> **[the]{.smallcaps}**
>
> **[Girls' Education Initiative]{.smallcaps}**

**[in Egypt]{.smallcaps}**

***[Ronald G. Sultana]{.smallcaps}***

2 December 2007

**[Table of Contents]{.smallcaps}**

[**Preface---***Malak Zaalouk*]{.mark}

[**Foreword---***Moushira Khattab*]{.mark}

**1. Introduction: Girls, Education and Development**

*Getting girls into schools*

*Girls' education benefits development*

*Root causes of the gender gap in education*

*The need for multi- and inter-sectoral approaches*

*UNGEI*

**2. The Girls' Education Initiative in Egypt**

*The dynamic complexity of innovations*

*Education in Egypt*

*Research Methodology*

*Interviews*

*Class observations*

*Research limitations*

**3. The Inception of Egypt's GEI: The Planning Phase**

*Beginnings*

*Commitment to partnership*

*The planning phase*

*Managing structures*

*The strategic role of the NCCM*

*Starting the ball rolling*

*The needs assessment workshops*

*Community response*

*Reasons for the gender gap offered by the community*

*Setting up Local Voluntary Task Forces*

*The LTFs at work*

*Drawing up action plans*

*Specificity of different governorates*

*Finalizing the action plans*

*Consolidating the action plans in a comprehensive vision for GEI*

**4. Launching GEI and building girl-friendly schools**

*The official launch*

*The implementing NGOs*

*Expanding girl-friendly schools*

*Funding partners*

*Criteria for girl-friendly schools*

*Problems with land*

*Other challenges*

*Impact of GEI schools on the community*

**5. Getting the Girls to School**

*From having buildings...to having schools*

*Awareness-raising and community mobilization*

*Education Committees: the link between the school and the community*

*GEI's poverty alleviation pillar*

**6. Quality Education and Pedagogy in the GEI classroom**

*The 'quality' challenge*

*Girl-friendly classrooms*

*The physical set-up*

*The importance of educational resources*

*The facilitators of GEI classrooms*

*The curriculum*

*Assessment*

*The organisation of the school day*

*The pedagogy used*

**7. Training, Monitoring and Supervision as a Key to Quality**

*The paradigm shift in teaching and learning*

*Skills and spirit transfer from the Community Schools*

*Selecting and training facilitators for quality teaching*

*Pre-service and in-service training*

*Challenges concerning training*

*The monitoring and evaluation role played by supervisors*

*The overall monitoring role played by the NCCM secretariat*

*The GEI spirit---a guarantor of quality*

**8. Impact, Challenges and Way Forward**

*The Initiative---6 years later*

*The ripple effect*

*"Filtering through"*

*Challenges and way forward*

*The challenge posed by the 'disconnect' phenomenon*

*The 'disconnect' from community values*

*The 'disconnect' from mainstream education*

*The challenge of going to scale*

*Organisational and management problems*

*The lure of compromises during scaling up*

*Epilogue*

**References**

**[the]{.smallcaps}**

**[Girls' Education Initiative]{.smallcaps}**

**[in Egypt]{.smallcaps}**

***[Ronald G. Sultana]{.smallcaps}***

**1 Introduction: Girls, Education and Development**

*Getting girls into schools*

This publication sets out to give testimony to an outstanding and
inspirational educational initiative in Egypt that, very simply, is
succeeding in meeting a major objective that many developing countries
are aspiring to: getting girls into schools. In what follows I will be
documenting various aspects of this initiative, placing it in the
context of the UN's millennium goals, and showing how girls' education
benefits not only their own development, but that of their community
and, ultimately, of their country. I will also be describing, in some
detail, the way the Girls' Education Initiative---or GEI for short---was
born, how it developed, the challenges it had to confront, the way these
were faced, the disappointments and the joys that were experienced by
those involved with the initiative, and the achievements it has been
able to make since its birth six years ago.

Because the aspiration here is to present a three-dimensional account,
one which captures the dynamic and iterative nature of innovations and
of educational change processes, the testimony we have to present is
also complex and multi-faceted. To present it in any other way would be
to fail to do it justice. It is however important to highlight the key
narrative thread that runs throughout this document, in order to ensure
that wood is not missed for the trees. Thus, if we had to portray the
key elements of Egypt's GEI in broad brushstrokes, we would characterise
it as, very simply, the building of schools that provide quality
education to primary age girls that have hitherto, due to poverty,
ignorance, prejudice, early marriage, fear or some other reason, been
kept away from formal learning.

But these schools are, of course, special.

They are special in that they are built in villages and hamlets, as
close as possible to the girls' residences, thus overcoming many of the
reasons that deprive girls of education. The schools are built after
intense community mobilization and participation, in order to ensure
that they are not seen as an alien implant, but rather as an expression
of the community's own resolve to provide education to their daughters.
The schedule of these girl-friendly schools---as we will also be
referring to them---allows girls to carry out their morning chores at
home before going to class, in this way addressing some other concerns
of those who tie girls too closely and too narrowly to the household
economy. The schools are also special in that, unlike government
schools, they are completely free---parents do not have to pay a tuition
fee, nor do they have to subsidize the costs for stationery or other
educational resources. In addition, the girls are taught by female
facilitators, who hail from the same hamlet or from the mother village,
in classrooms where there are only girls, or where girls enjoy at least
75% majority. This too goes a long way in persuading parents to let
their girls go. The fact that girls are fed at school, and take home
with them rations for the whole family can break down any remaining
resistance. Most importantly, these schools are special because they do
not compromise on quality when it comes to the educational experiences
they offer: GEI schools privilege active and joyful learning, where
children are encouraged to express themselves through all sorts of ways,
and to be creative and self-directed in their approach to learning. They
leave home keen to learn, and return with joy on their face. A girl's
happy smile will melt many a reluctant father's heart, I was told as I
went about the schools along the Nile in Egypt. And so it does.

This testimony, then, is about the creation of a new generation of
schools for a new generation of women---women who are educated,
empowered, and eager to take their rightful place in society, as equal
partners in its development, be it in the family, in the community, or
beyond. None of this could have happened without a heartfelt conviction
that individuals and collectives can make a difference, and that the key
to success lies not in combating or looking down on the communities
where girls are being denied access to schooling, but in valuing them
and listening to them, and in winning them over and mobilizing them
behind the same ideal.

It is this story that we set out to tell, in the hope that it will do
justice to those who made it happen, and that it will inspire others to
walk the same road they did.

*Girls' education benefits development*

It is estimated that 100 million children are out of school in the world
today. 60% of them are girls.[^1]

Access to primary and secondary education remains a challenge for both
boys and girls in most of the developing regions in the world. However,
the gap between the genders is significant, testifying to broader life
inequalities that girls have to suffer, with drastic implications not
only for themselves, but also for the society they are part of.

Indeed, when girls lose out on schooling, societies lose out on an
opportunity for development. Or, to put it more positively, devoting
resources to quality education for girls is among the best investments
that any society can make.

Studies in fact clearly show that girls' education leads to a whole
range of social benefits, including increased family incomes, later
marriages and reduced fertility rates, reduced infant and maternal
mortality rates, better nourished, healthier and more educated children
and families, lower childbirth-related death rates, greater
opportunities and life choices for more women (including better chances
to protect themselves and their children from HIV/AIDS), and greater
participation of women in development, and in political and economic
decision-making.[^2] Such benefits feed each other synergistically and
in inter-generational ways, so that the overall impact is greater than
the sum of the different parts.

It is therefore not surprising that girls' education was identified as a
key development tool in September 1990 at the World Summit for Children,
with the reduction of the disparities between girls and boys being
specifically targeted (UNICEF, 1990). The World Education Forum in Dakar
in 2000 reiterated this emphasis by endorsing six goals, two-thirds of
which focused on gender parity and equality in education. The Millennium
Development Goals---an outcome of the Millennium Summit of 2001---also
focused on girls' education as being a pivotal factor in development,
with UNICEF declaring that "None of the MDGs will likely be met unless
there is significant progress in girls' education" (2005, p.5), a
statement that closely echoes the conviction of the then
Secretary-General of the UN, Kofi Annan who claimed in a 2004 address to
the Women's Health Coalition that "there is no tool for development more
effective than the education of girls".[^3]

*Root causes of the gender gap in education*

It is legitimate to ask why, given international consensus on the
importance of girls' education, so many girls are still out of school.
The root causes of this gender gap are multi-faceted and often
inter-twined. Poverty leads parents to choose sons over daughters when
they cannot afford to send all their offspring to school due to the
direct (tuition and fees) or indirect costs (i.e. cost of clothing,
shoes, stationery, personal expenses allowances and other requirements,
as well as 'opportunity costs' that represent loss of potential family
revenue). Poverty, as well as persistent and culturally sanctioned
gender roles, often entrap girls in roles that exclude them from school,
such as when they are obliged to help out in household chores, or to
enter the child labour force. Lack of employment opportunities for women
can also reinforce the notion that rates-of-return for investment in
education are low for the individual and their families alike. This is
the case in Egypt, where, from the point of view of poor families, basic
education is costly and yields weak and even negative labour market
returns.[^4]

Decreasing national wealth can have its toll on educational services,
with cuts in school-building programmes, for instance, resulting in
girls having to walk unsafe distances to get to a classroom. When there
*is* access to schools, the curricula in use often fail to connect with
children's realities,[^5] and teachers use dull and dreary pedagogies
that lead to disaffected learners who lose all motivation to attend.
Schools are often girl-repulsive in other ways too, such as when they do
not have separate sanitation facilities, for instance, or when male
teachers and classmates harass and even abuse female pupils.

Entrenched cultural traditions can also serve to channel girls into
early motherhood, leading to early school-leaving and to the
reproduction of illiteracy: children whose mothers have no education are
more than twice as likely to be out of school as children whose mothers
have some education (UNICEF, 2005, p.9). In a self-feeding vicious
circle, uneducated girls are less likely to have the power to negotiate
relationships. In many countries, girls are forced by their families
into early marriage for cultural and economic reasons---as early as at
age 12 and sometimes before---thereby losing out on formal education, on
their income-generating potential, and their ability to make informed
decisions about their lives. In some rural, traditional communities---as
we find in some governorates in Egypt for instance---tensions can also
erupt due to so-called family- or blood-feuds, with parents prohibiting
their daughters from leaving the hamlet to walk to school fearing that
they will be an easy target for those set on taking vengeance.

All this has an impact on girls' access to schooling, and to benefiting
from their investment in education.

*The need for multi- and inter-sectoral approaches*

The realisation that different causes often come together in order to
deny girls' right to education has led the UN to stress multi- and
intersectoral approaches in the struggle to meet the education
Millennium Development Goals. Indeed, the three UN flagships for girls'
education---namely Education for All (or EFA, headed by UNESCO), the
Fast-Track Initiative (or FTI, under the auspices of the World Bank);
and the United Nations' Girls' Education Initiative (or UNGEI,
co-ordinated by UNICEF)---work together and coordinate various partners,
including development agencies, donor nations and non-governmental and
community-based organisations. The multiple but inter-related roots of
the problem also underscore the fact that it is more effective to have
national interventions over narrowly focused projects, given that
poverty and discrimination are pervasive and need to be tackled in
systematic ways.

In what follows, we will look in some detail at one such national
intervention---the Girls' Education Initiative in Egypt---in order to
provide an in-depth, qualitative testimony of what a country has managed
to achieve in improving access for girls to quality schooling, thus
making significant progress in eliminating gender disparities in
education and leveraging wider development benefits for children and
their communities.

*UNGEI*

The Egyptian initiative we will describe in this testimony is embedded
within the UNGEI strategy referred to above, and it is therefore
important to first provide a brief outline of this programme. UNGEI, as
we have noted, is the EFA flagship for girls' education---launched by
the UN Secretary General in April 2000 at the World Education Forum in
Dakar. It was set up to ensure that, by 2005, the gender gap in both
primary and secondary schools would be narrowed, and that by 2015 all
children everywhere, boys and girls alike, would be able to complete
primary schooling and that by then, boys and girls will have equal
access to all levels of education. A third objective was the attainment
of high level quality learning for all children, with a special emphasis
on girls. UNGEI therefore represents a global, inter-agency undertaking,
with UNICEF acting as the lead agency and Secretariat, and with a Global
Advisory Committee, composed of key partners, sharing in the planning,
decision-making, guidance and accountability.[^6]

UNGEI also has Focal Points in different regions in order to facilitate
the coordination of girls' education strategies and interventions at the
country level. The initiative builds 'compacts' that consist of
political and resource commitments at the highest level on a country by
country basis, supports country-led development, and seeks to influence
decision-making and investments to ensure gender equity and equality in
national education policies, plans and programmes.[^7] UNGEI therefore
operates as a mechanism to advance education strategies, with partners
mobilizing resources for both targeted project interventions and country
programmes as well as large scale systemic interventions designed to
impact on the whole education system. The initiative streamlines its
efforts through the strategic use of existing mechanisms such as Poverty
Reduction Strategies, sector-wide approaches and UN development
assistance frameworks.

The UN Girls' Education Initiative required all countries to have a plan
of action in place by 2002, and operational by 2005, ensuring gender
equality and sensitivity in all aspects of education, including
enrolment policies and practices, curriculum, teacher behaviour and
attitudes, equity in the teaching force, learning environments, pupils'
safety, access to information and skills that enable girls to make
positive life choices in areas such as reproductive health and HIV/AIDS
prevention, and the use of new technologies.

The GAP report (UNICEF, 2005) indicates that while UNGEI is on the way
to achieving its targets of universal primary education by 2015 in some
regions and countries, the challenge remains, with the accomplishments
registered being "baby steps compared to what could have---and should
have---been achieved" (p.4). One way of accompanying and supporting this
process is to provide examples of successful practices that have made a
difference to the attainment of gender parity in a specific country. The
ongoing efforts of the GEI in Egypt, now in its fourth year of
implementation, and one of the first countries to take off with the
initiative in 2000, is a case in point. It is to a documentation of this
multi-layered process that has mobilised an impressive range of social
actors and institutions behind the same goal that we now turn.

**2 The Girls' Education Initiative in Egypt**

*The dynamic complexity of innovations*

The story of Egypt's GEI is not a linear one where objectives are
targeted, strategies planned and implemented, and goals reached. Such
narratives belong to the realm of fairy tales, not to accounts that try
to capture the life of educational innovations. The latter are
necessarily complex, iterative processes powered, it is true, by
visionary ideals, but---equally true---led and realised by individuals,
groups and institutions that have their own strengths and weaknesses,
and that have to operate in contexts that can be welcoming and
supportive one moment, and hostile and obstructionist the next. A change
of minister, the promotion of a lead person to another post, the
unexpected drying up of a funding source---and a hundred and one other
unpredictable incidents---can wreak havoc to the best of plans (Fullan,
1993). Innovation in education can make giant leaps forward, only to be
halted in its progress by unexpected events or personalities, with
hard-won achievements being lost or even reversed.

My objective is to give testimony to the on-going struggles of those
who, in Egypt, have striven with exemplary dedication and
single-mindedness to facilitate access to schools for thousands of girls
in remote villages, effectively "opening up the world" for them, as one
of the students interviewed was to tell me. It is not the intention here
to provide a blue-print for other countries looking for ways of
implementing UNGEI in their own context. If we have learnt anything
about educational innovation and change, it is that when it comes to
schooling, there are no recipes (Inbar, 1996). Neither are there
quick-fixes. Rather, the goal is to provide inspiration, as well as
lessons learnt, to those who are committed to chalking up progress in
tackling the gender gap.

In what follows, I will first briefly outline some of the main features
of Egypt's educational context, a necessary prelude to our understanding
of the gender gap challenge that the country is addressing. I will then
provide some details regarding the methodology used in collecting the
data, before moving on to a full-scale description of how Egypt adopted
UNGEI goals and developed its own strategy to ensure that girls have
access to quality schooling.

*Education in Egypt*

The educational system in Egypt faces many of the challenges that other
systems in the region have to face. There is a broad consensus[^8] that
these challenges include the following:

-   A culture of élitism that prevails among system administrators,
    teachers and parents alike, where the legacy of historically
    meritocratic systems aiming at 'excellence' for a few has led to a
    preoccupation with selectivity. Such practices have negative
    educational repercussions, including the 'cooling out' of large
    numbers of disaffected students, often recognisable by their social
    class origins. These practices can also lead to increasing
    differences in quality across educational establishments, especially
    between private and state schools, leading to an emerging duality:
    an exclusive private educational system enjoyed by the minority, and
    a government education system of lower quality for the majority.

-   Curricula and teaching methods which emphasise memorising and rote
    learning rather than critical thinking, which stress coverage rather
    than mastery, and which place an emphasis on 'knowing that' and to
    some extent on 'knowing how' rather than on 'knowing why' and on
    competencies generally, including the higher-order skills that have
    become so critical to competitive survival in the modern global
    economy.

-   Pedagogical practices that do not take sufficiently into account the
    different learning needs and styles of pupils, and which do not
    encourage or facilitate the development of autonomous learning. Even
    where information technology has been introduced, this has not yet
    significantly changed teaching and learning methods.

-   Assessment strategies which are summative in nature, and where the
    primary purpose seems to be selection and channelling rather than
    the formative processes of diagnosis, remediation and support---with
    vocational streams being used as dumping grounds for failing
    students and to limit student flows into the overpopulated and
    under-resourced higher education sector. Formal examinations---and
    especially the *tawjihi* (end of high school rite of
    passage)---rather than individual choice and aspiration, determine
    futures.

