The new academic year began on 18 September, with many parents complaining about changes in the curriculum, a shortage of text books, and classrooms ill fit to receive pupils.

More than 17 million students have started the new school year, though only 70 per cent of school text books were ready. No books are currently available for grades six and nine, though the minister of education, Ahmed Zaki Badr, has said they will be ready by the beginning of next week. Nor are students able to supplement the ministry's books from other sources.

"External education book publishers now need to be licensed by the Ministry of Education. The process will take a year, perhaps more. In the meantime students will have to depend solely on school textbooks," says Adel Shokri, the Education Ministry's consultant for administrative development. Of the 1,006 external books already reviewed by the ministry's specialised committees, 141 were judged inadequate.

The school year will extend for 199 days, 105 in the first term and 94 in the second. Mid-year holiday will start on 29 January 2011 and the school year will end on 26 May of the same year. Half term breaks of a week have been introduced for the first time, between 13 to 18 November, and 23 to 28 April.

This year sees the opening of 290 new schools to supplement Egypt's 40,868 existing schools. Deputy Minister of Education Reda Abu Serie revealed that the ministry has created a hotline, 62191, for parents to contact the ministry as well as an e-mail, minister@email.emoe.org, through which parents can send complaints. "These complaints will be thoroughly studied by a committee at the Ministry of Education," said Abu Serie. He also confirmed that the minister's surprise visits to schools across the country will continue. "I can visit any school at anytime, so they had better be prepared," Badr earlier told the media.

Days before the beginning of the school year Badr held a videoconference with senior education officials across Egypt to check on preparations for the academic year.

"Reforming Egypt's education system is top of the Education Ministry's agenda. The ministry intends to remove all superfluous material from school textbooks," says Abu Serie.

Lists of sections of the curricula that have been canceled have been sent to all schools. Religion, Arabic and science curricula are being revised by specialists in each field. 

"School textbooks will reflect the changes by the beginning of the 2011-2012 academic year. This year's textbooks were printed last year and so the new changes are not included," said Abu Serie.

Curricula reform will not be restricted to government schools but will extend to language and advanced learning courses at private and experimental schools. Of Egypt's 1.2 million school teachers 800,000 have already received training in the new school curricula. Training for the remaining teachers will take place during the current and next school years.

"Training has taken place in cooperation with national and international agencies, including the Ministry of Administrative Development and UNESCO. Teachers have been trained on the scientific material itself, as well as using advanced technological aids in their teaching process. Ordinary blackboards have been replaced in most schools by smart boards," said Shokri.

On the first day of the academic year parents gathered in front of some primary schools to protest against overcrowded classes. In the most extreme cases there were not enough chairs for the pupils to sit. A handful of schools postponed the beginning of the school years due to the shortage in textbooks, including three new schools, built at a cost of LE8.5 million, in Minya.

The governor of Ismailia, Abdel-Gelil El-Fakharani, promised parents that the seat shortage would be solved in the next few days. El-Fakharani has also instructed education department officials to prevent street vendors from working near to schools and has given orders to security patrols to prevent any harassment of school girls.

Al-Ahram Weekly