Keywords

1 Introduction

English is currently the main foreign language used in Egypt. Not only is English used as a lingua franca in everyday situations in Egypt, but it also is used overwhelmingly in online communication among Egyptian Internet users (Warschauer et al. 2002). Due to the vital role of English in Egyptians’ lives, it is taught as a core subject to 1–12 graders.

English has been taught in Egyptian schools for about a hundred and fifty years. During this period, Egyptians’ attitudes towards English have changed from regarding as “a necessary evil during the British occupation” to viewing it “a practical vehicle for educational, economic and…social mobility” (Imhoof 1977, p. 3). The last two decades in particular have witnessed a remarkable increase in the numbers of Egyptians learning English. Thus, “the history of English in Egypt is a rich one, and English continues to be used in more and more domains, forms, and functions’ in contemporary Egypt” (Schaub 2000, p. 236).

The several policy reforms made to English education in Egypt have subsequently been influenced by these social-attitudinal as well as other political and global factors. This chapter reviews the English education policy reforms at the pre-university stages in Egypt and discusses the factors influencing each reform type. The chapter particularly focuses on the English education policy reforms made in the last few decades. Before reviewing and discussing these reforms and highlighting their future implications, the chapter presents an overview of the historical place of English education in Egyptian schools in the next section.

2 The Historical Place of English Education in Egyptian Schools

English language education in Egypt dates back to the first half of the nineteenth century. The place of English as a taught foreign language in Egyptian schools has been influenced by the political and social changes Egypt witnessed. English was first introduced, along with French, Turkish, Persian and Italian, as a taught foreign language in the few schools available in Egypt at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Due to the subsequent Othman and French rules of Egypt at that time, the British culture was not as influential in the Egyptian life as the Turkish and French ones. As a result, French and Turkish remained the two most widely taught foreign languages in Egypt until the end of the 1870s.

With the British colonization of Egypt in the 1880s, English assumed the place of Turkish as the second most widely taught foreign language, while French held the first place for two decades until English dominated at the beginning of the twentieth century. From that time on, English has been the foreign language taught at Egyptian schools and- later on- at universities (Schaub 2000). At the beginning of the twentieth century, English was made as the medium of instruction in public schools but it was replaced by Arabic in 1925 (Ministry of Education (MOE) 1964). Consequently, English was only taught as a foreign language at the pre-university stages in Egypt.

With the flourishment of the nationalization movement in Egypt, the teaching of English at the primary stage in Egyptian schools was cancelled in 1945 for the purpose of giving Arabic- Egyptians’ mother tongue- more educational attention. According the MOE’s (1964) report, the vast majority of foreign teachers of English were replaced by Egyptian ones in 1951. The 1952 revolution brought about new developments to English education in Egypt. Adopting the 1952 revolution principles, Egypt’s consecutive governments have tried to enable all Egyptians have free access to education (Langsten and Hassan 2008). Meanwhile, the nationalization movement in Egypt was further enhanced by the 1952 revolution and as a result teaching English to primary graders was neglected until the early 1990s.

The attempts made by Egypt’s governments to make education accessible to all Egyptians have undoubtedly influenced English education. The policies focusing on providing education to the largest possible number of Egyptian population resulted in a lower quality of the educational outputs. Intuitively, English education quality was negatively influenced, among other things, by such policies. With the lack of providing English education to pre-middle school graders and the lower quality of education in public schools, parents have had to help their children attend private schools which avoid these two shortcomings.

At the present time, 8 % of students in Egypt attend private schools (ElMeshad 2012). These schools are not owned by the Egyptian MOE but supervised by it, and most of them offer students an intensive study of English from the kindergarten stage. The English language instruction they offer range from an advanced language course added to the national language curriculum, to a whole different curriculum composed of several intensive English courses with other school subjects taught in English as well. Thus, these private schools can be categorized as follows in terms of the English language education offered: (a) private ordinary schools whose curriculum is the same as that of the government schools, but they teach an additional advanced English course and attend more to meeting students’ personal or religious needs; (b) private language schools which teach the national curriculum in English and offer students an intensive study of English arts, and (c) private international schools following the British or American educational system.