-   Centralised administrative structures which are inimical to
    innovation and to flexible responses to challenges. Even when there
    is a decentralization of sorts, there is more readiness to devolve
    burdens rather than real power to the local administrative unit.

-   Lack of sufficiently trained teaching staff, with weak initial and
    continuing teacher education structures, particularly for the
    secondary cycle. Heads of schools are limited by lack of training
    and scope for autonomy. Teachers have little to encourage them to
    update their pedagogical practice or to adopt more learner-centred
    modes of instruction, and are constrained by centralised curricula
    that inhibit them from responding creatively and professionally when
    faced with heterogeneous classes. Many invest spare capacities in
    after-school work, earning much needed supplementary income by
    giving private tuition[^9]---which reinforces the focus on narrowly
    instrumental learning to pass exams---or in other types of work,
    unrelated to education.

-   Problems with social equity, with major imbalances along urban-rural
    and coastal-interior axes, which manifest themselves through such
    indicators as access, learning achievement, repetition of levels,
    and drop-out rates. As a UNICEF (2002) rights-based report on the
    situation of childhood in Egypt noted, education spending is biased
    in favour of better-off groups, with an estimated 40% of total
    government expenditure going to upper income groups, with lower
    income groups receiving only 7%.

-   Problems with gender equity, despite significant progress being
    achieved in the 1990s, with concerted efforts resulting in a
    reduction in the gender gap in gross primary enrolment rates from 12
    percentage points in 1990 to 3 percentage points by 2001/2002. As
    Zaalouk (2004, p.117) notes, such national averages "mask
    significant regional disparities, particularly in the governorates
    of Upper Egypt in the South, where overall enrolments remain lower,
    and gender gaps in primary net enrolments range up to 15.7
    percentage points." [^10]

While Egypt shares these challenges with the rest of the countries in
the region, its population of 74 million give the problems a different
scalar significance. Despite major investments in the sector, and
commendable efforts to identify, quantify and address problems
strategically, some issues have proved particularly intractable for
Egypt. Among these one could mention *school construction*, with an
estimated 243885 classes required over the next five years in an effort
to also eliminate multiple-shift schools---even though some 11,000 new
basic level schools were built in the 1990s; *class density*, with an
average class size of 41 at the basic education level, but which is
often exceeded by between 10 to 20 pupils; and *teacher shortages*, with
a shortfall of 86743 teachers for the primary education sector alone,
and a further 18564 for the preparatory level.[^11] The MoE is faced
with serious financial limitations which severely constrain its ability
to address all these issues. In addition, economic recession has obliged
the government to initiate some cost-recovery measures, including the
re-introduction of a *fee* for educational services in the late 1980s.
Although small, the fee in fact adds to more than EGY20 (USD3.5) per
month, and acts as a major disincentive for poor families, especially if
these have more than one child of school age. International evidence
reaffirms the fact that where school fees are charged, fewer children go
to school, and where the cost forces parents to make a choice, they are
more likely to send their son than their daughter (Save the Children,
2005b). Some organisations---including UNICEF---estimate that the total
number of girls aged 6 to 11 who are out-of-school in Egypt is around
650,000.

Despite the uphill struggle, Egypt has done much to expand its
educational infrastructure and services, often sharing its experiences
and resources to support educational development in the region. It has
registered impressive progress in some areas, and has, in the past
decade, increased investment in teacher education, required
university-level training of all primary and preparatory teachers,
introduced a national in-service training program for teachers,
substantially increasing pay and incentives for teachers, revised
curricula and produced new textbooks and teachers' manuals, introduced a
national educational technology programme, and established a national
examination centre developing and applying new assessment and evaluation
procedures.

Most recently, in March 2006, a *General Framework for Education
Policies in Egypt* outlined the MoE's on-going, comprehensive and
carefully articulated vision for the sector. The Ministry has committed
itself to providing pre-university quality education for all, as one of
the basic human rights, through the adoption of a decentralized system
based on community participation as a cornerstone, and through preparing
citizens for a knowledge-based society in a new social contract based on
democracy and justice. The vision rests on six key axes, including the
implementation of effective schooling through privileging active
learning pedagogies, the reinforcement of excellence in teaching and of
educational management, the development of relevant curricula, the
integration of advanced educational technology, and the enhancement of
community participation. Key strategic approaches that are being
adopted, and which are of relevance to the initiative showcased here
include decentralisation within a clear framework and a resourced
environment, national standards to ensure quality for all, support for
and mainstreaming of innovative and successful practices, privileging
the school as the basic unit for reform, and strengthening partnerships
as a key to attaining goals.

Egypt has also implemented a number of innovative projects in order to
address some of these challenges. The most relevant to our study is the
Community Schools initiative (CS) which was launched by the MoE in
partnership with UNICEF in 1990 in Upper Egypt (in the governorates of
Assiut, Sohaag and Qena).[^12] Community Schools set out to provide
access to education in sparsely populated, rural and hard-to-reach areas
with small numbers of school age children, offering multi-grade classes
admitting pupils of different ages and ability at the primary education
level, with a special focus on girls. To date, 227 community schools
have been established. The Community Schools (CS) initiative has proved
to be particularly successful because of its ability to mobilize
community participation and support, and because of the stress on active
learning methods implemented by a specially-trained cadre of
facilitators. It also succeeded in stimulating and contributing to
national dialogue policy reform debates through its efforts in
mainstreaming the key features underpinning the initiative. The CS
initiative is particularly important for our purposes because the Girls'
Education Initiative we will be describing can be considered as a
diffusion and scaling up, with some adaptations, of the Community School
model, which implemented child-friendly (and especially girl-friendly)
approaches to primary education.[^13] Key features of the CS model
include a focus on deprived communities, high standards for quality
education, an emphasis on values and lifeskills to promote leadership
and social change, and a joyful and enthusiastic engagement with
learning through child-centred pedagogies. With a completion rate that
surpasses 85%, graduates of the primary CS programmes have been
successfully integrated in the subsequent levels of Egypt's education
system, with several CS children now at university, or in productive
employment.

The success of the initiative has served to give legitimacy to
alternative ways of providing schooling, providing a seed-bed model that
motivated, shaped, informed and even resourced other offshoots, the most
recent of which is the Girls' Education Initiative. Just one year after
the launch of the Community Schools, the MoE started its own associated
'One-Classroom school' programme, which can be seen as a first attempt
to scale up the CS model, and which targeted girls who had dropped out
of school, offering them vocational training in addition to the
multi-grade curriculum. There are now 3136 such schools, and the notion
of community mobilization and participation has caught on to such an
extent that other organisations, such as the Social Fund for Development
and USAID, have established similar schools---including the Small
Schools Initiative---with much transfer of practices taking place from
the original Community Schools to the later models, and to the
mainstream education sector. The MoE recognises all these related
initiatives as examples of 'Community Education', thus acknowledging
that these are not simply pilot projects or discrete programmes, but
part of a movement launched by the CS, fully adopted and led by the
Ministry. The Girls' Education Initiative falls squarely within this
movement, reinforcing it and giving it its own special character by
focusing mainly on girls and on addressing the gender gap.

Before we move on to a detailed description of the GEI, it is necessary
to provide information about the research methodology used to document
the project.

*Research Methodology*

The data on which this account of Egypt's GEI is based involved desk
research, interviews and field visits. The desk research component
included the perusal and analysis of international literature on UNGEI,
and of several key documents and archive material relative to the
initiative in Egypt held at the UNICEF and NCCM offices in Cairo, with
some being provided by the UNICEF regional office in Amman, by the
Ministry of Education, and by other organisations and NGOs such as the
World Food Programme (WFP) office and the World Bank (WB). Documents
included correspondence about the GEI from its inception onwards,
position papers, strategic plans, conference programmes and proceedings
related to GEI, published literature on different aspects of the
initiative,[^14] field visit reports by staff involved in monitoring the
initiative, testimonies from the field collected by NCCM staff, media
clippings, manuals used to train supervisors and facilitators, lists of
criteria developed by the NCCM to choose school sites, to engage staff,
to evaluate teaching, and so on. Data bases at both governorate and NCCM
level were also perused. Other key documentary sources included monthly
progress reports, mid-term reviews and evaluations, baseline study
reports by the WFP, the Action Plans developed by seven governorates in
order to implement girl-friendly schooling, as well as activities linked
to the initiative captured on video and DVD, including training
seminars, teaching sequences, and interviews with children. Where the
material was only available in Arabic, excerpts were chosen and
translated by the support team from NCCM.

The research also involved one visit to the UNICEF regional office in
Amman (5^th^ September 2006), and three visits to Egypt---a preliminary
one between the 9^th^ and 12^th^ September 2006, with the main field
work being carried out between the 16^th^ and 22^nd^ October, and
between the 19^th^ to the 28^th^ November 2006. The programme for the
visits was negotiated with UNICEF (regional and Cairo offices) and with
NCCM, on the basis of their suggestions, as well as in response to leads
that emerged from the desk research and from interview material. The
visits entailed interviews as well as field observations in 4 of the 7
governorates involved in the initiative, namely Assiut, Fayoum, Guiza
and Sohaag, as well as in Cairo. Staff involved with the three other
governorates, i.e. Beheira, Bani Sueif and Menia, were also interviewed
at the NCCM headquarters in Cairo.

*Interviews*

Formal individual or focus group interviews generally lasted an hour,
and were held in English (and occasionally in French) whenever possible,
with Arabic translation being provided when necessary. Interviews were
held with a wide range of people involved in different aspects of the
initiative. These included:

-   UNICEF staff (regional education adviser, Cairo office Senior
    Programme officer, and education programme officer);

-   NCCM staff (the Secretary-General, Ambassador Moushira Khattab, the
    NCCM technical secretariat as a group, and most of the members of
    the team individually, including the person in charge of the GEI
    database);

-   MoE staff (senior advisor to the Minister, and with the Minister's
    undersecretary for Fayoum);

-   the deputy director of GAEB, the Ministry department responsible for
    the school building programme;

-   members of the UN family (World Food Programme, UNIFEM);

-   members of aid and donor agencies (World Bank, EU) as well as
    private sector donors (Apache, Cemex, the Hamza Associates
    engineering company that designed, built and donated the first
    girl-friendly school);

-   a Governor (of Sohaag governorate) and ex-Governor (Fayoum
    governorate);

-   the director of the National Planning Institute, who had been
    involved as an expert consultant to the governorate Local Voluntary
    Task Forces when they were writing up their action plans;

-   directors of three NGOs involved in implementing the initiative (in
    Guiza) and their team of governorate and district field supervisors
    (in Fayoum and Sohaag), as well as staff in charge of database (in
    Sohaag)

-   directors (Fayoum) and members of the Local Voluntary Task Forces
    (in Sohaag);

-   members of Education Committees of girl-friendly schools (in Abou
    Seer---Guiza, and Manfalout---Assiut), including community leaders
    and parents, whom I also observed at work during two committee
    meetings;

-   three trainers of facilitators;

-   several facilitators and pupils during the classroom visits.

The First Lady of Egypt, Suzanne Mubarak, also gave generously of her
time in responding to some policy-oriented questions that were fielded
to her in relation to the future of the initiative, thus strongly
signalling her continued appreciation and support for girls' education
and girl-friendly schooling.

Many key people were interviewed more than once, and some of the deeper
insights were generated during informal conversations in cars, trains
and planes as I travelled from one governorate to another in the company
of NCCM staff and members of implementing NGOs.[^15] Over and above the
individuals and groups that the NCCM and UNICEF indicated I should meet
for data-collection purposes, I also interviewed three other academics
knowledgeable about the education sector in Egypt in order to test some
hypothesis and generate new insights from persons who, while being
embedded in the context, were not part of the GEI and could therefore
potentially contribute a different perspective.

*Class observations*

Other than interviews, the research involved visits to several schools
and classrooms in the four governorates of Assiut, Fayoum, Guiza and
Sohaag. Most of these were girl-friendly schools, but six classrooms
from the mainstream public education sector were also visited in order
to be able to better identify similarities and contrasts between the two
forms of schooling. Visits to three Community School classrooms also
helped me see where the girl-friendly schools were coming from in terms
of underpinning philosophy, organisational approach and pedagogy, and to
also gauge how far they still had to go. In all cases, my visit entailed
sitting or standing at the back of the class to observe the teacher (in
the case of the mainstream schools) and the facilitators (in the case of
the girl-friendly and CS classrooms) lead a lesson, or a number of
sequences of a session. On most visits I was escorted by at least one
member of NCCM staff, who, besides providing a translation, also helped
me to better understand the context we were observing. In the last
extended field trip, the UNICEF regional office adviser, Dr Malak
Zaalouk, the founder of the community school movement in Egypt,
accompanied me during both interview and observation sessions, providing
invaluable clues about context and culture that helped develop a deeper
understanding of situations and important insights into the processes
observed. Visits to classrooms lasted half-an-hour on average, and were
generally followed by short interviews with the facilitators, and with
the supervisor if present. In all, 15 classes were visited.

*Research limitations*

Despite the extensive nature of the research within the parameters of
the time available, some limitations need to be pointed out. A key
handicap was my own lack of mastery of Arabic. While I have rudimentary
knowledge of the language, interpretation services were always
necessary, and needless to say, much tends to get lost in translation.
The fact that I have carried out several empirical research projects in
the region went some way in making up for this limitation, given that
such experience provided me with sufficient background to understand and
operate in what is ultimately for me a foreign context.[^16] A second
issue that arises is related to gender. The challenges associated with
the appropriateness or otherwise of having a male carrying out research
on girl-friendly schooling were discussed prior to the start of the
project. The decision to work closely with an Egyptian female
researcher, who was familiar with girl-friendly schools and who had
carried out research on the community schools on which GEI schools are
modelled, proved to be an excellent one. Naela Refaat, a senior
consultant to the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA),
accompanied me throughout the whole research process, helping me to
better understand the context and processes we were observing, and to be
sensitive to issues that I might not have otherwise picked up.[^17]

In what follows, I will draw on all the elements of the research---i.e.
desk research, interviews, and classrooms observations---in an attempt
to convey the inception, development and achievements of the Girls'
Education Initiative in Egypt, and to identify those factors that
contributed to its success.

**3 The Inception of Egypt's GEI: The Planning Phase**

*Beginnings*

The 'official' birth of Egypt's GEI can in fact be traced to October
24^th^ 2000, when the whole UN country team come together at a major
workshop in Cairo in order to respond to the UN Secretary-General's
Initiative on Girls' Education, launched just a few months earlier.

The workshop was strategic in many ways: in the first place, the then
Minister of Education, Professor Hussein Kamel Bahaa Al Din, played a
critical role in publicly acknowledging the gender gap in Egypt, thus
giving the green light for having UNGEI in the country. In addition, the
workshop brought together top-level policy-makers from various
ministries as well as Aid and Donor agencies; it was chaired by the
Ambassador Moushira Khattab, Secretary-General of the NCCM, the entity
that was to become the lead government agency coordinating the
initiative; it engaged the services of one of the best-known Egyptian
education scholars who drew up the landscape of the situation with
girls' schooling in the country; and it required the different UN teams
to prepare and present their own papers on girls' education rather than
to ask external consultants to do so. This served to build capacities,
providing the theoretical, empirical and analytical groundwork needed
for each of the UN teams to understand the necessity of the initiative,
and "not to feel that it had been parachuted onto us from above", as one
of the UN directors said. Interviews I had with some of the contributors
to the workshop, as well as some of the participants, recalled the punch
that the event had managed to pack six years earlier, with policy-makers
being impressed not just by the proceedings, but by the fact that the UN
family had come together to deliver the same message in unison, inviting
all those present to reconfirm Egypt's resolve to offering all girls an
education marked by quality, and to recommend a methodology by means of
which the millennium goals could be achieved.

*Commitment to partnership*

The conference adopted a rights-based approach, committing itself "To
decrease the gender gap in basic education by 2007, and to set the
ground for achieving quality education for all by 2015." It made several
important recommendations as to how such a goal could be achieved. One
key focus related to the need to understand more clearly the
determinants of the gender gaps in basic education in Egypt, and to
generate reliable data about disparities across the different
governorates in order to be better able to target the regions that were
most in need. Another set of recommendations revolved around strategies
and structures that had to be put into place in order to address
different aspects of the initiative, including economic, administrative,
political, educational and the use of media for advocacy purposes.
Recommendations were also made in relation to the sectoral linkages that
were needed in order to approach the challenge of girls' education in a
holistic developmental framework. It was recognised from the outset that
while schools had to be girl-friendly, girls needed to be healthy and
their communities able to afford the loss of revenue when sending them
to school.

The UN system had therefore to work in unison, pooling its knowledge,
experience and resources, with UNICEF as the lead agency due to its
experience in girls' education through the community schools initiative.
UNDAF (the UN Development Assistance Fund) therefore pledged to engage
in a joint programme to make GEI a priority. The UN furthermore
committed itself to also support the networking with other social
actors, including government and non-governmental agencies, the private
sector and civil society more generally, as well as international
organizations, in order to ensure that all areas that needed to be
mobilised around girls' education were comprehensively covered. A final
set of recommendations focused on the specifically educational elements
of the initiative, ranging from access (e.g. the need to build schools
within village boundaries to encourage families to send their
daughters), to quality and relevance (e.g. the need to train teachers
for these new schools, so that they were sensitive to gender issues, and
the need to find a working model that girl-friendly schools could
emulate), system efficiency (e.g. having a reliable EMIS and school
mapping facilities), and financial outlay needed to support the project.

