The paradox of education and unemployment in Egypt

This paper addresses the paradox of the Egyptian education system which the author argues is incapable of providing markets with the quantity and quality of educated individuals most in demand.

The main findings of the paper are:

• Egyptian educational outcomes are not consistent with market demand; the education system is producing the wrong mix, but also the wrong quality
• Egypt has invested heavily in expanding education, but these efforts paid off in greater enrollment, across gender and geographical locations, focusing on quantity and not on quality
• the link between education and employment is broken and equity is also being eroded by the rising private cost of education in public schools

On the basis of the preceding analysis, the author recommends the following course of action:

• the development and dissemination of objective indicators about school performance and student actual attainment of knowledge
• reforms are needed in the credit market to make it possible for students to borrow for education, using their future earnings as collateral
• with respect to equity, creative mechanisms are required to overcome the false entitlement of free education and to limit the subsidy only to those in need
• attention should be given to the informal sector, which is the most important source of employment other than government
• the government may find it more efficient to contract out to the private sector such services as the publication of textbooks, the delivery of meals, and the cleaning of schools
• on-going reforms to improve the training of teachers, the physical quality of schools, and upgrading of the curriculum should all continue as a constant process

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