With the existence of such parallel educational system differing mainly from the governmental one in providing students with intensive English instruction and/or using English as the medium of instruction for other school subjects, the Egyptian MOE has had to undertake a series of policy reforms to improve English education in public schools. This is what will be discussed in the next section.

3 Policy Reforms of English Education in Egyptian Public Schools

These policy reforms were undertaken to improve English education in the Egyptian public or governmental schools included: establishing other types of schools providing intensive English instruction, introducing English education to primary graders, adopting new policies in English language teacher recruitment and education, and curricular reforms. The following subsections give a brief description of these policy reforms and show the extent to which they have brought about the desired changes in English education in the Egyptian governmental schools.

3.1 Establishing Other Types of Schools Providing Intensive English Instruction

In response to some parents’ needs for providing their children with intensive English instruction not offered by public governmental public schools, the Egyptian MOE established two types of schools: National Institutes schools and experimental schools. National Institutes schools are not privately owned and are run by the General Society of National Institutes, a governmental educational body. Some of these schools are originally British ones that were nationalized in the 1950s after the evacuation of the British forces from Egypt, whereas other schools are owned by social institutions, not individuals, but all of these are run by the General Society of National Institutes. The National Institutes’ schools can be described as semi-private ones with high language standards and fees close to those of private school (ElMeshad 2012). These schools, however, are very few in number and found in five Egyptian cities only (Cairo, Giza, Alexendria, Port-Said and Minia).

As for experimental schools, these were established in 1979 for the purpose of introducing an educational governmental alternative to private language schools. The subjects of these schools are the same as the ones provided in ordinary governmental schools but many of them are taught in English. In the 1980s, the number of these schools grew slowly but it increased rapidly in the 1990s. At present, there are about 1000 experimental schools in Egypt, the vast majority of which are in urban areas. These schools provide all K-12 students with intensive English instruction, and their fees are close to those of the best private language schools in Egypt.

Apart from these two types of schools, the Azhar Institutes Sector- an educational body focusing on Islamic-oriented curriculum but following the directions of the MOE in teaching English- has also introduced some experimental institutes in which students can study extra English courses. Like the National Institutes and experimental schools, the Azhar experimental institutes only exist in urban areas and require exceptional fees from students attending them.

3.2 Introducing English Education to Primary Graders

The Egyptian MOE brought about a further policy development to enhance English education in governmental schools by introducing English to primary graders. This policy was undertaken through two stages: in 1993 when English education was introduced to fourth and fifth primary graders (at that time the primary stage consisted of 5 years only), and in 2003 when it was decided to teach English to all primary 1–6 graders. Introducing English to primary graders required taking further steps at the levels of English language teacher education policies and restructuring curricula. These two issues are further highlighted below.

3.3 Adopting New Policies in English Language Teacher Recruitment and Education

In the last few decades, several major developments have been made to English language teacher recruitment and education policies in Egypt. Before the mid 1980s, English language teachers whose university major was either English language teaching or English literature were not a majority among this teacher population in the Egyptian public schools. Besides, the teachers with the English literature university major were larger in number than the ones with the English language teaching major at this time. On the other hand, the larger part of the teachers recruited to teach in such schools did not study English as as university major. Thus, the vast majority of the English language teachers recruited in the Egyptian public or governmental schools before the mid 1980s did not have a university educational qualification or certificate in teaching English.

To overcome the problem of scarcity of English language teachers during this period, the MOE had to recruit university graduates majoring in areas such as history, geography, psychology and philosophy as teachers of English at prep, and general and vocational secondary schools. This recruitment policy was adopted based on the assumption that graduates majoring in these areas study some English texts as part of their university study, and thus they are expected to have good mastery of English. To compensate for these newly-recruited teachers’ expected English pedagogical performance weaknesses, the MOE had to provide them with short in-service training courses. With the introduction of English education at the primary stage in the early 1990s, it adopted a similar strategy by assigning already recruited non-English-majored teachers to teach it to fourth and fifth primary graders and supporting them with in-service training.