The conference also recommended the establishment of a *GEI National
Task Force* to lead the planning and implementation of a national girls'
education initiative along the general lines and principles articulated
by the participants. In other words, the brief of the Task Force was to
privilege integrated bottom-up planning, to work through partnerships
with communities and a broad range of social actors and institutions,
and to focus on those geographic areas where girls were most at risk of
not being in school.

*The planning phase*

It is not uncommon for conference resolutions to fail to survive the
onslaught of 'the day after' syndrome: people return to offices and,
despite all the good will in the world, are overwhelmed by demands, with
each new request claiming priority. This was not the case with the GEI
in Egypt. A series of meetings and workshops were held in key
governorates in order to transmit the conclusions of the October
conference, with two high level meetings held in Cairo in January 2001
(chaired by the First Lady herself), and a little later in Ras Sedr
(chaired by the Ambassador). These meetings reaffirmed the resolve of
the government to focus on girls' education as Egypt's first development
priority for the next five years, and end the gender gap by the year
2007. The meetings also enjoyed nation-wide media coverage, helping to
give high visibility to the issue of girls' education, and effectively
launching the advocacy and awareness-raising campaign regarding the
gender gap in Egypt.

The initiative now entered into a planning phase which was to last up to
2003. This phase proved to be both crucial and challenging. It was
crucial because people's capacities had to be built up, and structures
had to be established with the appropriate people in place. Reliable
information about out-of-school girls had to be collected, and decisions
about where to invest energies and funds had to be made. Networks and
alliances had to be forged in order to get as many human and material
resources mobilised around the initiative as possible. Much of this
proved to be challenging because the project's holistic approach to
girls' education required actors to work in partnership---an approach
that was a unique and unprecedented experience in Egypt, and one that
required careful coordination and much sensitivity. Despite the many
obstacles and the inherently complex and unpredictable processes
unleashed by change, many of the interviewees emphasised how vital such
thorough and strategic planning was to the whole initiative, ensuring
that the foundations were strong enough prior to the implementation
phase.

In what follows, we will provide an account of the *structures* that
were set up, the different *processes* that were set into motion, and
the *difficulties* that were encountered and how these were overcome.
The qualitative capture of these complex and dynamic processes is
pivotal to our understanding of how educational change takes place, and
how such change can be facilitated by individual and collective action.

*Managing structures*

Three key structures were set up to manage the initial follow-up to the
conference, namely the *GEI National Task Force*, the *UN Task Force*,
and the *GEI Secretariat*. The first two were to play a bigger role at
the start of the project, while the Secretariat became the operational
heart of the GEI as the initiative took root and grew, and as the
Secretariat's staff increased their technical capacity to deal with the
challenges that arose.

The *GEI National Task Force* was established a few months after the
conference, and comprised 16 line ministries, the Central Agency for
Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), the Information and
Decision Support Centre (IDSC), two prominent NGOs and non-governmental
stakeholders. The composition of the Task Force is in itself an
exceptional feat in Egypt, where, as some interviewees noted, the
bureaucracy is marked by a "Pharaonic culture", where "every Ministry
works in a silo". This lack of inter-sectoral collaboration and
coordination is of course a common feature of many governments in every
part of the world, and an obstacle that is not easily overcome.

The key role of the Task Force was to plan and coordinate the
initiative, and to help articulate a comprehensive vision that would
drive the GEI forwards. The vision took into account the fact that there
were as many as 386,056 out-of-school girls in the targeted
governorates, and that a total of 11,584 primary education classes were
needed to cater for them. An intermediate aim was to establish 5119
girl-friendly schools and classrooms by 2007 in order to be able to cut
the gender gap in the targeted governorates by half. Given the scale of
the challenge to be tackled in relation to the funds available, the
aspiration to also include preparatory school age girls was put on hold,
with a focus retained on primary education, even though the problem of
out-of-school girls at age 14 to 16 is also acute.

The vision would be operationalised via five programmes or pillars,
namely:

(1) the strengthening and consolidating of information systems, which
    would facilitate a better management of the problem of out-of-school
    girls;

(2) the raising of public awareness about the need for girls to attend
    school, and the mobilization of communities to achieve this goal;

(3) the expansion of girl-friendly schools;

(4) poverty alleviation, to ensure that deprivation did not stop
    families from sending their daughters to school; and

(5) monitoring and evaluation of the initiative.

Each Ministry would contribute to the different pillars of the overall
according programme according to its parliamentary remit. Thus, the
Ministry of Health and Population, for instance, would be responsible
for good health and nutrition components of the initiative. Income
generation and poverty alleviation would be supported by the Ministries
of Social Affairs and of Youth, and by the Social Fund for Development.
The Ministries of Petroleum, and of Construction would provide roads,
while that of Environment would provide material and training in
relation to environment and hygiene. The Media Ministry would underwrite
advocacy campaigns on TV and radio.

  -------------- ------- ---------------- ------- ---------------- ------- ------------- ------- -------------- -------
  **Programme                                                                                                   
  components of                                                                                                 
  the Girls'                                                                                                    
  Education                                                                                                     
  Initiative**                                                                                                  

  Information            Public awareness         Expanding                Poverty               Monitoring and 
  System                 and community            girl-friendly            alleviation           evaluation     
                         mobilisation             schools                                                       

                                                                                                                

  *Capacity              *Local Task              *One-classroom           *Feeding*             *Project,      
  building*              Forces*                  schools*                                       field and      
                                                                                                 school         
                                                                                                 supervision*   

  *School                *Awareness and           *Community               *Loans*               *Indicators to 
  mapping*               documentation*           schools*                                       measure        
                                                                                                 outputs,       
                                                                                                 outcomes and   
                                                                                                 impact*        

  *Surveys &                                                               *Grants &                            
  research*                                                                subsidies*                           
  -------------- ------- ---------------- ------- ---------------- ------- ------------- ------- -------------- -------

Note: Shaded cells represent programmes on which less progress has been
registered

The National Task Force established an information committee in February
2002, and a budget committee in the following month, to start working on
the first of the five pillars, and also to ensure that there were
sufficient funds to sustain the initiative at the different stages of
its development. The main funds came through from the government, which,
as we will see later, pledged USD27.5 million. Other funds for GEI came
through the UN family (which committed USD139,000), the NCCM itself
(USD63,000), and the World Bank (USD10,000). Private and corporate
sector donors, as well as the EU, came in at a later stage.

A *UN Task Force* was also established soon after the conference, with
several entities from the UN family---including UNICEF of course, but
also the UNDP, UNESCO, UNIFEM, ILO and UNFPA---identifying a role for
themselves. Some, like UNFPA, would have a critically important role to
play in financing aspects of the project. As we will see in some detail
in a later section, the World Food Programme took responsibility for a
school feeding programme to ensure that girls were properly nourished,
and to encourage parents to send their daughters to school in return for
which they got food rations for the family.

Others, like UNIFEM, did not contribute much when it came to funding,
but put their technical expertise at the disposal of the initiative. The
concern was to ensure that each of the UN entities felt ownership of the
initiative and translated the commitment they had made at the October
conference into action. In November 2001, therefore, the UN agencies
together signed a project agreement to support the National Task Force
under the auspices of the NCCM, contributing towards the establishment
and upkeep of a girls' education secretariat that had to support the
Task Force in its planning and coordination role. The UN Task Force
initially met every three months in order to discuss policy issues
related to the initiative, and to co-ordinate their input.

The key operational unit was the *GEI Secretariat* at the National
Council for Childhood and Motherhood, which is the organisation that was
tasked with championing the cause and co-ordinating the overall efforts
of the GEI. The Secretariat is made of 19 members. Two of which
co-ordinated the key aspects of the initiative, with one being the
overall co-ordinator, and the other being the field manager (responsible
for financial management, procurement issues, and logistics), in
addition to the remarkable contributions of the Head of Education
Programs at NCCM, especially in what relates to the training activities
of the initiative.

A group of seven other members are each in charge of the seven
governorates targeted by the initiative, while the rest have specific
duties linked to the different pillars of the project totally funded by
the Council, such as, for instance, the development of a central
information database about girls' education, or the documentation of the
initiative. The Secretariat holds regular meetings, with some being more
field oriented, while others more desk-bound. Some, but by no means all
of the Secretariat team have a background in education. UNICEF here
played a key role, putting at the disposal of the Secretariat its long
experience in implementing community schooling in Egypt, and providing
NCCM with a model that was to be replicated in girl-friendly schools. It
also helped articulate a vision for the Secretariat, trained and built
up its capacities, and developed its terms of reference, besides also
paying the salaries of nine members of its staff.

A few words are necessary about the strategic choice of nesting the GEI
Secretariat in the NCCM.

*The strategic role of the NCCM*

The NCCM had been established in 1988 by Presidential Decree as an
autonomous organisation affiliated to the Council of Ministers, and
mandated to plan, coordinate and monitor all national initiatives
related to children ages 0-18. Its programmes and mandate relate to the
President's commitment to put children at the centre of Egypt's social
development plans, with 1989-1999 being declared the Decade of the
Egyptian Child, and 2000-2010 the Decade for the Protection and Welfare
of the Egyptian Child. By the year 2000, NCCM held a strategic position
in Egypt's constellation of public and semi-public institutions,
enjoying high visibility and legitimacy, and enjoying the patronage of
the First Lady. The importance of such patronage was pithily conveyed by
one high-ranking interviewee when she noted that the First Lady's
involvement was essential to ensure that UNGEI went beyond the Ministry
of Education and those involved in the education sector. In addition,
the Council's Secretary-General, Moushira Khattab, is a highly
respected, principled and charismatic driving force, her world-view
marked by serving Egypt as an Ambassador in South Africa. Her position,
standing and good relations with the First Lady enabled her to rise
above complex intra- and especially inter-ministerial dynamics, giving
her a clear mandate when it came to bringing all partners on board, and
making the NCCM well-placed to ensure a multi-sectoral approach.

The GEI Secretariat therefore benefited greatly from being located
within NCCM, particularly so during the initial period of the initiative
when policy-makers had to be brought on board, and key decision-makers
persuaded that the targets set out by the October conference were
deserving of their full support. Interviewees were consistent in noting
the critical role played by 'the Ambassador'---as she was invariably
referred to. Having a direct line to the First Lady, and enjoying her
confidence and respect, meant that bureaucracy and red tape could be
overcome with a phone call. "The Ambassador works miracles!" exclaimed
one interviewee, recalling the relief that he had felt when seemingly
insuperable obstructions melted away with her help. Officials who found
aspects of the initiative going against their grain, or who felt that
the status quo was being rocked, and who were obstructionist in their
attitude and dragged their feet, quickly changed their tune when they
had the Ambassador on the other end of the line. Governors who were
initially hesitant about sharing governorate data needed for planning
purposes by GEI staff---in a country where transparency of data is not
yet an organisationally embedded value---became promptly cooperative
when the Ambassador asked them to help out. As one corporate donor noted
from experience, dealing with NCCM was much less fraught with
difficulties than dealing with Ministries, which were so burdened by
bureaucracy that they often failed to spend the funds that her company
was donating and which had to be spent within the fiscal year. In
contrast, the Council "speaks the same language as we do".

*Starting the ball rolling*

These embryonic structures provided the context for the first volley of
activities which were, with time, to grow into a fully-fledged movement
in favour of girl-friendly schooling. As with many other initiatives in
developing countries, the key to making things happen are initially not
institutions as much as individuals who have the charisma, leadership
and legitimacy to push an idea, to mobilize people around them, and to
translate plans and ideals into reality. In the early stages, and as
interviewees constantly and consistently pointed out, Egypt's GEI found
a champion in Malak Zaalouk, then education programme officer with
UNICEF, and the founder of the Community Schools Movement which, since
1992, had become established in three governorates. UNICEF had quickly
realised that the UN's focus on girls' education, and the spirit behind
UNGEI, dovetailed perfectly well with the Community Schools project, and
that basically Egypt's GEI could build on, extend and take to scale the
achievements made by the community schools in order to further ensure
access to quality education for hitherto disadvantaged groups.

These schools had, by the year 2000, attained credibility nation-wide,
with many success stories being documented of students who would
normally have missed out on schooling not only completing their basic
education, but moving on to secondary, post-secondary and even
tertiary-level education (see Zaalouk, 2004). These community schools
were living proof of what could be achieved in rural and hard-to-reach
villages and hamlets, and as such acted as a seed-bed, providing the
philosophy, educational approach, strategies and tools that would from
the backbone of GEI.

*The needs assessment workshops*

A central feature of this philosophy is a firm belief that community
participation and mobilization are the key to reaching out to vulnerable
children in effective ways. This philosophy underpinned the first major
foray into the field on the part of activists who had committed
themselves to GEI. In cooperation with UNICEF, NCCM staff and
consultants who had worked with the Community Schools set out to sound
out communities to understand why girls were missing out on schooling.
The focus was on 7 governorates which had a gender gap of between 5 and
15.7%, and in each case, the activists invited families, in- and
out-of-school girls, governorate officials for education and social
affairs, representatives from NGOs, and facilitators from one-classroom
schools and from Community Schools, to meet in order to analyse the
situation of girls in their own settings, as well as to suggest
strategies that could be developed to reach them.

*Source: NCCM Action Plans for each Governorate*

Each 'needs assessment workshop', as these meetings were officially
called, lasted one-and-a-half days, and were facilitated by a team
hand-picked for their ability to manage intense group dynamics, and to
help people feel comfortable and safe to voice their opinion. The
workshop methodology was tested in Fayoum, and in 10 days the team had
gone to all 7 governorates despite the distances that had to be covered.
Interviews with this team, together with others who had participated in
these meetings as community members, recall the events with a mixture of
excitement, joy and nostalgia. "We would start early in the morning, and
not finish before eight in the evening... but we did not see the time
pass", I was told. "The community response energized everybody present",
said another, noting how important it had been for GEI to start with the
participatory approach right from the word go, as "this captures the
hearts of all those involved". Consultants were paid a pittance, but
were so delighted by the response that "we forgot about the financial
aspect of it all, and just went for it."

Not everybody understood immediately the rationale behind these
consultative meetings. The opinion of many was that the workshops "broke
with the customary way of doing things". Some noted that it was not at
all usual for high officials from the community---including key people
from the governor's office---to attend meeting with marginalised
citizens and commoners. Neither was it usual for the young to voice
their concerns in front of elders, for women to express themselves in
front of men, or for a woman to tell officials what they need to do. One
recalled the puzzled look on the face of officials who were told to give
others time to talk, or to be told to stop, or not to repeat themselves
all the time. The Ambassador's presence was also critical as she
politely but firmly kept officials---who sometimes attempted to 'hijack'
or block the process---in check.

Some of those involved in helping out with the workshops at first
wondered why the group facilitators were asking for flip charts, felt
pens, coloured cards and pins, considering this an unnecessary expense,
little valuing the effort that was being put into making people feel at
ease in expressing themselves. They soon realised how important it was
not to go for "impersonal surveys" and "canned answers", as one of those
interviewed said, but to take the trouble of meeting people and to hear
their voice. "These meetings taught us what a workshop really means",
said one. The conviction that while people may be illiterate, they are
not ignorant, but rather know how to express their problems articulately
and reflectively, soon grew among staff involved in GEI, and indeed
became ingrained as a fundamental value in the institutional culture at
NCCM, with one of the staff claiming that, after this experience, the
Council's commitment to community participation was reinforced, as was
its conviction that it is best to "always go to the ground, to see with
its own eyes, and to hear with its own ears."[^18] NCCM staff learnt to
value community mobilization, noting that "governors and public
officials come and go, and what remains is what is doable at the
community level." Others noted that in Egypt, "nothing outside of the
government system is institutionalised, and therefore initiatives are
built on quicksand unless there is a demand for them by the community,"
and that "motivation is best maintained when external players are
energised through their involvement with an active community that cares
about the initiative."

*Community response*

The community response to these assessment workshops and to the ideas
that were discussed there was in fact overwhelming. Initially, many
people were surprised by the fact that the NCCM, together with its
nationally recognisable leader, the Ambassador, would bother to meet
with them to hear what they had to say. In many cases too the presence
of the media was both a source of excitement, but also of suspicion.
However, participants were generally won over when they saw the team
working so hard to make sure that everybody had a say. As one
interviewee noted, reflecting on his experience in facilitating the
workshops, "People have sensitive antenna: they know that you want to
work *with* them, not *on* them... that you are a good person and that
you are not mucking them about... They test you, then they build their
trust... You have to go through some resistance. If there is no
resistance, then they are not being honest."

*Reasons for the gender gap offered by the community*

Earning the community's trust was critical both in generating the
dynamics required for the initiative to take root, and also to learn why
the gender gap existed in specific governorates. Getting close to the
communities led GEI facilitators to revise some assumptions they had,
realising that it was not traditions, customs or religion which had a
negative impact, but other issues. Some noted that prior to the
workshop, they had an image of rural people as being simple and ignorant
folk, a stereotype which the media in urban centres like Cairo often
perpetuated. Workshops showed that for many people, even for the poor,
education did matter, and its value was deeply rooted culturally in such
notions as *el ustaz*, i.e. in having a master to guide you through
life. Literacy too was often valued in rural communities, as this meant
that one could read the Koran, or, in the case of the Copts, the Bible.
One noted his surprise at discovering that religion was a motivation and
not an obstacle to learning in these communities, leading him to
conclude that when religion was used to halt the acquisition of
knowledge, it was being used to mask other dynamics, often to do with
power.

