Title: Community Involvement in Education in Egypt: the Role of School Board of Trustees
1Community Involvement in Education in Egypt the
Role of School Board of Trustees
- Dr. Ahmed El-Zeki
- Mansoura University, Egypt
To be presented in the seminar of UCCER ( UNESCO
Centre for Comparative Education Research )
University of Nottingham, UK Wednesday , 14th
March 2007
2 3Egypts Map
4Egypts Profile
- Location
- Land Area
- Capital city
- Population
- Climate
- History
- Religion
- Major Exports
5Egyptpast and present
6Egypts Education System
7Egypts Education System
- Egypt has one of the largest education systems in
the world, as classified by the World Bank
(2002), - with 16 million students (over 90 percent
enrolled in public schools), - 7 million in primary education, 4 million in
preparatory education, 3 million in secondary
education and 2 million in tertiary education - 807,000 teachers,
- and 37,000 schools
8Community involvement
- Community involvement aims at encouraging people
to become agents, rather than being treated as
target groups or passive recipients of
benefits.
9Community involvement
- Community participation has been recognized as an
important and significant strategy for an
efficient and effective utilization of limited
resources in order to identify and solve problems
in the education sector and to provide quality
education for children. (Pailwar and Mahajan,
2005)
10- "Without close articulation of and involvement
with the family and larger community, schools
will ultimately fail" (Family Involvement
Partnership for Learning 1996, p. 14)
11School the Community
- The interactions between school and the community
have two dimensions to bring the community into
the school and to bring the school into the
community. (Patterson and Harwood, 1995)
12- The benefits of improving community
collaborations with schools are Davis, Deborah
(2000) - Schools feel they are getting help from multiple
sources - Communities can unite around the shared
responsibility of educating youth, and schools
are able to expand the number of positive role
models - Community businesses can make people aware of
their support for schools and families
13- The Six Types of Partnerships Framework,
developed by Joyce Epstein (1995) and her
colleagues - Type 1 Parenting
- Type 2 Communications
- Type 3 Volunteering
- Type 4 Learning at Home
- Type 5 Decision-making
- Type 6 Collaborating with the Community
14- Community involvement in education in the
Egyptian context - The MOE has paid much attention to the following
(NCERD, 2004)
15- Getting the civil society to understand the
problems and impediments from which education
suffers, sharing the responsibility of helping
schools to improve the quality of educational
product, and appreciating the achievements
realized by the educational institution. - Maximizing the benefit from the sources utilized
in the educational process and raising material
support for schools. - Inducing both teachers and students to improve
the quality of education and creating better
attitudes of parents and community towards
school.
16National Standards of Education
In Egypt
- A national project aiming to set comprehensive
quality education standards in Egypt and raising
awareness about quality learning. - According to this project, each school has the
autonomy to decide on the processes/strategies by
which these goals and outcomes will be
accomplished.
17Fields of the Document
- The Effective School
- The Educator
- Excellent Ed. Management
- Community participation
- Curriculum and Learning Outcome
18DOMAINS OF COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION
Partnership with families Serving the
community Mobilizing the resources of local
community Voluntary work Public relations and
communication with community
19First Domain Partnership with families
- Encourage participation of parents in educational
decision-making and their effective involvement
in drawing up a future vision for the school and
in the implementation of its various programs - Facilitate communication between parents and
members of the community working in the school - Inform parents of the educational and learning
practices that take place in school - Encourage parents to voice their opinions on the
educational service provided to their children.
20Second Domain Serving the community
- Determine the needs of the community from school
as well as making plans for community
participation and evaluating them. - Use buildings and school resources for providing
services and social activities - Implement social programs and projects in the
local community .
