B.H., a third-year student at Awad Al-Sayed Girls' Secondary School in Aswan City, has been grappling with a teacher shortage crisis since she began secondary school. The issue arose in 2022 when the school lacked a physics teacher for over a month and a half during her first year. B.H. explains that the school had only two teachers covering three academic stages, while there were six first-year classes.
Although the school attempted to resolve the issue by appointing a new teacher, the lost time disrupted the curriculum schedule, forcing the teacher to rush through the material before the semester ended. This situation compelled B.H. to rely on private lessons to bridge the gap, but the impact was more detrimental to her peers who couldn't afford private tutoring.
Two years later, the crisis persists, as acknowledged by two ministries in Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly's government. On November 11, 2024, the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs issued a statement on the outcome of a Senate session that discussed the Ministry of Education's efforts to address the teacher shortage crisis.
Per-Class Basis Teachers
The statement highlighted several measures taken by the Ministry of Education to address the teacher shortage. These include launching a competition to appoint 30,000 teachers annually for two-year terms, allowing classroom teachers to teach basic subjects, regulating the status of education specialists, and employing 50,000 teachers on a per-shift basis with a financial reward of 50 EGP per class. Additionally, graduates assigned to public service without financial compensation are being utilized to fill the teacher deficit, which stood at 469,860 according to the Minister of Education at the time.
The shortage of teachers has led to a reduction in the number of sessions for certain subjects. For instance, the new statistics subject introduced this year for third secondary grade students only offers one two-hour session per week, instead of the usual two sessions, due to the lack of sufficient teachers. This situation was explained to B.H. and her classmates by their statistics teacher.
Regression
This aligns with the data from the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, which reported a significant decline of 642 teachers in Aswan Governorate, from a total of 17,099 teachers in 2023 compared to 16,457 in 2022. To address the persistent teacher shortage, some subjects, such as German and psychology, were canceled. Consequently, students have increasingly relied on private lessons to ensure academic success.
The crisis has also impacted Al-Azhar schools, which are overseen by Al-Azhar and operate independently of the Ministry of Education in terms of supervision and curricula. The teacher shortage forced "Karima Gamal," a pseudonym, to increase her weekly English classes at an Al-Azhar preparatory school in Aswan from 12 to 18.
Karima noted that English is less affected by the crisis compared to subjects like mathematics and Arabic, where teachers are forced to handle a greater number of lessons each week.
Al-Azhar Education
"The shortage of teachers in Al-Azhar schools has become more complicated due to the lack of new hirings for years," commented Karima, expressing frustration. "The proposed solutions were largely limited to burdening teachers with additional classes without any financial compensation."
In response to the increased workload without compensation, the Al-Azhar Education Department announced in November 2024 its need to hire teachers on a per-class basis for the 2024/2025 academic year across all governorates. The statement, reviewed by Ain Al-Aswani, indicated that Aswan requires 308 teachers in various specializations in Al-Azhar education.
Statistical data reveal an imbalance in the number of teachers and students in Al-Azhar schools. The number of students in Al-Azhar schools in Aswan across different educational stages reached 36,039 for the 2022/2023 academic year, a significant increase from 30,149 students in 2021/2022. However, this rise in student numbers was accompanied by a decrease in the number of teachers from 2,683 to 2,371 over the same period.
Karima explained that the Al-Azhar Education Administration addressed this imbalance by merging multiple classrooms into one, in an attempt to mitigate the teacher shortage. This approach, however, resulted in increased student density within the classrooms.
Quality of Education
This was corroborated by data from the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics for the years 2022/2023 and 2021/2022. Despite an increase in the number of schools in Aswan Governorate by 22 in 2023, totaling 1,360 schools compared to 1,338 in 2022, the data also revealed a decrease in the number of classrooms by 76, with 9,021 classrooms in 2023 compared to 9,097 in 2022.
In statements made by the Minister of Education in 2024, "quality of education" was emphasized as the central theme of his development plan, which included measures such as merging classes and increasing the number of classes assigned to teachers.
In practice, the implementation of the “Education Development” plan has had a negative impact on educators like Karima, who stated, "the number of students in one class has reached 55. This overcrowding makes it impossible for teachers to move freely in the classroom to explain lessons, as student desks nearly reach the board. It also hampers students' ability to interact or ask questions, negatively affecting their understanding of the material."
The development plan also introduced several measures, including monthly tests and weekly assessments. According to Hanaa Ahmed, the mother of two students in middle and high school, her children struggle due to the teacher shortage. Many schools may not have teachers for certain subjects until weeks after the school year starts, reducing the time available for teaching the curriculum. This intensifies the teaching process and affects students' comprehension of the material, as monthly tests are not postponed to accommodate the delayed start.
Private Lessons
Despite the Ministry of Education's efforts to curb private lessons, the ongoing teacher shortage crisis has led parents to increasingly rely on them. Hanaa explains, "in schools, teachers must complete the curriculum before the semester ends, even if they start late due to the lack of teachers. This forces me to depend on private lessons, which is not just an issue at my children's school but a widespread problem. Private lessons are the best solution, especially for subjects like mathematics and languages, which my children find difficult, to make up for the lack of attention to students' educational needs in public schools."
Marwa Abdullah, a pseudonym, is a mathematics teacher who found work in a private school after multiple unsuccessful attempts to secure a position in public schools. Sharing her experience since graduating in 2020, she explains, "I initially decided to participate in a volunteer program at an experimental school. Under the established system, I was not entitled to any financial compensation, but I volunteered in the hope that this would improve my chances of being accepted into the teaching competition, which supposedly opens the door to employment after a period of volunteering."
Out of Field of Expertise
Through her experience, Marwa confirmed that teachers' lack of specialization often led to problems in the quality of education provided to students. She explained, "the social studies teacher had to teach mathematics to the first primary grades, which resulted in errors, especially with the new curriculum that required a different method of explanation."
During her semester-long volunteer period, Marwa taught 15 classes per week in a primary school with about 27 classes, working alongside nine other teachers in the same subject. In the second semester, she participated in the work-per-session competition, teaching 18 classes, each with around 50 students, in collaboration with two other teachers. Despite her significant effort, her total wage for the semester amounted to only about 2,150 EGP.
This wage is in violation of the Prime Minister's decision issued on March 3rd and the National Wages Council's decision No. 27 of 2024, which set the minimum wage for employees and workers in state agencies, effective since last May.
Conversely, the general budget reports for the fiscal year 2023/2024 revealed that the total allocations for education amounted to approximately 229.891 billion EGP, representing about 2.35% of the GDP of 9.8 trillion EGP for the year 2022/2023. This figure is below the 4% of GDP stipulated in the 2014 Constitution, which mandates the state to allocate this percentage for education spending.
Education Allocations
Although the state has increased education allocations in the new budget for the fiscal year 2024/2025 to 294 billion EGP, the GDP for the current year has not yet been determined. According to the Ministry of Planning, Economic Development, and International Cooperation's statement in October 2024, the real GDP growth rate declined to 2.4% in the last quarter of the fiscal year 2023/2024, resulting in an annual growth rate of 2.4%.
Confronted with the teacher shortage crisis and the conclusion of her volunteer experience, Marwa, a mathematics teacher, attempted to apply for the 30,000-teacher competition but was not accepted, without any explanation for the rejection.
Consequently, she decided to work in private schools, which do not face a teacher shortage crisis. The primary advantage of private schools is their ability to hire quickly based on supply and demand, ensuring Marwa secured employment swiftly. However, private schools offer low wages and do not guarantee job security or any employment rights. According to Marwa, the outcome is the same in both public and private school settings.