Others were surprised to note that men too were keen to have their
daughters educated, with experience in the workshops and in the field
indicating that "fathers come around when they see their daughters
becoming polite, and able to help in the business... they feel proud
when they see their daughters blossoming." It became more clear to the
community, as they discussed these issues together, that there is
value-added in schooling: not only could educated girls help the family
in more diverse ways, but also they could aspire for a more educated
husband, one who was more likely to treat her well, and with whom they
could raise up children more appropriately and in a healthier
environment.[^19]

The key reason given by the communities to account for out-of-school
girls was, as expected, poverty and indigence, which led parents to
avoid the direct or indirect costs associated with schooling, and to use
daughters to supplement meagre family incomes.[^20] However, other
reasons suggested either verbally or anonymously in writing included the
fact that there was no toilet for girls in the school available, or
because the playground in the school was too small, with boys taking
over the limited space available, forcing girls to stand by on the
periphery. As one interviewee noted, "It is amazing and criminal that
such little details can have such a negative impact on the whole life of
an individual!"

Some referred to unsafe roads that girls had to pass through, while many
also noted that girls did not want to go to school because they were
bored by the methods of teaching which emphasised rote learning, or
because the teachers were cruel, beat them, and humiliated them. In some
cases, instances of sexual harassment by teachers were also mentioned,
as were anecdotes of girls being raped on the way to school, when
passing through remote places where outlaws tended to find refuge.

That such issues as cruelty and harassment by teachers could be raised
at the workshops attests to the remarkable process that these communal
meetings set into motion. One has to keep in mind that, as some of the
participants noted, it is difficult for community members to raise
issues such as these in the context of small villages, when perpetrators
are from the same family, or from competing families in the same
village. Openly discussing such issues was also culturally daring, given
the pervasive code of honour and shame.[^21]

Communities that found it difficult and shameful to admit that their
families were not investing in their daughters' education and dissembled
the truth were confronted with some of the data that had been put
together by Nader Fergany for the October conference and referred to
earlier. Such quantitative data was a valuable complement to the
information that was being collected qualitatively, and applied shock
therapy to those in denial mode. Fayoum and Menia, to their distress,
found themselves competing for first place in having the biggest gender
gap, a source of embarrassment but also a motivation to action.

*Setting up Local Voluntary Task Forces*

Other than building trust and understanding better the reasons for
girls' absence from school, another key outcome of the workshops was an
invitation by NCCM and UNICEF asking each community to set up a *Local
Voluntary Task Force*. LTFs were to made up of around 17 volunteers
representing mainly teachers and NGOs (with parents and girls having
also been initially involved), with the explicit mandate to build up an
action plan on the basis of the workshop conclusions, with the plans
structured around the main themes that had led the discussions,
including causes of girls' absence, the demand and supply for education,
strengths and weaknesses in the community in relation to educational
issues, and aspirations for the future. The choice of representatives
was made in a transparent manner, with an effort to ensure that those
involved had a major interest in, and commitment to education. Choices
were made strategically: broad representation meant that not only did
LTFs enjoy legitimacy, but they were also better equipped to
problem-solve, given that the initiative had to face challenges from
various quarters, not just the educational one. The backgrounds of those
serving on the LTFs were hence very different, and also included
specialists in law, agriculture, and economics besides education. The
Sohaag LTF, for instance, had the head of the governorate's development
department, who was the key person to facilitate access to data. As an
interviewee noted, "Everybody uses his or her position to add value to
the local team." Some also noted that such different profiles
occasionally led to difficulties in working together, but everybody's
intense commitment helped them resolve issues when these arose.

Operational matters were greatly facilitated by the example given by the
first governorate where an LTF was formed, i.e. Fayoum. Here the
governor provided the volunteers with a furnished room and a
communications infrastructure as a base to work from, with other
governors following suit.

*The LTFs at work*

At the start of the initiative, the LTFs were the lead organisations at
the governorate level, and played a pivotal role in getting the GEI off
the ground. Considering the amount of time, work and energy that its
members put into it, one NCCM staff member with a long history in
development characterised LTFs actually represent "a breakthrough in the
encouragement of organised voluntarism to assist development in Egypt."
These volunteers were set three main, inter-related tasks: they had to
develop an action plan that would effectively deal with the problem of
girls' education, but in order to do so they had to have an
understanding of the true extent of the problem, and the reasons for the
problem according to the specific nature of the contexts they had to
cater for. UNICEF provided them with some training programmes based on
experiential group work in communication skills, creativity, advocacy,
and problem-solving. LTF members were moreover given exposure to the
different school varieties that could potentially serve as a model for
girl-friendly schools---such as the One Classroom Schools, the Small
Schools and the Community Schools---and to chose from among these
according to which they thought would suit their governorate's needs
best. Invariably, LTFs chose to build on the CS model, reaping the
cumulative benefit of the experience, and to adapt it to their
environment.

We have already noted that the available statistics about out-of-school
girls were approximate at best. In the more remote areas, marriage and
birth certificates are not always kept, making it near impossible to
have any reliable information based on official documents. Moreover,
since data is kept at *merkes* (district) level, and not at the level of
village or hamlet, instances arose where some governorates were not even
aware of the existence of some hamlets that were under their
jurisdiction. In other cases, even where information was available, it
was not easily or freely available. Indeed, the GEI was faced with a
quandary as to whether to wait to have all the necessary data in hand
before choosing the sites for the schools, or to move ahead and rely on
the LTFs' knowledge of the governorate to make informed choices. The GEI
opted to forge ahead, but to at the same time invest some resources in
establishing a reliable database by providing some training and
equipment at the governorate level. In 2003, therefore, the NCCM signed
protocols with governorates, and started supplying them with computers
(500 PCs and 150 printers by 2006), and providing training in data
gathering, entry, coding and analysis to persons employed at the local
information units. In some governorates the available data reached the
level of mother villages while in other cases---as in Menia and
Sohaag---the available data reached only the level of local units. By
2006, such training had been delivered to 2438 staff members with the
technical support of UNICEF. Staff sent out over 562,000 questionnaires,
with the incoming data serving to greatly strengthen information systems
at a sub-national level. In addition, and building on the strengths of
the existing school maps produced by the General Authority for
Educational Buildings (GAEB), the project trained government staff on
Geographic Information Systems (GIS).[^22]

The LTFs supervised this process, and in addition embarked on
house-to-house surveys in those areas that were too remote to be
captured by the questionnaires, in an effort to verify how many
out-of-school girls there were in a particular location, an exercise
that effectively represents the first household survey of this kind in
Egypt. These forays into hamlets, together with the data gathered by the
local units, provided a "real assessment of the community... a true
reflection of what's there", noted an official from the MoE, adding that
"the information that was gathered at the start still very useful now."
The questionnaire surveys together with the house-to-house visits
resulted in the identification of the numbers of out-of-school girls at
the hamlet level in the seven targeted governorates---a first for Egypt.

Interviewees who had participated in this exercise recalled the hazards
and difficulties that they encountered during the surveys. In many
cases, they had to travel across dirt roads and across deserted areas in
order to get to their destination. Inhabitants of remote villages and
hamlets were suspicious of the intentions of unknown visitors knocking
at their doors to ask whether there were any girls in the home, and if
so whether they went to school. Some dissembled the truth, either saying
they had no daughters, or that they were at school. LTF members from
Sohaag recalled one instance when a father insisted angrily that he had
no girls at home, and slammed the door in their face...only for a dirty
and dishevelled girl to peek out of a window saying "Here I am!". In
some cases, data gatherers had to go to the local school to do a head
count, and confront the result of that with another head count in the
village.

In some cases, LTF members were not allowed access into the home, with
children being scared as they were not accustomed to visitors and
strangers. Quickly the LTFs understood that it was best to have somebody
from the vicinity accompany them, so as to be introduced to the
community. Initial suspicion and antagonism was also overcome when
villagers saw the dedication of the volunteers, who had taken the
trouble to travel all the way to their hamlet. By the time the teams had
finalised their work, the NCCM ended with an impressive data base with
"the exact data...with the names and addresses and age of those girls
who do not go to school."

The visits to the hamlets and villages also served to generate a deeper
understanding of the reasons for keeping girls out of schools in
specific communities, as well as to mobilize parents and other community
members around the idea of providing schooling. LTF volunteers had to
learn how to connect with these communities. One interviewee involved in
these advocacy and social mobilization programmes recalled, for
instance, how they had not been accepted at first, but "we sat on the
ground with them, spoke their language... and they became much more open
and responsive." Others noted how, when discussing the importance of
sending girls to school, they caught the sympathetic eye of the mother,
who had not dared stand up to the father. They realised that they were
voicing many a mother's readiness to give up getting help in the home,
and to see their daughter getting an education---a goal which some
fathers did not value as highly. In many cases too, awareness-raising
led individuals and local councils make donations to the initiative.

*Drawing up action plans*

Members of LTFs who were interviewed recalled the early phases of their
engagement with the project with great enthusiasm and a sense of intense
satisfaction. Meeting with families and communities in villages and
hamlets, discussing important issues with them, winning them over to an
ideal and values they had a profound commitment to, feeling that they
were making a positive difference to the lives of individuals---all this
made them feel socially useful, and that they were engaged in something
that was deeply meaningful for communities and for the nation as a
whole. The door-by-door gathering of information about girls, while a
lengthy and even hazardous process at times, got them to interact with
individuals and families so that the problem they were attempting to
address now had a face and felt even more concrete, as did the urgency
to do something about it.

The next task for the LTFs was to use all this data and information in
order to develop an action plan covering formal primary education for
out-of-school girls in their governorate. And, in the words of one LTF
leader, this was when the *shahr al assal*---the honeymoon---came to an
end!" Another recalled how painfully inadequate they had felt, given
that most of them did not have any formal training at all to tackle the
task. UNICEF and NCCM engaged some planning experts and put them at the
disposal of each task force early in 2002. LTF members took part in
five-day workshops, which had a good mix of lecture input, case study
discussions around the reasons for which girls tend to miss out on
schooling, and hands-on training on how to devise an action plan,
focusing on needs, priorities, and objectives in response to the
specificity of the governorate each group was working in. Efforts were
made to ensure that each LTF interacted with each other, in order that
they would speak the same 'language', learn from the experiences of
others, and realise that while each LTF was going through the same
process, the way issues were tackled and the solutions found could be
different because of the specificity of each context.

Over and above the value of the workshops in team building, the
development of communication and problem-solving skills, and other
aspects of personal growth that were vital to the successful functioning
of the LTFs, a key focus was of course on the technical skills needed to
write up viable action plans. Key issues here included skills in costing
the different projects that were placed in the plan, in monitoring and
evaluating the extent to which objectives targeted were being reached,
and in generating criteria for performance monitoring and output
indicators. In addition, one of the lead experts engaged by UNICEF and
NCCM to deliver training prepared a guide which LTF members could
consult as they set about drawing up their action plan, providing tips
on how a plan expresses goals and ways to attain those goals, outlining
the different tools for planning, techniques for problem identification
and needs assessment, ways of calculating the gender gap, the use of
data bases, the articulation of SMART (i.e. Specific, Measurable,
Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound) objectives, how objectives could
be translated into projects, calculating the investment needed to
implement projects, the identification of local resources, the tapping
of government and private sector aid, and the different criteria and
tools needed at the implementation stage.

After this training, LTFs were given two months to write up their plan.
Plans were to follow the same pattern, with sections outlining the
prevailing socio-economic situation in the governorate as well as its
educational profile, the defining needs and priorities, the geographical
distribution, the basic principles underlying the plan, the
identification of the problem, the overall objectives of the plan for a
specific time period, the implementation areas at the level of the Local
Unit and the Mother Village, the programmes that would vehicle the
action of the LTFs in relation to the key pillars of the GEI (i.e.
completion of databases, public awareness and mobilization, expansion of
girl-friendly schools, and poverty alleviation). Each plan was also to
include data annexes with budgets, time schedules, and a general summary
on implementation mechanisms and partners. Each plan too had to
complement the educational strategies of the Ministry of Education, in
an effort to ensure a more integrated approach.

Members who were involved in this exercise recall the difficulties they
encountered, as most had never been through a similar experience, and,
as one of the consulting experts noted, "the LTFs really had no culture
of planning... the exercise required a different culture, knowledge and
skills from what they had been accustomed to in their personal and
professional lives." One LTF member recalled how hard they worked to
prepare the plan: "We worked up till mid-night at times, and there were
moments where we almost gave up." Another recalled how she could not
sleep at times: "It felt like such a big responsibility... really
scary... 'How on earth will we manage to do this?', we kept asking
ourselves...What kept us going was the fact we were in love with the
project."

*Specificity of different governorates*

While the LTF teams may have lacked the sophisticated technical skills
required by the planning exercise, they had a sound, first-hand
knowledge of the specificity of their governorate, and how this
specificity impacted on the challenge of getting girls into schools.
This specificity is worth dwelling on, as it had an impact on the
differentiated up-take of the initiative. In addition, as the chair of
the NGO implementing GEI in Fayoum noted, the attention to specificity
was a break-through for the country: "This is the first time in Egypt
when the parts become part of a whole in a national system in a
decentralised manner, through the articulation of an action plan that
speaks to the governorate's realities and needs: such respect for
specificity is unprecedented in our country." It is unlikely that this
specificity would have been captured had it not been for the input of
the LTF members.

Such specificity had several aspects to it. As the action plans
indicated, governorates differ from each other for geographic,
socio-economic as well as cultural reasons, and these factors come
together in complex ways to present various challenges in getting girls
into schools. Guiza, for instance, covers a wide territorial stretch,
with one oasis being 450 kilometres away from anywhere. Such distances
make it difficult for supervisors to visit facilitators on a regular
basis. Mountainous regions are particularly inaccessible, as well as
hazardous, given that they are a refuge to outlaws. Remote communities
in Guiza, Fayoum and elsewhere are not only hard to reach, but also
difficult to catch the eye of the international donor community.

Guiza too has the largest rural population among the governorates in
Egypt. Unlike Nile Valley inhabitants, Guiza citizens tend to have set
and very traditional attitudes towards women. In Guiza, too, the land
has high archaeological value, and the project of building schools is
often obstructed by the controls that have to be carried out before
permission is given. In Sohaag governorate, some of the hamlets are
extremely conservative, will not even allow a male supervisor to visit a
girls' school, and the bias against girls is such that parents oblige
daughters to dress in boys' clothes when they leave the house. All this
had to be factored in when planning to address the gender gap in such
areas as Dar es-Salaam, which in fact had one of the highest rates of
girls out of school in all the country. Fayoum, on its part, suffers
from a particularly depressed economic situation, has an underdeveloped
infrastructure, and high illiteracy rates. Several men travel to Cairo
to find work, with time get tired of commuting, and desert their
families, to the extent that a reported 34% of households are dependent
on the remaining parent. Other men have abandoned their village because
their traditional livelihood---fishing---has been threatened by the lack
of fish in the lake. In such situations, mothers are hard pressed not to
oblige their daughters to work at home or to supplement meagre family
income.

Some of these governorate-level specificities also impacted on another
key difficulty that LTFs had to deal with in preparing their plans, i.e.
the putting together of reliable data regarding the gender gap in the
different districts, mother villages and hamlets. In the first instance,
and as already noted, some governorates only kept data at the village
level, and had little if any information about hamlets. In addition,
some governorates---such as Fayoum for instance---had families living on
border line areas, and were registered twice. For these and other
similar reasons, the data tables in the plans had to be continually
revised to take into account the new information about out-of-school
girls that kept coming in through feedback from communities. As
information systems at governorate level improved, the plans had to
remain flexible enough to modify targets during the implementation
phase.

*Finalizing the action plans*

The exercise of drawing up the action plans stretched all the LTFs, who
felt that, despite all the effort they put into it, and despite the
training they had received, the task proved daunting. Much depended on
the background of the LTF members, with differences surfacing between
governorates. Some enjoyed a vibrant civil society and had experience in
managing projects. For others the exercise was a completely new
experience, where the initial results were, in their own words,
"catastrophic", and with the plan having to go through several drafts
before it was presentable.

A briefing note in the NCCM archives dated July 13, 2002, captures well
the Secretariat's concerns about the quality of the initial drafts.
Secretariat members agreed that

> "although good efforts were exerted in the preparation of the plans,
> they remain inadequate and incomplete for the following reasons: the
> data is missing hence no assessment is made; the situation analysis is
> either missing or sketchy; the local specificity in all the plans is
> missing---they are far too general; the outcome of the training is too
> general and undifferentiated; objectives are unclear and often
> confused with strategies; there are no bases for targeting; no
> indicators are available; no mention of implementation
> arrangements---i.e. roles and responsibilities; no logical sequence of
> steps in the plans; no relationships or links between the various
> components of the plan; no realistic budgets or understanding of
> absorptive capacity; no forward-looking strategy for the
> sustainability of systems; no clear planning for quality learning; no
> clear planning for the utilization of loans; no mention of integration
> between departments or ministries; no qualitative data and analyses;
> no prioritization."

