that avoiding particular topics is part of their orientation before moving to a certain country or before stating new posts as officials are normally advised and reminded not to discuss or criticize the political, social end economic context of the host country.

That is why at least one of the participants indicated directly he did not feel comfortable when was asked about the performance of the educational leaders. One of the participants confirmed she had to get the approval of her seniors before participating in this study. It is likely that the permission to participate was associated with a list of what should not be said and what should not be discussed.

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A Final Word

Exploring various perspectives of different stakeholders can enhance, build and add to the understanding of a certain phenomenon. Thus, it is always beneficial and instrumental to explore perspectives of different stakeholders to realize a better understanding of a given phenomenon.

Exploring the perspectives of international organizations’ officials absolutely constructed a clearer image, expanded the horizons of current understandings and introduced new and different angles of looking at the pre-university education sector, its governance and management, how to reform the whole sector and improve its performance.

Although international organizations possess rich and varied resources, intensive expertise and strong capacity, their support to national education sectors is normally limited and temporary. International projects are often criticized for lacking ownership, sustainability, effectiveness and efficiency and for even undermining national leadership and capacity.

It should be remembered that reforming national education sectors is and will always be the responsibility of Ministries of Education and other national authorities.

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Appendices

Appendix A: Invitational Email

Dear ………

My name is Ayman Rizk, a PhD candidate, working currently on my thesis under the supervision of Professor Nina Bascia, Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education (LHAE), Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto.

The purpose of this study is to explore the perspectives of international organizations’ officials on the Egyptian pre-university education governance and management, identify main governance challenges that affect its performance negatively, determine its strengths and weaknesses, and reach applicable strategies and recommendations that can be considered by stakeholders and policy-makers to enhance education governance and management. Participants in this study will be selected of those professionals working for international organizations: UN and international donor organizations.

I would like to invite you to participate in that study. Data gathered for this study will be used mainly for my PhD thesis and probably for subsequent research articles. If you agree, a face-to- face semi-structured interview will be conducted that is expected to take around one hour, in your convenient time and place. A list of the interview questions will be sent to you in advance prior to the interview. During that time, you will be asked questions about governance and management of the pre-university education in Egypt, its strengths and weaknesses, strategies that can be adopted by different stakeholders to enhance education governance and management and their expected impacts on the whole sector. More questions may be asked to get further understanding, clarification or evidence. My part, in the interview, will be focused on asking questions, listening to your responses, and seeking more details when required.

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Your participation is voluntary, and your identity will remain confidential. You may refuse to answer any particular question(s) or withdraw completely from the study without consequences. You may also request that any information you provided, in written or audio forms, will be totally eliminated from the project. At no time value judgements will be placed on your responses nor will any evaluation be made of your effectiveness as a professional.

I will be grateful if you could kindly nominate and send me the contacts of any potential candidates to participate in the study. Looking forward to receiving your approval soon and thank you in advance for your valuable participation.

Sincerely,

Ayman Rizk PhD Candidate, Educational Leadership and Policy (ELP) Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education (LHAE) Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) University of Toronto Email: [email protected]

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Appendix B: Interview Guide

I – Demographic Questions Name: Organization: Position: Highest level of education completed: Years of professional experiences Years working in international organizations: Years in your current organization Work years in education sector: Work-years in Egypt: II- Organization and Governance 1- How do you describe your own role in your organization? 2- How does your organization cooperate with the Egyptian MOE and in what areas? 3- How do you define education governance in your own words? 4- What are the contributions of your organization to governance and management of the pre- university education sector; if there are any? III– Perspectives on Egyptian Education Governance and Management 5- How do you assess the pre-university education sector regarding: a- Leadership: Political leadership and educational leadership? b- Partnership: International organizations and private sector? c- And Participation: Community participation, BOTs, and NGOs? 6- What are the strengths of governance and management of the Egyptian pre-university education sector? 7- From your point of view, what are the weaknesses of governance and management of the pre-university education sector? 8- What should be the top priorities of the MOE to enhance governance and management of the pre-university education sector? 9- Are there any particular strategies to be adopted by the Egyptian Government to enhance education governance and management? 10- Are there any other recommendations to improve education governance and management? IV– Final Questions 11- Would you like to share any final thoughts or comments? 12- Would you like to recommend any candidates to be interviewed?

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Appendix C: Interview Schedule

Participant’s Post Date Given Name 1 Ramzy Consultant August 7th 2016

2 Nadia Senior Officer August 11th 2016

3 Jack Project Manager August 14th 2016

4 Mark Project Manager August 15th 2016

5 Peter Advisor August 21st 2016

6 Nancy Project Officer September 4th 2016

7 Sandy Program Manager September 5th 2016

8 Adam Senior Advisor September 7th 2016

9 Suzanne Advisor September 8th 2016

10 Mariam Advisor September 11th 2016

11 Sarah Education Officer September 13th 2016

12 Mary Education Officer September 17th 2016

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Appendix D: Egyptian Education System

Reprinted from (OECD) (2015). Schools for Skills: A New Learning Agenda for Egypt. Retrieved from https://www.oecd.org/countries/egypt/Schools-for-skills-a-new-learning-agenda-for- Egypt.pdf

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Appendix E: List of Ministers of Education since January 2011

Minister Previous Post From Till

Ahmed Zaki Badr President of Ain January 2nd 2010 January 26th 2011 Shams University

Ahmed Gamal El-Din Moussa President of February 20th 2011 November 22nd 2011 Mansoura University

Gamal Al-Araby Undersecretary for December 2nd 2011 July 24th 2012 Secondary Education

Ibrahim Ghoneim Dean of Faculty of August 2nd 2012 July 16th 2013 Education, Suez Canal University

Mahmoud Abo El-Nasr First Undersecretary July 16th 2013 March 5th 2015 for Technical Education Sector

Moheb El-Rafei Head of the March 5th 2015 September 12th 2015 Executive Body, General Authority for Literacy and Adult Education

El-Hilali El-Sherbini First Undersecretary September 19th 2015 February 16th 2017 for Cultural Affairs, Ministry of Higher Education.

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Tarek Shawki Dean of the School February 16th 2017 To present of Sciences and Engineering at the American University in Cairo

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