Students for a democratic society
The US is quietly promoting democracy in Egypt by helping to reform the country’s primary schools and teaching young Egyptians to question authority
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt --In the cramped, bare classroom at Dr. Mohamed Hafez Ghanem Primary School the nine planets in the solar system struggled one recent morning to perfect their elliptical orbits. The third graders holding paper cutouts of the planets didn't realize it, but their science class was also a lesson in democracy brought to them, in part, by the letters U, S, and A.
The school was among the first to participate in what has become a $128 million Education Reform Project sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to improve primary education across Egypt. One element of the initiative, launched four years ago, is the concept of ''democracy education''teaching Egyptian students and educators what most Americans take for granted: how to disagree, how to debate, and how to delegate power as well as assume leadership. These skills are developed as children studying anything from Arabic to astronomy engage in group work, question the material their teacher presents, and internalize concepts by teaching them to each other.
The education reform initiative coincides with the stirrings of political reform: Just as children in the project's target schools learn to stage debates and challenge their once unassailable teachers, their parents are gearing up to participate in Egypt's first-ever multi-candidate presidential election in September. In the past week, political dialogue has hit the streets with a series of demonstrations, both pro- and anti-government, staged throughout Cairo despite suffocating police control.
Training the next generation how to think critically, some US officials believe, is crucial to the spread of democracy in the region. ''President Bush's administration is critically interested in education as one of several tools to speed up democratic reform,'' explained Kenneth Ellis, director of USAID in Egypt, in a recent interview at his Cairo headquarters. ''It has implications for economy, health, scientific research in general. It is the component that unlocks these other subjects.''
Of the USAID operations across the globe, Egypt's is second in size only to Iraq's. And according to Ellis, USAID dedicates at least a quarter of its yearly Egypt budget (a reported $575 million for 2005) to improving education. Around 40 percent of that portion goes to the ERP.
American influence in the Middle East is an increasingly contentious issue throughout the region, and the perception of unwanted American interference in Egyptian society and politics is a sensitive subject here. Egypt's foreign minister Ahmed Abul Gheit told The Washington Post on March 9 that his country would not allow itself to be prodded toward political reform by the Americans. ''The pace will be set by Egypt and the Egyptian people and only the Egyptian people,'' he said.
''The Egyptian and Arab societies have developed deep resentment for, and a resistance to, strategies and programs imposed from above and outside,'' explained Louay Safi, a founding member of the US-based Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy. ''Outside pressure by democratic nations should complement, rather than displace, the ongoing internal social and political struggle in place.''
In Parliament, USAID funding is a reliable target of criticism for parties across the political spectrum. Members of the leftist Tagammu Party claim USAID grants have created a class of corrupt businessmen to whom the money is funnelled, while the Muslim Brotherhood, an influential Islamist group, decries US attempts to dilute or destroy Islamic culture. Last month, a spokesman for the Brotherhood charged the minister of education with trying to Westernize school curricula by reducing references to Jews in Koranic readings and increasing English language instruction.
Most recently, a US State Department grant of $1 million to six Egyptian NGOs involved in political reform has whipped up a storm of protest, even from those groups who might benefit most from opening up the political process. Two weeks ago, the leader of the longest-standing opposition party, the Wafd, called for Egypt to reject USAID assistance entirely.
Madiha El Safty, professor of sociology at the American University of Cairo, says the clear message is that for reform, whether in politics or education, to be successful, it must be an Egyptian process. ''Any change or any reform ... has to come from the culture itself,'' she said. ''I believe that the whole idea has to come from Egypt.''
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In an important way, the Education Reform Project does come from Egypt. First developed in Alexandria, based on an idea the city's governor took to USAID in the hopes of receiving funding, the project has spread to six additional governorates.
There is little doubt that improvement was needed. Five decades of education reform efforts by the central government have had little impact. Egyptian education has long been characterized by classrooms filled with neat rows of students, their attention riveted to a blackboard at which a teacher lectures without pause. Questions are discouraged, and state-formulated exams represent the only method for testing knowledge. A 2002 report by the ruling National Democratic Party documented poor teacher qualifications, disregard for student activities, and evaluation methods which only tested students' ability to memorize.
''There is no creativity; there is no critical thinking,'' explained El Safty. ''There is no training in problem solving.''
Both the Egyptians and the Americans insist that the Education Reform Project has not simply been imported from America by USAID, but that Egyptians took the initiative. ''A group of prominent figures in Alexandria found they could help improve education if they had the authority to do so,'' USAID's Ellis said.
Ellis describes how Alexandria's governor, Abdel Salam El Mahgoub, collaborated with his local branch of the Ministry of Education, the Alexandria Development Center (an NGO), and USAID to outline the project, which would center on decentralizing decision-making authority, giving greater autonomy to local communitieseven to teachers in the classroom.
While the impetus for reform came from the Egyptian side, its implementation is primarily in the hands of American contractors. Institutions like the Washington-based Academy for Educational Development and the University of Pittsburgh are training Egyptian teachers and school administrators based on American-style teaching and administration methods. But they keep a low profile while Egyptian government and members of the community in each city decide what works for them.
Ahmed Gad, a second-grade Arabic teacher at the Mohamed Hafez school in Alexandria, which participated in the pilot, was one of 60 Egyptian teachers from Alexandria USAID sent to America for training. Gad learned to give his students as much group work as he could. He now lets them teach each other, often pairing the weakest and strongest students together.
''Before this project, I just taught the material,'' he said. ''Now I give students more responsibilities,'' he explained. ''My role is just a facilitator, a guide.''
According to Serag Hewala, deputy of the Educational Reform Division at the Ministry of Education's Alexandria arm, the reforms have encouraged greater community involvement. Men and women with no children of their own in the public schools have joined the project's school boards, and businessmen have donated computers and additional funding. Where previously there existed what Hewala called ''a gap between the vision of the society and the vision of the school itself,'' the two goals are now linked, he says.
The focus on homegrown reform ideas spared the project some of the condemnation other US-sponsored activities invite. Alexandria's teachers and administrators, if they acknowledge any American role in what they do now, say they are simply grateful to USAID for the tools it gave them.
''Policy is a thing and feelings are another thing,'' Hewala said. ''If people didn't accept [American aid], we wouldn't have it.''
''We got a lot of benefits,'' said Gad, who claims he doesn't think too much about the politics of the project. ''We don't care about America.''
Emily Flitter is a writer living in Cairo. 