The draft plans, each covering the period 2002-2005, were presented to
UNICEF and NCCM. In the words of one of the LTF co-ordinators, these
agencies and their consultants "formalized the plan that we had prepared
from the heart." These experts helped the volunteers re-articulate the
different sections of the plan in a more scientific language, giving the
plans a more professional look which was necessary since the plans would
also be used to negotiate funding from government and from international
donors. UNICEF undertook the completion and design of the overall vision
and organization of the plans through the first action plan completed
for Assiut, which served as a model for the remaining six governorates.
The consulting experts worked closely with the LTFs so that they made
sure that they truly expressed what the volunteers wanted to say, with
drafts being shared to get feedback and to ensure that different views
were taken into account. Thus, despite the extensive reworking of the
initial drafts, the volunteers still felt ownership of the plans, and
they felt "very proud of what we managed to achieve." The close
collaboration with experts also meant that the volunteers further
developed the skills they had gained during the training workshops. Such
capacity building is crucial, particularly given that the action plans
are now in the process of being reviewed. Plans were finalised after
consultations with governors, the Ministry of Education, and the
National Task Force.

*Consolidating the action plans in a comprehensive vision for GEI*

The NCCM secretariat, in the meantime, consolidated itself and started
finding its feet in terms of its role as the lead national coordinating
agency for GEI. Initially, the whole project seemed to have been
catapulted on them from above, and some were somewhat resentful, seeing
this as an additional burden which they felt they did not have the
personal or time resources to deal with. In many cases, too, the
technical capacity required by the initiative was either underdeveloped
or missing. UNICEF provided several training opportunities, and ensured
that they were exposed to as many Community Schools as possible so that
they could better grasp what girl-friendly schools would look like when
they were functioning, and what kinds of philosophy and pedagogy would
be suitable. The Secretariat was also strengthened, thanks to UNICEF
support, through training in monitoring and evaluation, which was to be
their key role in the initiative. By November 2002, an information
system consolidating all the information that was coming through from
the LTFs and from the local information units had been established at
the NCCM headquarters in Cairo.

With UNICEF's cooperation, the Secretariat consolidated the data from
the action plans prepared by the seven governorates, and outlined a
national, comprehensive vision as well as country-wide objectives, which
included the decrease of the gender gap by 50% in each of the seven
governorates by the year 2007, by reaching 179,139 out-of-school girls,
the establishment of 5119 classes to cater for these girls. By 2003, the
initiative had reached 60% of the target set, and established 3166
girl-friendly classes or schools. Following up on information surveys
carried out in 2005, the goals and objectives were revised. The
overarching goals included the decrease of the gender gap in primary
education enrolment rates by 2007, and the improvement of quality of
education and the attainment of education for all by 2015. The
objectives included the decrease of the gender gap in primary education
enrolment rates by 2007 in targeted areas of the seven governorates by
60% of its value in 2002, and the opening of 1047 girl-friendly schools
by the end of 2007 to allow the enrolment of 31410 students---of which
75% had to be girls---in the seven governorates.

**4 Launching GEI and building girl-friendly schools**

*The official launch*

The finalisation of the action plans for each of the 7 governorates
brings to a close the planning phase. The next task was to translate
plans to action. Of course, writing conventions tend to reduce complex,
dynamic processes into linear sequences which fail to capture the way
planning and implementation phases overlap with each other. Innovation
is in fact fundamentally iterative and synergistic in essence, with
initiatives and events setting into motion other processes, and this has
to be kept in mind as we describe the ways in which GEI, and the action
plans developed by the Local Voluntary Task Forces, were implemented.

With 7 action plans in hand, the First Lady, in the presence of the
Prime Minister and the line ministries members of the National Task
Force, chaired a high-level pledging meeting in December 2002,
signalling and reaffirming the country's resolve to address the gender
gap. The National Task Force, in the meantime, had been meeting
regularly, kept updated with progress, and was instrumental in ensuring
that the GEI retained high priority across all policy-making levels. In
contrast to the October 2000 workshop, the policy-makers now had a much
clearer picture of the situation in the worst-hit governorates, a Local
Task Force in each of the governorates that had established a network
both with the key leaders at governorate level, and with communities in
mother villages and outlying hamlets, a NCCM secretariat that was
forming and consolidating itself as an effective co-ordinating tool, and
a clear articulation of goals as well as a strategy of how to reach
those goals. Information systems had been strengthened at the
sub-national level, and a Girls' Education information system
established at the NCCM.

The "painful gestation period", as some interviewees referred to the
years 2000 to 2002, had produced a set of documents which could be used
to mobilize and define government and donor support, and indeed, the
First Lady invited each of the ministers present to submit a detailed
plan of how they would help the NCCM realise those aspects of the plan
that fell within their area of responsibility, and how to make best use
of the USD27.5 million that the government had earmarked to the
initiative when it included the GEI as a distinct component in the
country's National Five-Year Plan.[^23] Members from the private sector
community also pledged support. Concurrently, national visibility for
GEI was ensured through advocacy meetings country-wide, with the First
Lady being instrumental in this process, and with national and local
media being used to good effect.

Soon after, on January 5^th^ 2003, the First Lady presided over the
launching ceremony of the Action Plans which were to guide the
implementation of the GEI in Egypt, with the different Ministries
pledging their support to the different programmes of the initiative.
That same year was also declared to be "The Year of the Girl Child",
with a focus on dialogue in the family, family empowerment, and a
renewed effort to combat child labour and early marriage.

In the chapters that follow we will look at the key implementing
structures of the initiative, namely the NGOs in each of the seven
governorates; the actual building of girl-friendly schools; the efforts
to get girls to attend school; and the manner in which education was
provided to the girls that did start attending the schools.

*The implementing NGOs*

While in the initial and planning phases of the initiative, the Local
Volunteer Task Forces played the lead part, the implementation of GEI
was to be managed by a non-governmental organisation chosen, according
to pre-established criteria, in each of the seven governorates. The
decision to give such a pre-eminent role to NGOs requires some
justification, particularly in a country where the scope for action on
the part of civil society is still somewhat hampered by restrictive
legislation presumably in the interests of national security. One of the
NGOs involved with GEI, with long experience in mobilizing civil society
in favour of women's rights, also noted that such restrictions were
leading to "an erosion of the culture of team work in all governorates,
with a tension regarding mandates. The current situation may be creating
non-conducive, non-enabling environments." Others moreover noted that
even where NGOs *were* active, their technical capacity tended to be
weak in Egypt, with most of them requiring a lot of support in the
initial phases.

Despite the general lack of dynamism among NGOs in Egypt, NCCM and
UNICEF made the decision to trust carefully chosen NGOs with the task of
implementing their vision for girl-friendly schooling. This is
understandable given that, as we have seen, the philosophy underpinning
GEI privileges community participation and mobilization. In addition,
the Community School initiative had shown that partnership with NGOs is
not only possible, but also the only way implementation can be carried
through at the grassroots level, particularly in relation to the
transfer and management of funds, which cannot be transmitted to
voluntary entities like the LTFs. The first encounter with NGOs took
place in the consultation meetings described in Chapter 3, with NCCM
inviting organisations present at each meeting to offer their services.

In some cases, the challenge of choosing the most appropriate NGO was
not easy. One LTF co-ordinator noted, for instance, that there were as
many as 314 NGOs in Fayoum. The NCCM and UNICEF encouraged LTFs to
propose a short list of 3 potential NGOs, providing them with several
criteria to help them in making the selection.[^24] Criteria included
the technical capacities of the NGOs, their ability to manage funds, the
transparency with which they handled their affairs, the availability of
up-front capital in order to shore up any activities in the case that
central funds did not reach them in time, and facilities to store
teaching resources that came through from the NCCM and donors. Where
there was a short-list, NCCM staff visited the competing NGOs and made
the final choice.

The mandate of the selected NGOs is quite broad. They are basically the
intermediaries between the NCCM and the governorate, and are the
guarantors that the targets set out in the action plan are being
reached. This includes such tasks as monitoring and managing the
construction and maintenance of schools, the selection and performance
of facilitators as well as of district and field supervisors, the
procurement and delivery of educational resources and supplies, and the
mobilization of interest in, and commitment to girl-friendly schools in
the governorate. Some have developed a vision which goes beyond their
formal mandate, introducing new programmes to further development,
particularly in relation to participation and empowerment. Generally
speaking, each NGO has one manager, field and school supervisors, an
information officer, and a person in charge of stores.

NGOs are expected to work closely with the LTFs, even if members of the
latter occasionally expressed some regret that the central role was now
being played by the NGO. "Our role is shrinking", noted one LTF
stalwart. "Before we had a 100% share in the project, but it feels as if
it's only about 10%\... I almost feel jealous because I love the project
so much and I want to remain at the heart of it." Others noted that
tensions between the two bodies could arise from the fact that while NGO
members were paid, LTF members were volunteers, and that voluntary
activities were fine over a short period of time, but could not be
sustained when a project lasted several months, if not years. The
tensions were particularly felt, I was told, when LTFs were better
organised or had more capacities than NGOs, and despite this NCCM
funding for the initiative had to be necessarily channelled through the
latter. In some cases, however, mechanisms have been established for
regular meetings between NGO and LTF members, where, in a workshop
context, best practices are exchanged, and issues specific to
governorate level are addressed. In the course of my field visits, I
attended two such sessions and in both cases it became evident that the
synergy between the different groups could be harnessed for the greater
good of the initiative.

NCCM provides training for NGO members in different areas, including
administration and finance. The training manual prepared for the purpose
includes a clear articulation of roles and responsibilities, both for
the implementing NGO and for its partners, and sessions that set out to
develop skills in preparing proposals and work plans, in budgeting, in
evaluation and monitoring, in reporting, in co-ordination, and in
creating an information system.

*Expanding girl-friendly schools*

We have already noted that the objective for GEI was that by 2007, NCCM
would establish 1047 girl-friendly schools and classrooms in order to
absorb the enrolment of 31,410 pupils---of whom 75% must be
girls\--figures which were to be revised upwards when the primary cycle
was increased from five to six years, and when more private and
international donors came on board to permit expansion to targeted
districts. To date, 709 girl-friendly classrooms and schools have been
made available, 627 of which are operating in the seven governorates.
This is no mean feat, as we will see, and required the NCCM to work with
several partners to reach its objectives.

The main donor in this project is of course the government, which
transfers land rights to the NCCM so that it can build its schools.
While the MoE caters for scale, with its minimum school unit being made
up of 8 classrooms capable of receiving 320 children, most girl-friendly
schools are composed of one-classroom units,[^25] suitable for
multi-grade teaching, with, in some cases, a lavatory, a storage
facility, and a garden. There is also an effort to have ramps to
facilitate access for pupils who suffer from mobility impairment.
Classrooms have a total area of 57m^2^, with each student allocated a
footprint area of 1.5m^2^, permitting a maximum of 36 students per
class. In some hamlets with a very low number of inhabitants, smaller
models of one-classroom schools, catering for a maximum of 26 pupils,
are constructed. GAEB takes two to three months to build each school,
and since it has decentralised its operations to offices in each
governorate, can keep a good pace going, which is especially important
to ensure that funds available are spent within a given budget cycle.
Several scores of schools can be in the process of construction at any
one time, with decentralisation increasing efficiency given that each
governorate knows its particular needs much better than the central
office in Cairo does, and can monitor the process much more effectively.
GAEB's electronic school mapping services are linked by computer to all
its offices in the governorates, and this provides invaluable
information when it comes to deciding where schools need to be built,
given the criteria for the selection of sites and data collected by
local information units in collaboration with LTFs.

In the majority of cases, the girl-friendly schools are stand-alone
structures in or close to the village or hamlet. In some governorates,
however, rooms have been allocated to the GEI in regular schools,
culture clubs, and even mosques. This is the case with Bani Sueif, for
instance, where there are presently 129 such 'integrated' classrooms,
which are in fact kept separate from the regular school because they
follow a multi-grade methodology and logic.[^26] Some individuals or
communities have also been known to offer land so that a girl-friendly
school can be built, or a room in a house so that it can be used for
teaching purposes. In the latter case, however, private owners can ask
for the room back whenever they need it, thus disrupting educational
provision. In the former case, there have been problems with individuals
and families offering land, only for the NCCM to find out that the land
did not in fact belong to them. Some also had ulterior motives when
donating land, for instance expecting that a member of their family
would be hired as a guard or as a facilitator once the school started
functioning, or that the school or facilitators would eventually give
them some money in compensation.

*Funding partners*

As we have noted earlier, one central feature of the GEI is the forging
of partnerships with other stakeholders, including, as we have just
seen, private donors, but also the corporate sector and the
international aid community. All three sectors were directly involved in
the expansion of girl-friendly schools, and as a representative of one
of the main donors noted, this involvement came together in ways that
provided satisfaction to all parties and ensured the success of the
initiative: "There is a like-mindedness among partners and leaders
involved in the project...everybody at the top believes that we *can*
make a difference, that it *can* be done."

It is interesting to highlight the fact that, according to the NCCM,
donors did not offer to help out before GEI had established a reputation
for itself. As the Ambassador noted, "They came later, when they could
understand the worth of the initiative, and saw with their own eyes that
this was important for the country." The Ambassador also felt that what
made the difference was also the seriousness and professionalism with
which GEI matters were generally handled, since this made donors feel
reassured that their funds were being put to good use. As various NCCM
staff members repeatedly pointed out, with reference to attracting
donors as well as to other issues, "The one brand name for GEI schools
is quality: the main threat is if we lose that, especially as the number
of schools increases."

In most cases too, corporate donors made the first move to contact NCCM,
rather than the other way round. This was the case with the first
school, which was designed and built by the Cairo-based Hamza
Associates---a leading Egyptian company specialising in planning,
architecture and engineering---which worked closely with NCCM to develop
a model that was appropriate, given the philosophy and pedagogical
approaches underpinning the school, and given the criteria that NCCM had
set for the school buildings. Genuinely impressed and inspired by the
ideals and principles behind the initiative, the company director
offered his services for free, and personally supervised the project
from beginning to end.

This was also the case of CEMEX, the Mexican-owned cement company with a
major plant in Assiut, where the Corporate Communications & Public
Affairs Director, an Egyptian lady who believed in the importance of
empowering women to have equal rights, read an article about the GEI in
a newspaper and managed to persuade her colleagues to put 3 million
pounds (half a million US dollars) into the initiative over a period of
three years. In this case as in others, NCCM insisted that donors should
not simply give the money and move away, but that they should rather be
more closely engaged in the project by actually building the schools
themselves, in order to feel a greater sense of ownership. CEMEX in fact
built 19 one- or two-classroom schools according to a design which the
company's own architects developed, on the basis of specifications
provided by UNICEF through NCCM and with NCCM approval. The company also
employed apprentices from its building and construction school in
Assiut, and used any remaining funds from the overall allocation in
order to also furnish and resource the schools.

A major player was---and still is---Apache, an American oil company
which, through its philanthropic arm, *Springboard*, vouched for the
building of 125 schools in the first phase of their involvement
(2004-2006), and had in fact bequeathed 201 to NCCM by December 2006.
Motivated by a sense of corporate social responsibility, and by a deep
appreciation of the fact that "if you educate a girl, you educate a
family and a nation", the goal of the company is to build up to 1000
one-classroom GEI schools, on condition that these would only cater for
girls.[^27] Apache builds the schools, but does not equip them. The
buildings follow a design that was refined over time, but which is
essentially meant to be, in the words of the company represented
interviewed, "aesthetically above the basic government school". It has
also entered into a partnership with the Sawiris Foundation, a
philanthropic organisation established by a wealthy Coptic family, which
has agreed to fund the expenses involved in the training of facilitators
and supervisors for Apache-built schools.

An important break-through which will help keep the building programme
on track is the decision by the EU to fund different aspects of the GEI.
Eleven contracts have been signed, one of which will cover the funds
needed to build, furnish and equip 200 more girl-friendly schools.

*Criteria for girl-friendly schools*

Both if a girl-friendly school is to be built, and if schooling is to be
offered in an already existing building, specific criteria were
established in order to ensure quality and safety, and to respect
girl-friendly principles.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| **Criteria for the selection of school locations**                    |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| *The school should:*                                                  |
|                                                                       |
| 1.  be located in a catchments area with not less than 1500 people;   |
|                                                                       |
| 2.  be distant from noise;                                            |
|                                                                       |
| 3.  not be in close proximity to barns or sources of noise and        |
|     pollution;                                                        |
|                                                                       |
| 4.  have safe roads leading to the school;                            |
|                                                                       |
| 5.  have, if possible, access to electricity;                         |
|                                                                       |
| 6.  have a nearby bathroom in case it is not possible to have a       |
|     bathroom within the building;                                     |
|                                                                       |
| 7.  have a (safe) playground if possible;                             |
|                                                                       |
| 8.  have an area not less than 110m^2^ for the smaller of the two     |
|     school models, and 200m^2^ for the larger school.                 |
|                                                                       |
| 9.  not be located less than 2km from the nearest primary             |
|     school---though it is possible to exempt the site from this       |
|     condition if the density of the classrooms in the closest primary |
|     school is 45 pupils or more;                                      |
|                                                                       |
| 10. be located in the midst of a village or hamlet where no less than |
|     25 girls (age 6 up to under 14) are out of school;                |
|                                                                       |
| 11. be constructed on a piece of land having the necessary official   |
|     approvals (the Ministry of Agriculture, Antiquities, etc);        |
|                                                                       |
| 12. be within the jurisdiction of the local authorities;              |
|                                                                       |
| 13. in case of donations, have evidence in writing to that effect;    |
|                                                                       |
| 14. be distant from major roads or highways.                          |
|                                                                       |
| > *In the case of accepting locations within already existing         |
| > buildings, in addition to the above criteria, the building should:* |
|                                                                       |
| 15. have proper ventilation and lighting;                             |
|                                                                       |
| 16. be safe and secure from a construction point of view;             |
|                                                                       |
| 17. have a tiled floor.                                               |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

*Problems with land*

The transfer of land to the NCCM may appear to be a straightforward
matter to those unacquainted with the country, but it is in fact a most
complex and challenging process. A common statement made by interviewees
was that "Land can be messy in Egypt!"---and there are many reasons for
this. In the first place, land is a scarce commodity in the country, due
to the fact that agricultural land is eroding, and can in fact only be
built on if the construction is to serve a public purpose. Even then,
the bureaucratic procedures that need to be followed are so complex and
lengthy that most NCCM, NGO, LTF staff and donors I spoke to referred to
it with immense frustration, and even horror.