The establishment of more faculties of education in the 1980s and 1990s allowed the Egyptian MOE to recruit an increasing number of graduates majoring in English language teaching. By the mid 1990s, the MOE stopped recruiting university graduates not majoring in English to teach it in governmental schools. The 1990s also saw the establishment of faculties of education’s basic education English departments which prepare prospective primary school teachers of English. The MOE has begun recruiting the graduates of these departments to get them gradually replace the already recruited non-English major teachers who were temporarily assigned to English to primary graders.

In the last decade, there has been an increasing emphasis on recruiting teachers of English with a relevant educational certificate or qualification, and qualifying recruited teachers of English educationally. About 10 years ago, the MOE started to give more priority to recruiting university graduates majoring in English language teaching than to recruiting those majoring in English literature. At the end of the last decade, this priority has become a recruitment and professional development requirement. Accordingly, the MOE initiated a new policy that necessitates an English language teaching qualification as a prerequisite for recruiting teachers, and requires all recruited teachers with non-educational university degree to get a university certificate in teaching English. The Azhar Institutes Sector and private language schools also followed the same policy. Currently, the majority of recruited teachers of English in Egypt have met this educational qualification requirement; those who have not it yet are to get such qualification within 2 years of their tenure.

It is worth mentioning that the area of in-service English language teacher training in Egypt have also undergone some developments in the last two decades. Since the early 1990s, more in-service training programmes have been offered to teachers working in governmental schools at all the pre-university stages. These programmes focus on enhancing teachers’ English linguistic and pedagogical skills. The majority of these professional development training courses are offered by the MOE, while a few programmes are supported by international aid agencies such as The World Bank, The European Union, and The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) (El-Fiki 2012).

A further step in in-service teacher education was taken in 1993 when the MOE started sending teachers of English in short-term training missions, lasting for 3–6 months, in the USA or UK. According to the National Centre for Educational Research and Development’s (NCERD) (2001) report, the MOE sent a number of 1455 in-service teachers and supervisors of English to these overseas training programmes between the academic year 1993–1994 and 1998–1999. Meanwhile, the NCERD’s (2008) report explains that in total 3428 Egyptian teachers of English were sent in these short-term training missions from 1993 to 2008. According to this latter report, the highest numbers of delegated Egyptian teachers of all school subjects during this period were in the areas of teaching science and English, respectively. The MOE continued sending training missions in the last decade as well, but due to the political instability Egypt witnessed between 2011 and 2013, these missions stopped for three academic years starting from 2010 to 2011. The MOE has recently invited applications for new rounds of in-service teacher training missions and it is hoped these will not stop again.

Some questions have been raised about the effectiveness the professional development or in-service training programmes provided to English teachers in Egypt. For example, Ginsburg and Megahed (2011) found that the more recent reform in-service teacher training initiatives of 2002 funded by USAID and World Bank did not achieve the goals intended due to the lack of adequate coordination between the funding organization and the red tape found in the Egyptian MOE and local institutions. Similarly, El-Fiki’s (2012) study revealed that some institutional features tend to determine how much teachers will actually change their pedagogical performance after receiving their in-service training. While no previous studies have traced the changes in the performance of the delegated teachers of English taking short-term training programmes overseas, Monk et al. (2001) reported a study which may have some relevance. Examining the reported changes to classroom practice and activities of Egyptian science and mathematics teachers following a 12-week in-service programme in the United Kingdom, the authors found that teachers who were able to distance themselves from the constraints perceived by others reported improvements in their pedagogical performance. The above three studies generally indicate that some contextual barriers that may hinder the optimal change in the performance of teachers of English in Egypt after receiving in-service training.

