Rant of the Year: 13 Questions We Have for Egypt’s International Schools
Let’s start by saying: over, over, ya Masr, over. Every parent’s living nightmare has become finding a school that fits the vision they have for their child, without taking a bank loan or asking their parents to help with the fees. Schools have been ruining lives for the past six or seven years and enough is enough.
We legitimately have questions for all of you overrated, over-priced, with a stick up your a**es Egyptian schools
1. Let’s start with the interview: How the hell do you expect three-year-old kids to be well-behaved socialites in a school assessment after meeting you for only 10 minutes?
2. We walk into a building a child has never seen before. Suddenly, a stranger comes talk to him and tries to take him in a room alone. You seriously expect every child to be okay with that situation? Just because he doesn’t talk to strangers, it doesn’t mean he has separation anxiety at three years old.
3. It is a scientific fact that a bilingual approach can sometimes cause speech delay, so why do you conduct the whole interview in English, French or German? Should a child be deprived of a chance because he says shagara instead of tree? Should he read Shakespeare as well?
4. A kid couldn’t pass a string through some beads or was too shy to interact with a stranger, so he gets rejected. Will you ask them to knit scarves in the assessments by the year 2020?
5. Why do you expect children to master skills in the assessment that should be taught in schools, not in nurseries?
6. And after all the stress, a wasta actually works. So should we start looking for someone who knows the school’s owner or his sister before we even get pregnant?
7. Now, we can only blame ourselves for choosing a school with a 60,000 EGP annual fee. We’re starving ourselves and changing our whole lifestyle so we can offer our child the life he deserves. Shouldn’t the annual fee raise not exceed 7%? Why do you manipulate the situation by raising it by 20% for kindergarten?
8. You try to get rid of every student who doesn’t concentrate enough. Do you want all your students to be 100% perfect? Do you not accept or support any struggling children?
9. Why do your students feel a sense of entitlement and look down on their friends in national schools?
10. Why do you treat parents like shit?
11. Why are you assuming or diagnosing students with ADD or ADHD whenever they misbhave?
12. What has happened to this world? And when will the government do something about this insanity other than forcing taxes that will only increase the fees and make things worse?
13. But then again, the biggest question remains: What is it that you offer that is so exceptional and worthy of two years of fear that our kids might not be good enough for you and receive a rejection e-mail?
WE SAID THIS: Don’t miss How Much Are You Paying for Your Child’s Private Education in Egypt?.