Clearance for a building permit was required from the governorate, and
from three or four different ministries, including those of agriculture,
irrigation and, when the land was in an archaeologically sensitive area
(as in Menia and Guiza), from the Ministry of Antiquities. In addition,
negotiations had to be made in each case with the General Authority of
Educational Buildings (GAEB), a national body affiliated to MoE, a
procedure so complex that it took the NCCM secretariat a whole year to
pin down. Each school site had to pass a soil test to determine whether
permission could be granted, and if so what kind of foundations had to
be laid. In this, NCCM was at the mercy of faculties of agriculture, who
sometimes took months to provide the test results.

Paper work represented a challenge to the departments issuing them as
well. In some cases, for instance, the Department of Properties at the
level of the local municipality considered that the work related to GEI
schools did not fall under their usual remit, and represented extra work
for which they wanted remuneration. Potential donors lost heart, while
those who stayed the course were frustrated because they could not spend
the money their company had allocated to the project within the fiscal
year, thus risking losing it. Individual benefactors who had become
fired up with enthusiasm during the community mobilization period, and
who had, for the first time "touched first hand and felt the importance
of education", as one NGO director told me, "decided not to wait for
approval by government building departments, but gave their donation and
impatiently pushed for the work to start."

Other problems surfaced once the paper work had been completed. In some
cases, the NCCM found families squatting on the land they had been given
by the government, and often these proved difficult to dislodge, having
to resort to the police after discussions with the help of community
leaders failed. In at least one case an architect was attacked when
squatters saw him get too close, while in another a contractor's tools
ended up in the canal. In cases where the family was in extreme
hardship, the NCCM, with the help of the LTFs, tried to identify an
alternative plot nearby where the school could be built instead.

Difficulties also arose due to the nature of the buildings and the sites
the schools were to be constructed on. Most of the schools were
one-classroom schools, and it proved difficult to find contractors
willing to take on small jobs. Many sites were in remote areas, and were
not only difficult to reach, but also had no drainage or water and
electricity supplies. This was particularly challenging in the initial
period of the project, as the MoE had not yet earmarked funds for GEI in
its 5-year plan, with governors saving the day by allocating funds from
other line budgets in order to make sure that the project did not falter
just when it was about to take off.

Sometimes there were no roads leading up to them, making it difficult
for a contractor to get his equipment where it was needed. Donors
involved in building some of these schools noted that one could not do
anything much without four-wheel-drive vehicles, with cell phones ever
ready in case cars broke down in a deserted place. All this of course
added to the costs of the building, potentially having an impact on the
attractiveness of the project for donors.

*Other challenges*

The NCCM had to face other challenges too as it went about expanding its
building programme, and it responded to these as best as it could,
flexibly modifying plans, learning as it went along, but doing its
utmost not to compromise on basic principles. Some challenges it had
little control over. Cost was one of these, with inflation surpassing
the 10% predicted due to the rise in the price of materials, and with
the required outlay for each school going up from around EGP70,000 (or
USD12,300) to EGP110,000 (USD19,200).[^28] This of course meant that, in
the case of the schools being built by the government, the number of
units targeted could not be reached.

Cost too was behind one compromise that the NCCM would have preferred
not to have been obliged to do. Initially, the holistic approach to
girl-friendly schooling included a notion of constructing buildings that
blended in with the surrounding environment, principally through the use
of local materials. This was evident in the early designs for the first
school of the Hamza architectural company referred to above, as well as
in the models designed by CEMEX and Apache. It also echoed a principle
behind the construction of Community Schools across Egypt, which were
often built by villagers themselves, out of the materials available, and
which blended in with the rest of the huts and sheds in the hamlet. GEI
schools, however, took a different turn when, according to the
government department in charge of school construction, GAEB, the use of
local materials such as stone, rather than bricks and concrete, proved
to be not only more expensive, but, as the 1992 earthquake had shown,
less safe. In addition, it was not easy to find labourers who were
skilled in building with local materials.

Most of those involved in the school building pillar of the initiative
were aware of the importance of community 'readiness' for the schools.
Some were concerned that the scaling up of GEI was happening too
quickly, with some communities not having enough time to fully
understand and absorb the initiative, and with schools being built up
faster than communities could adapt and change attitudes that not only
favoured education---an issue we will take up again later---but the
concrete representation of education in their midst: the school building
itself. In some cases, for instance, village people broke into schools,
or used the bathrooms as public latrines, and even slept in the
school.[^29] This apparently had not happened with the Community Schools
project, where the village and hamlet had donated the land, built or
helped build the school, and therefore developed a stronger sense of
ownership and identification, with the school becoming, in the words of
a consultant who had evaluated the project, "the umbilical chord to the
community." Such close identification with the school is particularly
critical when, as in the GEI, the assumption is being made that the
maintenance of the buildings will be taken care of by the community.

People interviewed had different opinions about the impact of having a
school that stood out, in architectural terms, when compared to the rest
of the buildings in hamlets---even if there was consensus around the
notion that the community had to identify with the school, and feel that
the schools was 'theirs', and not the government's or the corporation
donating it. Both Apache and CEMEX, for instance, opted for
aesthetically pleasing designs which did stand out in their environment,
but which attempted to include elements that echoed vernacular
architectural idioms, such as stone-clad walls that reminded one of the
rubble stones that separate one field from the next, or even a domed
brick ceiling for the entrance hall, a typical structural feature in
many Arab countries. In the communities I visited, such schools were a
source of pride, "a light in the middle of the community", as a GEI
field manager noted, while showing me around an Apache-built school. The
CEMEX representative, while proudly displaying photos of the schools
that her company had built, spoke with passion about how these schools
stood "beautiful and pink and neat in the hamlets...and the community is
usually so proud of the school that many paint their own homes the same
colour."

*Impact of GEI schools on the community*

The schools had an impact on more than just aesthetic tastes in the
hamlets and villages they were to be found. Indeed, the school had an
influence on several aspects of the life of the community, and some of
these are worth dwelling on because they do alert us to the complex
dynamics that school expansion programmes can set loose. For starters,
building a school in poor, remote hamlets sends out a message to the
community that there are people and institutions out there who, first of
all, *know* about them, and also that they *care* about them. Many a
hamlet was 'discovered' and placed on the governorate map very simply
because the NCCM and its army of LTF and NGO staff were scouring the
country for communities that were not providing schooling to their
girls. Such attention, including visits by local and foreign public
figures---such as the First Lady of Egypt as well as of the US, the UN
Secretary General, NCCM Secretary General, UN staff, Ministers and
governors, not to mention NCCM visitors, Ministry officials, foreign
delegations, researchers, and the media---while possibly intrusive at
times, nevertheless made communities look at themselves and their own
circumstances differently, often giving them a sense of pride and
importance. As one interviewee perceptively pointed out, "these
communities have lived through generations of poverty...there is a
passive acceptance that this is their fate. GEI acts as the lever where
these communities can dare to hope...to dream differently."

In some cases, the building of a school brought with it the installation
of utilities for the whole hamlet, including roads, water, electricity,
and drains. "Schools", I was told, "can bring new life to the village in
this way." In Sohaag, for instance, the director of the NGO described
how the building of schools had stimulated heads of local municipalities
to extend roads and provide utilities, if anything to be able to extend
a proper welcome to dignitaries visiting from Cairo!

In many ways too, the arrival of a school also opens up the village and
hamlet not only to education, but to the outside world, triggering off
major transformations in attitudes as they are jolted out of a cocooned
existence. Many referred to a change in the mind-sets of the communities
in which schools were built. At one level, as the director of
philanthropic interests from Apache noted, "schools seem to usher in an
urban environment in a rural climate", inviting---perhaps even
obliging---villagers to respond to the bureaucratic demands of the
state, by, for instance, registering marriages, births and deaths. This
has implications not only for improved monitoring of school-age
children, but also for increased access to citizenship rights, as in the
case recounted to me by Dr. Saad Nassar, the ex-governor of Fayoum, who
explained that when some new schools were built in a particular district
in his governorate, hamlet inhabitants received an ID card for the first
time in their lives, enabling them to vote.

At another level, other changes in mind-sets were triggered off by the
community participation and mobilization pillar of the initiative. As we
have seen in the section describing the work of the LTFs, a major
principle underpinning GEI is participatory needs assessment, where
people are encouraged to express views and needs, and to work with NCCM
teams to design a response. Such a logic is not just about empowerment:
it implies a major attitudinal change, where people address problems and
challenges by taking charge of their own future and claiming their
rights, rather than resorting to age-old responses that might help an
individual win a battle but lose the war---namely by resorting to
cronyism and favouritism.

**5 Getting the Girls to School**

*From having buildings...to having schools*

Having a school built in a community---whether along simple and modest
lines, or in more sophisticated form---is, needless to say, the tip of
the iceberg. This is true even from a budgetary point of view: only 5%
of the overall costs goes to building the school. It is community
mobilization, training and salaries that take up by far the lion's share
of the budget, and without these, as the Ambassador likes to point out,
"You have a building, not a school."

We have just noted, in the previous chapter, that the mere fact of
building a school in a community brought with it the winds of change.
The biggest change of all involved the invitation to send daughters to
school. This invitation required parents and the community generally to
break with custom and tradition, and to think through the implications
that schooling might have on the household economy and division of
labour. Three key strategies were used to attain this goal, namely
community mobilization and awareness-raising, poverty alleviation, and
the provision of quality schooling. We will address each of these in
turn in this and subsequent chapters.

First, though, it is important to recall the criteria used to admit
children into the girl-friendly schools. Six criteria were set by NCCM:

*Awareness-raising and community mobilization*

Aspects of the community mobilization and awareness-raising pillar of
the GEI have already been noted in the section describing the work done
by the volunteers on the Local Task Forces in Chapter 3. During that
preparatory period, and particularly during the needs assessment
workshops, communities where significant gender gaps existed in relation
to access to schooling were encouraged to express their views and
concerns regarding opening up formal primary education to girls.
Important insights were generated regarding the reasons for such
discrimination against girls, and on the basis of these insights,
programmes of action were put into place, chief among them being the
building of schools close to the communities to facilitate physical
access.

Distance, however, was only one factor influencing parental reluctance
to send girls to schools. Culturally embedded notions about the place of
girls in society, set attitudes towards the gendered division of labour
in the household economy, and deep-seated notions about the value or
otherwise of investing in girls' education, were a major stumbling block
that had to be addressed with sensitivity and tact. We are not talking
here of a mild distrust of education, but rather a visceral rejection of
what can be perceived as a threat to a way of life. One need only recall
that, in some cases, NCCM staff were greeted with guns... even if now
"they slaughter sheep for us when we visit them, so happy are they to
see us."

The key to get through to parents was to ensure that the school offer
was flexible enough to accommodate the needs and life rhythms of the
community. Thus, schools start late enough in the morning to allow girls
to do their morning chores and help their mothers by getting water,
cleaning, or tending to the animals. Girls also have two days off every
week, on Friday, and on the day of the village market, to enable the
girls to go with their mothers to buy and sell goods---a day which
facilitators put to good use by planning for the rest of the week, and
by attending training sessions. The school also does its best to be
sensitive to seasonal cycles which bring with them additional chores for
girls, including, for instance, when dates have to be picked, or shrimps
peeled, or cotton collected.[^30]

*Education Committees: the link between the school and the community*

The link between the NGO, the LTFs and the NCCM with the community is
mediated through the Education Committees which one finds in every
girl-friendly school. These committees are made up of parents and what
many referred to during interviews as 'natural community leaders', i.e.
leaders without a formal role in the community, but who know their
community intimately, and enjoy a presence and standing among their
colleagues.[^31] Members are appointed directly by the NCCM, and the
choice is made on strategic grounds, with each member potentially having
a positive impact on girls' schooling because of his or her role in the
community. Examples include religious leaders, officials from the local
council, and the director of the department of adult education.
Experience has shown that it is critical to have women---often
housewives---on the Education Committees, as men traditionally do not
involve themselves in some aspects of social life, such as in house
chores issues that might have to be raised with mothers who make their
daughters miss schooling because of that.[^32] Committee members are
generally also well connected to other influential people in the
village, such as the *omda* (the hamlet elder) or the *imam* (the
religious leader). In Sohaag, for instance, supervisors recalled how an
*imam* managed to convince parents to send their children to school
instead of keeping them in the fields, while many other *imams*
advertised the GEI schools during Friday prayers in the mosque, and some
even encouraged the congregation to give up land for the building of
schools.

Education Committee members help the school solve its problems, taking
on a broad range of roles, from helping in cleaning and in providing
security, to assisting facilitators during lessons, tracking down birth
certificates, liaising with government departments to ensure that there
is running water and electricity, and collecting funds to resource the
school with fans, educational resources, games, and so on. They meet
regularly---typically once a month---discuss a set agenda, and keep
track of the decisions made.[^33] As one NGO director noted, they are
"another example of how the GEI is serving to build self-confidence and
potency in actors, where people learn communication and negotiation
skills, and how to articulate needs within the immediate political
environment... They are, I think, an excellent school for democracy."
Such skills are developed on the job, but NCCM also offers members
training in needs assessment, problem-solving, communication skills, and
community relations, and occasionally meetings are organised by NCCM to
give an opportunity to representatives from the different committees to
exchange experiences and learn from each other.

Several LTF and NGO members noted that Education Committees had a
crucial role to play because of their proximity to both the school and
the community. They often act as a buffer between both in case of
tensions or issues that arise, such as, for instance when in Sohaag some
communities did not want to accept that the number of boys could not go
above the 25% limit per class set by the NCCM. Natural community leaders
help the school to be sensitive to the issues that are of importance to
the hamlet or village, and take on an important advocacy role when it
comes to persuading parents about the right of girls to education, or to
give up on the idea of marrying of their daughters at an early age. In
some cases, parents react negatively at first, asking Education
Committee members "Who are you to meddle?!" But several noted that such
resistance was often quickly overcome, because people saw the sincere
intentions of the Committee, and that it was not linked in any way to
political factions or interests. Many instances were recounted to me in
the course of my fieldwork and visits to schools of Committee Members
successfully following up on girls who start absenting
themselves---often when they enter into puberty, which is a marker for
girls, and a demarcation line in societies that prescribe early
marriage---and in many cases convince parents that their daughters
should keep on attending school.

"Such success stories," noted committee members at one school, "give us
even greater strength in the community." Many interviewees in fact
recounted anecdotes about the way seemingly adamant parents gave in when
approached by Education Committee members, a clear sign that
participatory styles of community development taps into the potential of
people and develops it further, encouraging them to become more
pro-active. In this way, Education Committee members often become the
most important allies for the school.

*GEI's poverty alleviation pillar*

Other than close interaction with community members, NCCM felt that
girls could be kept in schools if their regular attendance was not
perceived by their parents as harmful to the household economy. Indeed,
knowing that most of the girls they were targeting came from deprived
background, it was felt that not only would schools be totally cost-free
and operate flexible hours to respect the daily, weekly and seasonal
demands made by families on daughters, but that parents who sent their
girls regularly to school should receive support. This has strategic
importance, particularly in those families where girls make a direct
contribution to the family economy over and above doing household
chores, and keeping in mind that in some sectors---such as in the
fishing industry---the income a girl brings to the family can exceed
that generated by the adult male members of the same family.

Three activities were planned to feature in the so-called 'poverty
alleviation' pillar of the Girls' Education Initiative. Only the first
of these, related to food aid, has been implemented. The other two
activities are still in the pipeline, and have been deliberately
postponed until the piloting of some income generation strategies---as,
for instance, the 'Business Development Services' being trialled out in
collaboration with the European Commission in Sohaag---is completed. The
plan is for donor agencies and the Social Development Fund to provide
micro-credit and loans of up to EGP500 (USD87) to the poorest families
sending their girls to school, in order to set up community projects
that will enhance their socio-economic status and increase job
opportunities. Another plan is to provide grants and start-up capital to
10% of the poorest of the poor in deprived areas so that they can set up
productive projects, on condition that the revenue will support girls
going to school and complete their education. An interesting feature of
this plan is that it specifically gives preference to those families who
have girls with special needs. This project is expected to take off the
ground with the assistance of the Ministry of Social Affairs, the
Ministry of Religious Endowment, and NGOs.