3.4 English Curricular Reforms

English curricula taught in governmental schools in Egypt have been changed several times in the last few decades. The factors accounting for the changes made to these curricula included bringing about a methodological or cultural change in textbooks, restructuring English education in a given educational stage, and adopting a specific educational movement. Table 1 provides a chronological summary of the textbook series taught at the three educational stages in the last few decades. As the table shows, four textbook series have been used at the primary stage since 1993. The MOE started using an earlier series of Hello! (West & Hearns, 1993) with fourth and fifth graders when English was taught to them. With introducing English education to first, second and third graders in 2003, the Hand in Hand series (El-Naggar et al. 2003) was taught to them until 2013. Meanwhile, after the inclusion of the sixth grade at the primary stage, the earlier version of the Hello! series taught to fourth and fifth graders since 1993 was replaced with its updated version (West & Hearns, 2003) but this the latter one was used with 4–6 pupils. The difference between the first version of the Hello! series and the second one is that the latter is more communicative and standards-based. Developing the Hand in Hand series was also guided by the educational standards movement in Egypt (El-Naggar 2004). Both the Hello! and Hand in Hand series were replaced in 2013 by the Time for English one (Rivers & Toyama, 2010) which is currently taught to all primary school graders in Egypt.

Table 1 A chronological summary of the textbook series taught in Egyptian governmental schools in the last few decades
Full size table

Four English textbook series have been taught to prep school students in Egypt since the late 1960s: Living English (Abdalla et al. 1967), Welcome to English (Bates & Higgens, 1986), Hello! (the first series) (Thompson & Dallas, 1996) and Hello! (the second series) (Thompson & Dallas, 2005). Likewise, four text series have been taught to secondary school students in Egypt since the early 1970s: Practice and Progress (Alexandar, 1967), Excel in English (Alexandar, 1986) Hello! (the first series) (Haines & Dallas, 1999) and Hello! (the second series) (Haines & Dallas, 2008). As can be noted, bringing about a change in English textbooks taught to students attending a particular stage was accompanied by a further curricular change at another one. Thus, all the changes made to English curricula in the three stages were related to each other. These changes were not limited to replacing a given textbook series with another, but also included textbook methodological features.

Despite these synchronizing curricular changes, there were some exceptional cases in which a particular curriculum change did not match the other. For example, Haridy (2012) noted that the content of Living English and Welcome to English textbook series- taught to prep school students from 1966 to 1987- was of Egyptian cultural orientations, but this was not the case with the content of Practice and Progress and Excel in English series- taught to secondary students from 1971 to 1999. This clearly shows that at that time the MOE planned to use curricula of an Egyptian culturally-oriented content with prep school students, and global-culturally-oriented ones with secondary school students. In other words, it seems that the MOE may have found this graded approach was an optimal one to teaching native culture and foreign cultures in English curricula. The MOE, however, has adopted another approach since 1999 by using more Egyptian-culturally-oriented textbook series at the secondary stage.

There have also been some changes in the language teaching methodological trends characterizing the textbooks series used. The textbook series used at the prep and secondary stages until the mid-1980s depended more on the structural approach and neglected communicative language teaching. The Welcome to English and Excel in English series used at the prep and secondary stages, respectively, include more communicative activities. These communicative activities increased to a greater extent in the first versions of the Hello! series used at the primary, prep and secondary stages in the 1990s. With the emergence of the standards movement in Egypt in the last decade, the Hello! series was reshaped to be much more communicative. Thus, the standards movement did not only guide the MOE to use the Hand in Hand series with primary graders but also contributed to using updated versions of the Hello! series with prep and secondary school students.

The standards movement in Egypt dates back to 2003 when the MOE organized the National Standards of Education which issued a 3-volume document in 2003 for educational standards in five areas, one of which was curriculum content and learning outcomes (MOE Standards Document 2003). This document was further extended in 2006. In relation to English language teaching, the standards set out in the 2003/2006 Egyptian MOE Standards Documents focus on communication as a main domain for teaching English as a foreign language. According to the document, “students must use English for social purposes. They need to socialize with peers and teachers, and use English for their enjoyment…The focus of language instruction is on functional, communicative English and all the four language skills are emphasised” (Vol. 2, p. 145). The document includes several standards emphasising communicative language teaching. For example: learners use English to interact inside the classroom; learners share and elicit personal information from others; learners express facts, opinions and emotions in English; learners work cooperatively with peers to achieve goals and help others in the process of learning.