21Third Domain Mobilizing the resources of the
local community
- Utilize available community resources to
implement school educational programs - Obtain material assistance for educational
institutions and schools from the local
community, companies, and business community
22Fourth Domain Voluntary work
- Implement programs encouraging voluntary work
inside and outside school - Create programs to help volunteers participate in
school projects - Provide the mechanisms to organize voluntary work
for parents and citizens to support the
educational and social activities in the school
23Fifth Domain Public relations and communication
with community
- Adopt strategies and regulations encouraging
interaction among members of the educational
institution and ensure its continuity - Conduct regular communication between the
educational administration and the other sectors
in the community. - Adopt strategies and elaborate regulations
encouraging and ensuring interaction with the
media to achieve performance
24- The MOE set out to consolidate the experiment of
Boards of Trustees to emphasize the importance of
community participation in taking the educational
decision and to enable the community to
contribute effectively to forming the future
policy for schools and implementing diverse
programs. - Thus, according to the MOE the BOT is intended to
play a vital role in supporting the educational
process in schools.
25- The BOT is formed by a group of
- businessmen,
- members of NGOs,
- active persons in public work,
- parents,
- and teachers.
26- Methodology
- Data collection instrument semi structured
interviews as a research instrument employed in
the qualitative analysis. - Research sample, an interview schedule was
conducted with a group of 63 teachers, deputy
head teachers, head teachers from nine secondary
schools in Damietta Governorate in Egypt. - The interviewees selected from each school to
represent the school administration (head
teachers and deputy head teachers), school staff
(head subject teachers and newly appointed
teachers), and BOT members. - The interview included two main parts about the
role of BOT in community involvement in
education. The first part investigated how
efficient the role of the BOT in community
involvement is. The second part focused on the
barriers that limit this role.
27- Findings
- Early Findings of the study are organised to
include - First Efficiency of the BOT participation in
schools - Second Barriers and problems that impede the
effective involvement of the BOT in schools
28- First Efficiency of the BOT participation in
schools - The majority of the interviewees confirmed that
the BOT is very important and involved in many
ways. - The BOT helps in the community and field services
and provides school with some of its needs either
by the donations given by the BOT members
themselves or by organizing campaigns for fund
raising. - The BOT can help in getting some of the most
difficult bureaucratic approvals as some of its
members occupy highly outstanding positions which
enable them to obtain such approvals.
29- The BOT members always offer their services and
ready to help. Most BOT members are cooperative
and very interested in the educational process A
female HT. - The BOT contributes to moving into
decentralization ( for instance buying apparatus
and lab materials) - The BOT takes some actions over a wide range of
students behavioral problems such as
talkativeness, reluctance to work hard,
absenteeism which is very obvious in secondary
schools. - The BOT members attempts to solve schools
problems, if any, with the Directorate or any
other authorities in the Governorate.
30- Examples of the BOT Participation as viewed by
the interviewees - Participating in forming the school vision and
mission. - Organizing celebrations to honor the talented and
distinguished students and celebrations on some
religious occasions such as the Prophets
birthday, - Building and furnishing a prayer room,
- Awarding outstanding teachers and encouraging
them to give more, - Maintenance of the school buildings (e.g.
toilets),
31- Holding some awareness lectures for students
(e.g. absenteeism, drug abuse) - Providing the school garden with its needs,
planting trees - Organizing and sponsoring cultural contests
financially, - Taking some action against naughty students,
- Hiring some part time teachers,
- Increasing the school financial resources,
- Moving bad teachers from school
32- Some problems limiting the role of BOT
- Some of the BOT decisions cannot be put into
effect. - There was some evidence that some HTs viewed the
BOT as a source of threat to their authority. - Some of the BOT members were viewed as rather
negative. - One participant especially the BOT head exerts a
greater degree of control over the direction and
content of discussions in meetings. - Some members do not attend meetings regularly.
33- Members who should be elected are sometimes
chosen with no real election in some schools! - Lack of awareness of the BOT role among school
staff, parents, and community members. - Some members of the BOT are just primarily
concerned for the welfare of their own child, and
that is what motivates them to be involved in
school events.
34 35- Thank you
-
- Comments and Discussion
36(No Transcript)