The food aid package, however, has been in full swing since 2004 in
Sohaag, Menia and Fayoum, and seems to be reaching the goals it was set
up to achieve. Pupils attending girl-friendly schools in these three
governorates receive a dry meal[^34] on a daily basis, together with a
take home ration for their families on the condition that they fulfil an
80% attendance target. The insistence on attendance is important,
because experience has shown NCCM that the problem of the gender gap is
more related to retention than to access as such, and that it is easier
to convince people to send their daughters to school than to persuade
them not to pull them out again when they reach puberty. The rations,
funded by the UN"s World Food Programme since 2004, include sardine
tins, 10kg of rice and 1 gallon of oil per family every month,[^35] and
are managed and distributed by the GEI implementing NGO in each of the
seven governorates.[^36]

Most of those interviewed noted the importance of the nutrition
programme for children, claiming that it was closely linked to
enrolment, not just because it stimulated parents to send their
daughters to school, but also because many children drop out of school
due to under-nourishment. Base line studies by WFP staff indicate, for
instance, that in the governorates targeted by the initiative, less than
20% of students who attend GEI schools have had a wholesome breakfast
(WFP, 2006). Monitoring and evaluation exercises carried out by WFP and
NGO staff indicated that school attendance suffers when food
distribution is irregular, and while there are questions as to the
sustainability of the programme, the plans are to maintain it for the
time being, particularly in those areas where attendance has not yet
stabilised.

Many of those interviewed were sensitive to the problem of having
parents who might feel that sending their daughters to school was
conditional to receiving material forms of assistance. Most felt
reassured that when parents saw how much their daughters were enjoying
schooling, food became a secondary incentive. Other interviewees noted
the problem that only GEI schools benefited from this programme, and
that parents whose children were in mainstream government schools were
complaining and arguing that they too should receive assistance.

**6 Quality Education and Pedagogy in the GEI classroom**

*The 'quality' challenge*

In the previous chapters we have seen how the GEI has succeeded in
attaining targets related to the building of schools, and to getting
girls into them. But the most important and significant of the
initiative's attainments is, without any doubt, the provision of a
quality education experience that ensures that are not only given
*access*, but that they are *retained*. The earlier phases of the
initiative, which had seen the LTFs and the NCCM secretariat reach out
to the communities to understand why girls were not being sent to school
had also revealed that in some cases, schools and classrooms *were*
available, but the educational offer was so poor that students lost all
motivation to attend. Classes were overcrowded, much of the teaching
emphasised rote learning, teachers were authoritarian and even cruel,
and not much effort was made to build curricular or other bridges
between the school, the home and the rest of the community.

This and the following two chapter focuses on the concerted effort that
GEI has made to provide a much more attractive and sound educational
experience. It did this by focusing on three key factors that are
foundational to any quality educational offer, namely pedagogy,
investment in training of facilitators and supervisors, and monitoring
and evaluation.

*Girl-friendly classrooms*

A visit to a girl-friendly classroom in Egypt is an experience in
itself, and despite the material poverty of the environment in which the
school is located, the teaching evokes, for me, memories of some of the
best pedagogy I have seen practiced in primary schools in several parts
of the developing and developed world. This is all the more impressive
because classes in girl-friendly schools are led by
para-professionals---young ladies with an intermediate level of
education who have not been through a degree or even a diploma course in
teaching, but who have only attended short pre-service and in-service
training courses organised by NCCM and its carefully selected team of
consultants. While, as we will later note, this limited educational
background and training does have an impact on the quality of the
educational offer, it has not proven to be an obstacle when it comes to
implementing activity-based learning---which is at the heart of
girl-friendly schooling---and which graduate teachers in mainstream
schools have consistently failed to apply despite their specialised
professional preparation in faculties of education.

*The physical set-up*

A description of the classroom setting is necessary before we look at
the pedagogy in use.

Girl-friendly classrooms generally typically have a large footprint area
covering 57m^2^, with movable chairs and trapezoid tables to permit
different seating plans and to facilitate a range of learning
activities, most notably group work. The latter is very important, not
only because the pedagogy used is largely based on active and
interactive learning, where pupils work in teams on different projects,
but also because most one-classroom schools are, obviously, multi-grade
and multi-ability settings, catering for pupils between the age of 6 and
14. Schools I visited generally had, on average, two to three grades in
the same class, this being the fourth year of the implementation of GEI.
Pupils are admitted each year, but one has to keep in mind that one can
have older girls for whom 2006, for instance, would have been their
first experience of schooling, and younger girls for whom it is their
second or even their third year of schooling. The movable furniture is
also important because groups are formed in four corners of the
classroom around curricular areas, such as language, arts, maths and
science, and civics and religion.

*The importance of educational resources*

Classrooms are generally well-lit and airy spaces, with pastel-coloured
walls, giving a warm and welcoming feeling. At the back there are cubby
holes with a space for each pupil to leave her books, worksheets,
drawings, pencils and colours in: no homework is normally given, and
children do not have to take any of their educational material home. For
this reason, backpacks and satchels---in many cases sponsored by
corporate donors---are often light, and easy to carry. Classroom walls
are typically covered with charts and posters displaying children's
work, and with home-made educational resources. The latter have a very
important part to play in GEI schools, with an emphasis being placed on
environmental friendliness through the use and creative recycling of
natural resources and human-made products. Facilitators proudly told me
that "We never throw anything away", and there was plenty of classroom
evidence to back up such claims, with ingenious use made of tin, paper,
carton, and with pictures and numbers and letters made of wheat, corn,
seeds, beans, and whatever else the adults and children could lay their
hands on. Except for training povided by NCCM, there are no teachers'
resource centres at governorate or *merkes* level in Egypt, so
facilitators have to be largely self-sufficient since there is a dearth
of commercially produced teaching aids.

Classrooms I visited had wall displays showing children's profiles,
their attendance record, the duties of each pupil for the day or for the
week, flash cards and posters showing evidence of learning and to
facilitate recall, maps, Disney characters as well as personalities from
Egyptian folk tales, and three-dimensional teaching aids such as
puppets, *papier-maché* masks, models, TV sets made of carton boxes, and
so on. Classrooms generally have 'learning centres' with books,
worksheets that hang in pockets from the wall, and learning resources,
such as picture encyclopaedias, donated by APACHE and NCCM, which
children use to carry out research on topics suggested by the
facilitators in relation to curriculum tasks, or which pupils are
interested in or curious about. Each classroom has a blackboard, but
teaching and learning does not revolve around it, as we shall note
later. In many classes too, there were portraits of famous Egyptian
women who had served their countries and made a name for themselves in
the sciences and in the arts, and who had made a break-through in
traditionally male occupations, such as being engineers or pilots. Many
classes had a musical instrument (e.g. a traditional *tambour* made out
of a recycled tin container), an audio cassette recorder, and in some
cases, a computer. Some classes had ceiling fans, often a donation from
the community or from members of the education committee. Classes were
generally clean, with pupils often helping to maintain them so.
Lavatories are attached to but separate from the class, and are
generally quite hygienic and kept clean. A well-equipped First Aid kit
hangs from the wall of each classroom.

*The facilitators of GEI classrooms*

There are two female facilitators for each class. Here too one notes the
attention that the initiative pays to ensuring consistency in the
philosophy underpinning all activities related to girl-friendly
schooling. Facilitators are often from the same hamlet or mother
village, an important feature of the initiative because parents not only
allow their daughters to go to school because their teachers are women,
but also because they are women they know and trust, and who are also
sensitive to the community context. Indeed, some communities resist
having facilitators they do not know, though this varies from hamlet to
hamlet, depending on how accustomed they are to meeting with strangers.

Being from the same village where the school is means that facilitators,
as supervisors were quick to point out, "live the problems of the
community", and have "the same social life and social interaction with
the community." They can more easily mobilize the community and its
resources in the school's favour, and the fact that they are useful to
their own community becomes an additional important motivating factor.

Several vignettes were provided by interviewees to show the wisdom of
having facilitators from the same village that the school was in. In one
school in the governorate of Sohaag, for instance, only 20 of the 36
pupils were attending. Facilitators started checking why this was
happening, and visited the homes of the missing children. They
discovered that the main reason parents were keeping their girls at home
was poverty. Many did not even have shoes to give to their daughters to
walk to school with, and were ashamed. The facilitators therefore
decided to mobilize the help of the less indigent families in the
village, and some of the girls returned to school. "Those two
facilitators were like natives", commented the Sohaag supervisor, "they
knew exactly what to do, where to go, and what to say."

In another school, a 13-year old girl who had stood out for her
cleverness, and who also looked very pretty and distinguished, stopped
going to class. Facilitators were surprised, as they knew that the girl
really enjoyed learning. They decided to visit her parents, and
discovered that she had received a proposal for marriage from one of her
cousins. One of the facilitators was a relative to the family, and she
had a long discussion with the parents, persuading them to transfer the
marriage proposal to the older sister. They agreed, and this meant that
they younger daughter could keep attending school. In yet another school
in Sohaag, many 13 and 14-year old girls started dropping out of school,
and it soon became obvious that the reason for this was linked to the
fact that they had reached puberty, and that their parents wanted their
daughters to get married. The facilitators knew that in that hamlet, the
*ghafeer*---or guard---was a natural leader in the community, and his
opinion was respected. They went to him and asked him to talk to the
parents, and he in fact did manage to persuade some families to let
their girls return to school.

There are also practical considerations involved. Not only would
transport from relatively distant villages represent an additional
prohibitive expense for NCCM, given that few if any facilitators have a
private car, but in addition it is often difficult to travel between one
village and another due to inclement weather, with access to remote
communities being close to impossible at times as dirt roads become mud
ponds. Being from the same village ensured that facilitators arrived to
school on time. In addition, employing facilitators from the village
meant that the GEI was creating opportunities for employment in areas
that were economically depressed and where investment in education did
not lead anywhere much, especially for women. Being a facilitator was
considered to be a relatively good job, earning incumbents a decent
salary, as well as status in the village.[^37] This new employment
prospect helped generate positive attitudes both towards girl-friendly
schools, and to education more generally.[^38]

*The curriculum*

The primary curriculum that is followed in GEI schools is the same one
that is taught in the MoE schools, with the difference that it is
adapted to suit active learning, and much of the training of
facilitators---details of which we will give further on---is dedicated
to developing skills to transform curricular content into experiential
learning sequences, where *scope* and *sequence* are privileged in ways
that ensure sustained focus structured around powerful and connected
ideas. Use is made of the same textbooks as those found in mainstream
schools, but these are supplemented by activity sheets that are tailor
made by facilitators for their own class. GEI schools are therefore not
taking off at a tangent from mainstream schools, but work parallel to
the latter, aiming at the same learning objectives and outcomes, but
through a different pedagogical route, spurring the government system to
higher levels of quality and girl-friendliness. Needless to say, this
has important implications for the integration of the initiative into
the overall Egyptian educational system, for GEI pupil mobility and
transfer to the mainstream, and for encouraging productive interchange
between government and NCCM schools.

*Assessment*

The progress of GEI pupils is monitored through continuous and authentic
portfolio assessment, where the emphasis is placed on the child
comparing herself to her own potential, rather than entering into
insidious competition with classmates. Facilitators assiduously maintain
pupil profiles in folders, along a model proposed by the Community
Schools initiative, with each folder having details about the health and
social profile, together with evidence of artistic products, writing
skills, and so on. Facilitators are encouraged to adapt the contents of
the folder in response to the specificity of the environment that their
pupils come from, and records of progress are sent to parents in
writing, or communicated verbally. In addition to continuous assessment,
GEI pupils also regularly sit for monthly tests, and the summative
end-of-term tests that the MoE prepares for all its schools.
Interestingly enough, GEI pupils tend to do as well, and often better,
than their counterparts in MoE schools in the governorates---an
unexpected achievement for many MoE inspectors, who initially suggested
that markers should be lenient with the pupils, assuming that, given the
poor backgrounds they came from, they would not be able to cope with the
tests. This assumption proved unfounded, and any leniency unnecessary.
For 2005/2006, 95.65% of female students and 93.65% of male students on
average passed the MoE tests.

*The organisation of the school day*

The school day as well as the curriculum are organised in ways that
encourage pupils to be self-managed and autonomous in their approach to
learning, and closely follow the model practised in Community Schools.
Teaching is organised according to the principle of 'block scheduling'
to facilitate the delivery of an integrated curriculum, a departure from
subject-based teaching that is widespread in Egypt, and an adoption of
theme or topic-based teaching, which is activity-centred rather than
teacher-centred. School typically starts at 8.30 or 9.00 in the morning,
with the girls arriving in a dress that they reserve for class, and
which, I was told, "they keep neatly and preciously under their bed."
Earlier I noted that pupils are organised into curricular area groups.
On entering the class, children are invited to choose which curricular
area they want to work on for the day. They do this by placing their
name tag in a 'curriculum tree', which also serves to mark attendance.
Facilitators keep a record of pupils' choices, to ensure that children
cover the whole range of the curriculum and do not always focus on
language, for instance, or on math.

The first activity of the day is 'flag greeting' to foster group spirit,
followed by an orientation period that also serves as an introduction to
formal learning, with the children being invited to make a transition
from the outside hustle and bustle to the environment of the classroom
and to prepare themselves physically and mentally for the day. In some
of the classes I observed, facilitators ask pupils to form a U-shape,
and then encourage them to discuss events or issues in the village.
Pupils then plan their activities in groups, with the facilitator
assisting in the choice of themes according to curriculum objectives and
group level. Students choose their own leaders, who wear a sash to
signal their role. Every effort is made to ensure that roles rotate, and
that every pupil gets a chance to be a leader. In principle, boys too
take a turn, but in the classes I observed, all the leaders were in fact
girls. In any case, the small number of boys present, and awareness of
gender issues among facilitators helps ensure that at no stage do they
exert undue control over agendas, or dominate access to the teacher or
resources.[^39] The group then tackles the tasks at hand in what are
referred to as 'learning corner periods', with the facilitators going
round the groups to offer support where and when needed, and to make
sure that each group has the resources it needs to attain its goal, such
as scissors, paper, colours, and so on---though of course pupils also
freely get up from their chairs and get the resources they need from the
'learning centres'.

Groups then present their work to the others, so that the learning
outcomes of each group is shared with everybody else. One of the pupils
moderates the whole presentation session, encouraging pupils to ask
questions to each other, and shepherding classmates towards
higher-order, more cognitively demanding questions that require further
thinking and research. Students are also encouraged to evaluate each
other's efforts in a constructive manner. Presentations are followed by
a number of guided activities, where again pupils are engaged in
theme-based research, discussion, and presentation, with some physical
activities and games organised between the activities as a break. In
principle, while groups have open and flexible membership in other
activities, they are organised according to grade-level for directed
activities. When there are boys in the class, they are dispersed in
different groups. When pupils are grouped according to ability, groups
are named after fruit, such as 'the orange group', or the 'banana
group', to prevent any stigmatization. Every effort is made to ensure
that pupils play out different roles each day, and pupils can be
learning corner leaders, presenters, evaluators, resource-makers, and so
on. Such roles and responsibilities provide further opportunities for
developing leadership skills.

The day comes to a close at 14:30 or 15:00 (except during Ramadan, when
the children go home at mid-day), by playing a collective game, and
ensuring that the class is clean and tidy before leaving. Girls also
help out in the maintenance of the garden, when this is available.
Facilitators stay on for another hour or so to evaluate the day and plan
for the future. Day by day planning is done with reference to the MoE
monthly and term unit plans, which specific learning objectives.
Facilitators also meet to set objectives for the week, to discuss
activities for each learning corner, and to organise the division of
labour. They also carefully plan their remedial strategies for slower
learners and for those who have difficulties, preparing more resources
as learning tools for them, ensuring playful but focused learning. The
facilitators keep track of all their activities in a journal, which is
monitored by a supervisor, who uses a check-list on the basis of which
she writes up a report indicating where progress can be made.

+---------------+---------+--------------------------------------------+
| **Teaching    | **Time  | **Objectives**                             |
| bloc**        | frame** |                                            |
|               |         | *Every bloc aims at enhancing the          |
|               |         | following:*                                |
+---------------+---------+--------------------------------------------+
| Flag greeting | 10 min  | Leadership, discipline, sense of           |
|               |         | belonging, group spirit                    |
+---------------+---------+--------------------------------------------+
| Introduction  | 15-30   | Participation, communication, logic,       |
|               | min     | problem-solving techniques, values,        |
|               |         | freedom of expression, dialogue skills     |
+---------------+---------+--------------------------------------------+
| Planning      | 30 min  | Leadership, creativity, determination of   |
|               |         | goals, self-reliance, discipline,          |
|               |         | decision-making, evaluation                |
+---------------+---------+--------------------------------------------+
| Learning      | 75 min  | Creativity, group work, perseverance,      |
| corners       |         | self-reliance, development of              |
|               |         | intelligences, internalization of          |
|               |         | experiences and knowledge, fun,            |
|               |         | discipline, care of others                 |
+---------------+---------+--------------------------------------------+
| Group         | 30 min  | Participation, public speaking, freedom of |
| presentations |         | expression, acceptance of criticism,       |
| and           |         | leadership, dialogue, learning             |
| evaluation    |         |                                            |
+---------------+---------+--------------------------------------------+
| Guided        | 45 min  | Self-learning, presentation skills,        |
| activities    | each    | coexistence with others, acquisition of    |
| (I, II & II)  |         | experiences, peer education, research      |
|               |         | skills, commitment, creativity, group      |
|               |         | work, leadership                           |
+---------------+---------+--------------------------------------------+
| Physical      | 5 min   | Psychological serenity, fun, fitness,      |
| activities (I | for the | group work, development of physical        |
| & II)         | first;  | intelligence                               |
| \[between the | 15-30   |                                            |
| guided        | min for |                                            |
| activities\]  | the     |                                            |
|               | second  |                                            |
+---------------+---------+--------------------------------------------+
| Cleanliness   | 10 min  | Social responsibility, volunteerism,       |
|               |         | cooperation, sense of belonging            |
+---------------+---------+--------------------------------------------+
| Facilitators' | 60 min  | Planning, evaluation, monitoring,          |
| meeting       |         | dialogue, criticism, participation,        |
|               |         | adjustment of plans, contemplation,        |
|               |         | respect, cooperation, creativity,          |
|               |         | discipline, understanding                  |
+---------------+---------+--------------------------------------------+

The emphasis on taking responsibility for their own learning is such
that, in the classrooms where the system is well integrated, children
can go through much of the day on their own when facilitators cannot
make it to the school due to illness, or, if they happen to be from
another hamlet or village, inclement weather or transport problems.