Overall, the standards movement has a major influence on reconstructing English language curricula taught at the three pre-university stages in Egypt in the last 10 years. However, the question yet to be answered is: has this movement brought about the desired changes in language education in Egypt? The answer is that standards have not been effectively implemented yet in English language education at the pre-university stages in Egypt. In fact, two main factors account for the failure of the effective implementation of these standards in English language education in Egypt: (a) the measurability of standards-based performance descriptors; and (b) the testability of the various components in standards-based English curricula. Many of the English learners’ performance descriptors conceptualized in the 2003 MOE Standards Document and its 2006 revised version are not measurable. In other words, there is very little likelihood for mirroring these performance descriptors in English textbooks, implementing them in classroom practices or even finding possible ways for examining how they demonstrated by language learners. The following performance descriptors are examples of the non-measurable ones included in the 2003 MOE Standards Document:

  • Learners use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to achieve the learning outcomes in listening.

  • Learners use ICT to achieve the learning outcomes in speaking.

  • Learners practice higher level thinking skills while speaking.

  • Learners develop cognitive/meta-cognitive strategies to facilitate reading.

  • Learners use simple media sources in oral communications.

  • Learners use technology resources (internet, electronic dictionaries, thesaurus) to locate and identify the meaning of new words.

  • Learners appreciate the similarities and differences between the values, beliefs and practices of both the national and target cultures.

The testability issue is also a barrier to the effective implementation of the standards in English language education in Egypt. Despite the fact that this increasing emphasis on standards has generally helped in reconstructing English language textbooks used in Egyptian schools as has been explained above, a parallel reform has not been made to the examination system of English in Egyptian governmental schools. The written exams students sit for in these schools mainly test their abilities in grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and writing. These exams completely neglect testing students’ listening and speaking abilities. That is why this standards-based communicative curricular reform is not expected to serve as a catalyst for changes in English instruction in Egyptian schools.

Abdel Latif (2012) reported a study that supports this last hypothesis. Using a teacher questionnaire, interviews and classroom observation, he examined how the second version of Hello!- a standards-based communicative tectbook series- has changed Egyptian secondary school teachers’ classroom practices. The results indicate that the standards-based curricular reform in secondary school English in Egypt has not brought about the desired changes in teachers’ practices. Teachers were found to allocate much more instructional time and effort to grammar and vocabulary than to the other language skill components. This means that the standards-based communicative textbook series is taught non-communicatively. The interviews and questionnaire showed five factors have influenced teachers’ practices: washback, culture of teaching, inadequate time, students’ low English level, and lack of equipment and materials. Of all these factors, washback has been the most influential one. The main conclusion of Abdel Latif’s (2012) study is that for this standards-based communicative curricular reform to serve as a catalyst for changes in English language education in Egypt, there has to be another parallel reform in students’ examination system.

It is worth mentioning that in addition to the English textbook series mentioned above, the MOE has also assigned readers to secondary schools students and- recently- to third prep graders. Most of the readers used are mainly simplified versions of internationally known novels. If curricular reforms at the levels of English textbooks used in Egyptian public schools were motivated by the need to cope with worldwide trends in language education, the MOE’s selection of such readers was influenced by Egypt’s social orientations in a given period. For example, teaching Austen’s (1813) Pride and Prejudice to secondary school students in the late 1980s aimed at fostering their manners, upbringing, morality, and education. In the mid 1990s, Pride and Prejudice was replaced with Dickens (1854) Hard Times to highlight how industrialization can cause social and economic pressures. Meanwhile, introducing Vernes’s (1864) Journey to the Center of the Earth to third prep graders in the late 1990s stemmed from the need to enhance their science fiction. Recently, the MOE have tried to contribute to social and political reform in Egypt by teaching Swift’s (1726) Gulliver’s Travels and Dickens’s (1838) Oliver Twist- two novels highlighting social criticism issues- to secondary school students. Accordingly, it can be argued that Egypt’s social and cultural circumstances have influenced the teaching of particular readers to its prep and secondary students.

