[Generations Series]: A Scoop of Gen X’s Education

By Mohamed Karrem

The pre-revolution education wasn’t as affordable as nowadays with the exception of Al-Azhar and Al-Kuttab, which were limited to Al-Quran and the Arabic language only, but under the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser, education became a central part of the modernizing project, and in the 1950s, he phased in free education for all Egyptian citizens, starting with schools and later extending this to include higher education.

Why Gen X is too loyal?

Nasser’s regime decided to deepen the idea of belonging to the homeland and seeding the concept of pan-Arabism through the reformed curriculum. He also offered guarantees that all university graduates would be able to find employment in the public sector, a promise that contributed to a rapid increase in university enrolment rates in the following decades.  

The Golden Age of Education

It’s such a shame for us when Egypt still lives on the achievements of education graduates in the 1960s, such as Ahmed Zewail and Magdy Yacoub, which clarifies why most of generation X who was born in the 60s is more educated than who was born in the 70s, especially with many campaigns to support girls’ education, which led to report that education in Egypt is no less developed than education in major European countries, but it’s known that life has its ups and downs, and unfortunately, ups never last forever.

The dawn of hijab age

As you are aware that the Muslim Brotherhood had a huge influence on generation X especially in the 70s? This time they raised the bar to a higher level by working on separating girls from boys to get to the single-sex education, and convincing girls by wearing hijab, ending with forcing and fighting anyone who opposes their beliefs. 

Gen Xers against the private education

During the reign of the late President Mohamed Anwar Sadat, Egypt had witnessed a new educational deterioration represented in two main elements: The “Open Door” Policy and the Muslim Brotherhood. As you are aware that Egypt wasn’t ready for the “Open Door” policy yet, which led most businessmen to invest in the private education, simply because it was a risk-free investment with needless experts. Doubtlessly, the demand for private education in the 1970s and until today has increased due to the overcrowding in the public education sector, which led to high classroom density and the running of a high proportion of schools in two and three periods due to the lack of new government schools to accommodate the increasing numbers. 

WE SAID THIS: CLICK TO CHECK THE STORY OF SHAPING THE EGYPTIAN GENERATIONS’ MENTALITIES FROM GEN X TO GEN Z.