Incomes for thousands of teachers down after changes to high school curriculum

When the education minister announced last month that several subjects would no longer be an essential part of the school curriculum, Ali Abdou al-Sheikh, a psychology and philosophy teacher at a private school in Faisal, quickly realized that his income would be more than halved in the new school year.

Like many teachers, Sheikh expects that now that his subjects are no longer essential to the curriculum, fewer students will take private lessons from him, which will cost him a large portion of his income.

“I work for a private school where we can say that they don’t offer salaries. With my 14 years of experience, my salary is LE2,300 from the school and almost LE10,00 from private lessons — it’s a huge difference,” Sheikh told Mada Masr.

Working conditions for teachers are already tough: wages are low and do not increase with inflation.

The new Minister of Education, Mohamed Abdel Latif, has a series of reforms in august which included curriculum changes for secondary school students. Subjects such as a second foreign language, psychology, philosophy and geology will no longer count towards the final score for students taking thanaweya amma exams, part of what the minister described as an initiative to ease the burden on students and parents.

Students still take the courses, but receive a pass/fail grade. This grade does not count towards their total grade for the exam.

Teachers from public and private schools who spoke to Mada Masr explained that the changes to the curriculum will mainly affect participation in the private lessons they teach outside of school hours.

To compensate for the problems in Egypt, which are chronic underfunded education systemMany children at different stages of learning resort to private tutoring, especially in subjects that count towards their final exams. A 2014 research paper estimated that about 70 percent of the students were taking tutoring at the thanaweya amma level.

Removing designated subjects from high school students’ final grades will likely lead to them paying less attention to those subjects and no longer taking private lessons. “When the ministry marginalizes a subject, the student marginalizes it too,” said Abdel Rahman al-Nahrawy, a French teacher for all grades at a public school in Basyun.

Some parents seem happy with the changes and are angry about the expensive parallel education system, which is vital for enrolment to supplement the low quality of school classes, and that some say the “private lessons mafia” — accusing teachers of using the extra lessons to make bigger profits and making children dependent on these lessons in their learning. When teachers began protesting the curriculum changes on social media, using the hashtag, #No_To_The_Marginalization_of_Second_Foreign_Languages Parents responded by saying they deserved to lose income from private tuition because certain subjects were being taken out of the overall final grade.

Israa Abdel Nasser, a French teacher at a private school in Suez, responded to the negative reactions she received after a post she shared on social media. She told Mada Masr that parents enroll their children in these private lessons themselves and that many teachers offer the lessons at reasonable prices.

Sheikh, whose salary is LE2,300 at a private school — far lower than the officially approved minimum wage for the public and private sectors — explained that teachers have long been in a vulnerable position. “What made me decide to take private lessons? That my salary is so low,” he said.

Sheikh explained that teachers themselves would also prefer the Ministry of Education to end the private tutoring system. “We only need wages that give us a decent living, like in developed countries where teachers’ salaries are high. If the ministry gives us adequate wages, we won’t need to teach privately anymore,” he said.

The Ministry of Finance assigned LE8.1 billion in additional salaries for school teachers in February, which was reflected in salary increases ranging from LE325 to LE475 per month.

However, a former Ministry of Education official who spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity said that despite the increase, rewards and incentives in public schools are still valued based on the basic salary established in 2014 under the Civil Service Law. Deductions and taxes, on the other hand, are calculated in accordance with the 2024 law, the source said, leading to a large gap between income and expenditure and making it difficult for teachers to keep up with the rising cost of living.

Teaching in schools is also tough, with far too few staff relative to the number of children. In the state system, the Ministry of Education announced last year that 470,000 More teachers are needed in public schools across the country.

Now, tens of thousands of teachers already in the system will face more financial uncertainty because of the curriculum changes this year, the former education official estimated. “There is at least one teacher for each subject in every secondary school. So we have almost 50,000 teachers across the country who will be affected by the decision,” the source said.

Mada Masr contacted the Ministry of Education spokesperson to confirm how many teachers have been affected, but had not received a response by the time of publication.

Israa Abdel Nasser, another teacher at a private school in Suez, said she also earns a much lower income because of the curriculum change. “Last year, I had 20 to 30 students enrolled per class from seniors,” she told Mada Masr. “This year, there are only five students enrolled — and when I start classes, within two weeks they can go down to three or four students, maybe even one.”

Other schools, meanwhile, appear to be considering laying off staff. Alaa Badran, a French teacher at a private school in Cairo, described the situation at Mada Masr as one of the “disasters” caused by this year’s reforms.

He explained that since these subjects are no longer included in students’ final grades, the minimum number of teachers for the subjects that have been removed will be reduced. This has led to some schools having to reduce their teaching staff.

Israa Abdel Nasser’s job in Suez was among those at risk. She told Mada Masr that she was on the verge of being fired shortly after the minister’s decisions were made.

“I received a call from the school administration saying that I had to sign my resignation letter within three days. I was confused and asked them if I had done something wrong because my contract is valid for the next school year,” Nasser said.

If the school had actually let her go, Nasser explained, she could have filed a lawsuit and won, because of the arbitrary nature of her dismissal.

“What should I do after this decision? Should I suddenly stay home?” she added.

Another teacher who spoke to Mada Masr anonymously said that after the decision he was deliberately marginalized and excluded from important school meetings.

In an attempt to control the situation, the Ministry of Education has notified all educational administrations of the possibility for teachers to “change their job title”by switching from teaching their subject to another subject determined by the ministry.

Teachers who spoke to Mada Masr explained that French teachers can switch to teaching English, while psychology and philosophy teachers can switch to teaching social studies.

“This is their strategy: ‘You are affected? Teach another language,’” said Sheikh, explaining that the plan is aimed at teachers whose subjects have been removed from students’ classes to teach another subject, thus compensating for the chronic shortage of teachers in the education system that the ministry is trying to address.

Some choose to do so, but others, including Badran and Sheikh, desperately want to supplement their income and have started looking for jobs in sectors unrelated to education, such as supply chain or accounting, they say.

The anonymous teacher also takes on additional work. He describes acquaintances “working in jobs like pharmacies or as taxi drivers to support their needs, while I have started a small poultry farming project to generate some income.”

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