4 Conclusion: Future Perspectives

The above review shows the increasing attention that has been given to English education in Egyptian governmental schools. To cope with the type of intensive English instruction offered by private schools on the one hand and with the increasing use of English as a global language, the Egyptian MOE has adopted some reform policies to foster the quality of English education in public schools. These reforms included: founding national institutions and experimental schools providing intensive English instruction, introducing English education to primary graders, creating new policies in English language teacher recruitment and education, and bringing about some curricular changes and reforms. Establishing experimental schools in particular and introducing English to primary graders may be among the main policy reforms that contributed greatly to improving English education in Egypt. Though the two reforms helped narrow the gap between public and private school students in English acquisition, they are not without shortcomings. Experimental schools are only accessible to a small proportion of Egyptian students who reside in urban areas only and can afford their fees, and thus the English acquisition gap is still wide between private school students and the large proportion of students attending public schools. As for English education in public primary schools, it is still far lagging behind its counterpart in private schools. A main shortcoming of the governmental primary English education type is that it is not preceded by teaching English to kindergarten pupils. That is why more effective reforms should be made to pre-prep school English in Egypt.

Despite the recent reform made to prep and secondary school English curricula, the wide gap in English communication skills between public and experimental schools has not been narrowed yet. With such teaching context in which washback effect is so decisive, this standards-based communicative reform is likely to encounter attitudinal obstacles on the part of both teachers and learners who attend more to what is tested than to what is not. Further, classroom practices are expected to remain unchanged as long as the assessment procedures are not changed to test communicative skills (Kellaghan and Greaney 1992; Weir 1993). Integrating communicative skills in English school exams will not only bring about the desired changes in teachers’ practices, but it will also result in making an improvement in Egyptian students’ overall English proficiency. With integrating both listening and speaking skills in school English exams, Egyptian students will likely increase their use of English outside the school context and in everyday situations as a way of improving their communicative skills and preparing for their English exams. Accordingly, changing the English examination system in public prep and secondary school is the most powerful way to fostering communication skills acquisition. When assessment is used as a vehicle for driving instructional practices, teaching and testing become essentially synonymous (Menken; 2008; Qi 2005; Shohamy 2001). Meanwhile, overcoming other obstacles to the successful implementation of curriculum reform- such as large classroom size, lack of English classroom facilities- is necessary because the examination system cannot be singled out as the only determinant of classroom practices (Wall 2000).

English teacher education and recruitment in Egypt is an area that still needs more developmental policies. Teacher pre-service education programmes need to be enriched particularly with regard to fostering teachers’ linguistic skills. Recruitment policies should incorporate using more standardized specifications for the future English teacher. Meanwhile, expanding and enriching in-service teacher training programmes is another requirement for successful English education in Egypt.

More importantly, the MOE needs to find more innovative policies to close the gap between English education in public and private schools on the one hand and within public schools on the other. The existence of such parallel educational systems characterized mainly by the type of English instruction they provide can create future gaps in social interaction and communication, and jobs accessibility. This, in turn, can cause future social problem resulting mainly from social inequity. Therefore, Egypt is in a dire need for an educational system that provides its pre-university students with equal and efficient opportunities for learning English. It is hoped that the above suggested policies will pave the way for a further greater reform in English education in Egypt.

At last, it is worth noting that this chapter has not discussed the policy reforms made to English education in the secondary technical (hotel, industrial, agricultural or commercial) schools the special education schools in Egypt. The reason for not covering this issue is that there have hardly been any policy reforms made to English education in these schools with the exception of changing the textbooks from time to time. Apart from this, no concrete English education policy reforms have been made at the level of recruiting teachers, training them, or even changing the English language instruction quantitatively or qualitatively. Given the lack of English education policy reforms in these two types of schools, the Egyptian MOE should pay much more attention to closing this gap.