*The pedagogy used*

All these elements came together in a delightful manner in the teaching
sequences observed in my classroom visits, particularly in those
contexts where the facilitators had some experience with the methods in
use, and therefore greater self-confidence. Here are classrooms where
the seeds of democracy are being sown: children are encouraged to
express their thoughts and needs openly, sincerely, and without any fear
of censorship or rejection. Pupils are accepted as they are, a fact
symbolically and nicely captured by one facilitator, who pointed out to
me that she allows girls to write with their left hand if they wanted
to: culturally, this is normally frowned upon, with the left hand being
associated with evil and the devil, and with pupils obliged to shift to
writing with their right hand in some mainstream schools.

Teaching is driven by a conviction that children are natural learners,
and that it is the role of facilitators to together present
problem-based activities which children are invited to address, drawing
holistically, critically and creatively on a broad range of knowledge
areas. The emphasis is on situated learning, on problem-solving, on
seeking solutions both individually and in teams, through dialogue and
co-operative peer learning. Every pupil is considered to have the
ability to learn, with this conviction scaffolded by training in
theories of multiple intelligences, as well as in constructivism.

Critical and creative thinking are taken to be the norm. Criticism is
given and received in a constructive manner, and curiosity and dialogue
valued as pathways to deeper insight and knowledge. Not once did I see
the need for external discipline to be imposed by facilitators, with the
pupils obviously responding warmly to the ethic of care that they
experienced daily in their lives. In one classroom in Fayoum,
facilitators proudly showed me an evaluation sheet they had given their
pupils to fill in. One response read: "I like to dialogue with my
teacher." A person accompanying me muttered, somewhat sadly: "That's a
word that we don't usually come across in education in Egypt!" Another
explained: "Now there's an indicator of success for you: the girls are
becoming free spirits, expressing themselves in ever such a
self-confident manner!"

Sessions I observed showed that facilitators had generally absorbed the
shift from traditional pedagogy to more interactive, activity-based
teaching and learning approaches. Indeed, the 'new' approach to teaching
initially caused parents some confusion and concern. "At first parents
did not know what we were doing with the children, playing and drawing
all the time," said one facilitator from Guiza, "...but now they see
them reading and writing, and they are no longer worried about our
methods." Sequences I observed had short 'listen segments', and most of
the time was spent in 'work segments', which were largely managed by the
students themselves rather than tightly orchestrated by the teacher.
Teacher-centred education tends to emphasise patterns that can be
characterised as listen-listen-listen-work, with teacher talk being
addressed mostly to the whole class. In the traditional paradigm, when
the teacher works with individual students, the rest of the class either
observes, or waits its turn, often losing out on opportunities for
learning, and failing to be on task for long stretches of time. None of
this was observed in the GEI classrooms visited, and group work was
intense, dynamic and productive, unlike in the traditional classroom
where pupils are 'staged' in groups, but where work segments are largely
done on an individual basis.

The patterns of discourse in GEI classrooms again differed from what is
usually found in traditional schools, and while not all facilitators
observed were working at the same level of competency, most if not all
were moving in the same direction, and towards the same pedagogical
orientation. Questions, for instance, were not merely asked by the
facilitators, with students being expected to respond in what has aptly
been called the 'ping-pong' approach. Rather, pupils asked each other
questions, and also addressed questions to the teacher. More
importantly, these questions did not focus on mere recall, but required
classmates to show understanding, to analyse, to evaluate, critique and
create.

The repertoire of pedagogical strategies observed was quite extensive,
including brain-storming, role-play, mime, puppet theatre, the use of
plastic arts and hands-on activities, show-and-tell, music, singing,
poetry recital, and so on, with a constant use of visual resources and
teaching aids. Teachers hardly ever remained in their traditional
'territory', next to the blackboard, but moved about the groups quietly
and unobtrusively. The time-on-task focus was impressive, instigated by
interest in the activities being done rather than by coercion via
external motivators. Classroom behaviour, while tightly scripted with
pupils knowing their roles, was also flexible enough to allow pupils to
depart from routines, and to be creative and spontaneous in their
action, and to seamlessly merge work tasks with social and recreational
needs.

Here, then, was joyful learning at its best, and for me doubly powerful
given the rather grim, sometimes overpoweringly narrow lives that
destitution and prejudice would have normally locked these girls into
had they not been able to get out of their homes and into schools. It is
no wonder that, when I asked one girl what schooling meant to her, she
replied, very simply, but very powerfully: "The school has opened up the
world for me."

**7 Training, Monitoring and Supervision as a Key to Quality**

*The paradigm shift in teaching and learning*

The implementation of active learning, the management of multi-grade
classrooms, the use of formative assessment strategies---in short, the
shift to modern pedagogical approaches---is much talked about in the
MENA region and beyond. Indeed there are several national strategy
documents setting out a vision for the future of educational practice
which affirm a commitment to the paradigm shift. This transformation,
however, is proving very challenging to realize. There are many reasons
for this, and even where a major investment is made into the
professionalisation of teachers, with university-level education
becoming the main if not the only route into teaching (Sultana, 2002),
there is no guarantee that the targeted transformation will be achieved.

How, then, can we explain the fact that girl-friendly schools are
succeeding in implementing active learning methods, despite the fact
that, as noted earlier, facilitators are, generally speaking,
para-professionals with only intermediate levels of education?

There are at least three reasons that one can give in answer to this
question. First is the importance given to the initial and continuing
programme that facilitators have to follow, with much transfer of
experience and know-how taking place between the Community Schools and
the Girls' Education initiatives. Second is the monitoring and
evaluation of facilitators by NCCM and occasionally MoE supervisors, as
well as by members from the NCCM Technical Secretariat. And third is
something rather more impalpable and intangible, and which I
nevertheless consider quite central to the attainment of quality, namely
the 'spirit' which infuses so many aspects of the initiative. It is to a
consideration of these three elements that we now turn.

*Skills and spirit transfer from the Community Schools*

A major contributor to both the training of GEI staff and the setting
and attainment of quality standards, are Community Schools. Transfer
from the latter to GEI takes place through a number of different
mechanisms. As we have already noted, graduates from the Community
Schools, for instance, are taking up posts as facilitators in GEI
schools, bringing with them the approach, skills and spirit they had
absorbed during their years as students. Training, monitoring and
evaluation tools developed in the context or the Community Schools
movement---such as selection criteria, supervision protocols, training
manuals---are adopted by the GEI schools and adapted to suit their
needs. Facilitators and supervisors from Community Schools are
supporting the training of GEI staff, both through leading training
sessions and through hosting GEI facilitators and supervisors in their
schools so that they can see the concrete implementation of
activity-based learning. Community Schools, in this way, function as
Professional Development Schools,[^40] and are especially powerful for
training purposes because they too are rooted in remote and economically
deprived communities, so that the link between theory and practice for
GEI facilitators becomes much easier to make. The seed-bed of
experienced experts from Community Schools may enjoy even greater
credibility than Faculty of Education professors with GEI novices,
because the latter see them put into practice the pedagogy being
promoted during the workshop training sessions. In some cases too, the
NGO overseeing the Community Schools is now the implementing NGO for the
GEI schools, so that there is also a transfer of administrative
know-how, besides the educational and pedagogical.

*Selecting and training facilitators for quality teaching*

In the previous chapter we provided information about the careful
selection of facilitators, noting how some of these criteria---such as
having only women as teachers, and requiring that they are from the same
village or hamlet, and that they enjoy a good reputation and good
relations with the people in the village where the school was
located---eased girls' access to GEI schools. Other criteria are
directly linked to the provision of quality education. This is the case,
for instance, with the decision to employ women between the age of 18
and 35. A practical consideration here was the fact that some of the
pupils in GEI classrooms can be 14 years old, and it was therefore felt
that their teachers should be at least 18, to ensure that there was a
sufficient degree of difference in age---even if there were cases were
parents felt that facilitators were too young to be in charge of a class
at that age. But other considerations came into play as well in setting
the age limit to 35. The NCCM secretariat knew that younger novices were
more likely to be flexible---and hence more trainable---when it came to
adopting active learning methods. Indeed, prior experience in teaching
was not sought. The NCCM secretariat feared that it was already
difficult enough to overcome instructional approaches that had been
absorbed by young people through years of *observing* teachers teach
them. They rightly concluded that traditional ways of instruction would
be even more deeply engrained if their facilitators had also *practiced*
teaching in mainstream schools. This is also why NCCM secretariat were
delighted when they had applications from students who had attended
Community Schools, because they brought with them a first-hand knowledge
of the pedagogy and class routines described earlier, and could be
relied on to implement the targeted methodology without much difficulty
at all.

Facilitators were therefore carefully chosen to ensure quality teaching,
with the selection committee typically being composed of representatives
from the NCCM, the LTF, the education directorate, and the implementing
NGO. Candidates had to attend an interview and to sit for tests, with
attention being given to intellectual ability and knowledge, but also to
whether or not the facilitator had the appropriate personality structure
that made her fit for teaching in girl-friendly schools.

The focus on a healthy psychological profile needs stressing, because
this constitutes one of the original aspects of the training offered to
GEI facilitators. The NCCM secretariat considers that quality education
is not just the result of knowledge of content and of ways of teaching
and facilitating the learning of that content. It is also the result of
the positive and growth-inducing interaction between teachers and
taught. The underlying philosophy recalls the critical humanist
approaches that bring together the Brazilian educator Paolo Freire
(1972) and the client-centred therapist Carl Rogers (1961), even if
these two were never specifically referred to by NCCM staff. In GEI
schools there is the same belief in the importance of democratic and
open relationships between all those in schools, and that love and
respect should be the hallmark of all interactions. In addition, a
strong focus on student-centred pedagogical approaches require teachers
to be well adjusted individuals who can create a safe and open climate
in the classroom, where students find it easy and comfortable to be
themselves and to grow to their full potential.

According to some of those interviewed, this kind of psychological
orientation does not come easily to people, leading one of the trainers
of facilitators---a noted and experienced psychiatrist---to remark that
it was important to have young facilitators on the project, since they
are "less mutilated by their culture, and easier to work with"---another
reason for insisting on having young teachers in girl-friendly schools.
Indeed, one of the training programmes facilitators have to go through
involves one week 'encounter group' style sessions, where
Rational-Emotive approaches and Transactional Analysis are used to help
facilitators get in touch with themselves, to learn how to identify and
name their feelings, to break down polite fronts which socialisation has
imposed on them at the cost of losing touch with their own
personalities. Group leaders noted how challenging it was to help these
young women tap their own feelings and aggression, to get them to dare
to disagree with their fathers, for instance, and with social mores,
pressures and expectations that were often gender-based, to express
frustrations clearly and powerfully, and to drop facades that they had
learnt to live with. When the break-through occurred, these young
facilitators became 'persons in process' again, open to deeper learning
and to modifying mental schematas that their culture and their
environment had shaped.

It was on the basis of this work on one's own personality and life
orientation that the rest of the training followed. The NCCM initially
offered the same programmes and manuals that had been developed by the
Community Schools movement. These were however continually modified to
take into account the specificity of the Girls' Education Initiative,
and to respond to new needs and challenges as they arose. Training is
managed by a committee, and draws on a number of consultants that
include staff from the Community Schools, independent experts, and a
carefully selected team from Faculties of Education who have proven that
they know how to implement active learning strategies, and do not slip
into a lecturing mode as soon as they have the floor. Trainers have
themselves to follow a 5-day training programme, which includes a focus
on the CS model, familiarisation visits to Community Schools and
structured observation of the pedagogy used there, exercises in the
application of active learning, and the development of competences
needed by trainers (such as planning, assessment, communication and
presentation skills, and so on).

The NCCM committee draws up an Annual Training Plan, whose
implementation depends on the funds available, with the MoE and UNICEF
meeting many of the needs in this area. Training is delivered in a
decentralised manner at governorate level, and all training is
underpinned by the same approach that marks the pedagogy in GEI
classrooms. In other words, facilitators are trained through interactive
learning methods, so that they experience first hand the styles of
teaching they are themselves to practice once they are in charge of
schools. Training is also becoming more differentiated, and more
flexible in order to respond to the fact that facilitators have
increasingly different backgrounds. Some have a university degree, while
many do not, with training having to be 'multi-level' in scope, catering
for the whole range of participants. Some facilitators have had
experience in teaching through their involvement with the Community
Schools, or other projects---such as those implemented by the World Bank
or the EU---while for many this represented their first foray into
teaching.

*Pre-service and in-service training*

Training is divided into a pre-service package and additional training
once the facilitators have clocked up some time in the classroom. The
pre-service training programmes---referred to as Pre-Service 1 and
Pre-Service 2---last 5 days each and are residential, in order to
encourage an *ésprit de corps* and a strong sense of identity around the
GEI. The first package covers a range of communication skills, and a
thorough grounding in activity-based learning, including an introduction
to principles, the range of methodologies that can be used (e.g. peer
learning, knowledge maps, project-based learning, brainstorming, and so
on), strategies to assess learning, session planning, and the
organisation and management of learning corners. A further aspect of
training focuses on the co-ordination of tasks between the two
facilitators in each class, where complementarity of roles is sought.
While there is some lecturing involved, the emphasis is on facilitators
learning by doing, including through role playing and exercises that
stress experiential learning.

Pre-Service 2 focuses on curriculum delivery, and looks at national
standards related to learning outcomes, the use of block scheduling, and
the articulation of objectives for different areas of knowledge,
including the translation of such objectives into activity-based
learning sequences, and assessment of outcomes.

Over and above these two foundational training programmes are other
packages that are offered to facilitators who have spent six months
teaching so that more sophisticated concepts can be 'rooted' in their
experience of classroom practice, enabling them to more effectively
integrate pedagogical notions through implementing them in class, and
critically reflecting upon that experience. These programmes consist of
5-day packages focusing on the production of educational resources, the
handling of multi-grade classrooms, and in active learning methods and
strategies. Other training manuals that are made available to
facilitators focus on the use of active learning methods to teach
Arabic, Math and Science, as well as on community participation.

An additional and extremely important aspect of in-service training are
the weekly encounters between facilitators at district 'micro-centres'.
Good use is made of the day off given to pupils on market day---a
practice which we have referred to in Chapter 5---enabling facilitators
to meet with their supervisors so that issues are discussed and
reflected on, examples of good practice exchanged, and problem-solving
engaged in through shared discussion. In some cases, these weekly
sessions are also used to cover the subject content matter that
facilitators are expected to teach. This 'booster training', as it was
referred to by interviewees, is considered to be vital to support
facilitators and to maintain standards. Other 'booster training'
opportunities are also offered from time to time on specific topics, and
facilitators alternate attendance so that there is always at least one
teacher with a class. Increasingly, too, peer-learning is coming in as a
form of training. In Beheira, for instance, facilitators do
'cross-visits', spending a day or two in another class in order to
observe and learn from colleagues, even if inaccessibility of schools
and travel costs makes it difficult to do this.

*Challenges concerning training*

While the training programme is very carefully thought through and
effectively delivered, a number of issues arise and they are here
mentioned because they may have an impact on the quality of education
offered.

In the first place, the training programmes can only be implemented if
funding remains available. It is true that there is an increasing pool
of excellent facilitators, both from the Community Schools movement and
from GEI schools, who have the skills and experience to train
colleagues, and to engage in peer tutoring, and that peer learning can
be organised in a more whole-scale manner. However, training remains one
of the costlier elements in the initiative, and needs to be safeguarded
as one of the key guarantors of quality. Indeed, interviews with staff
involved in the training programme suggest that training has to be
intensified, and that the 5-day workshops need to be extended as too
many objectives are being set for each day for the skills to be truly
integrated by the trainees.

Secondly, there are some issues that revolve around the facilitators'
educational background. Many of them are graduates of commercial and
vocational colleges, when the MoE's target is to have a profession where
all teachers have a university degree. The Ministry has shown
flexibility both because the notion of using para-professionals has
attained some legitimacy, given the success registered by facilitators
in Community Schools,[^41] but also because most university graduates
would not accept to teach in remote hamlets anyway. An issue does arise,
however, when it comes to mastery of subject content. Supervisors and
trainers noted that quite a number of GEI facilitators encounter
difficulties when they have to teach certain concepts in Math, or when
they have to teach English. Problems arise in some other areas too,
given that the primary cycle curriculum has been revised, and differs in
some important ways from the programme of studies that facilitators will
have followed when they themselves were primary school pupils.

There are significant pedagogic implications for the extent and depth of
knowledge of subject matter on the part of teachers, with lack of
mastery of content knowledge tending to lead a teacher to closely
control the framing of a particular learning session, in order to ensure
that students do not lead her into areas which she is neither familiar
with nor comfortable in handling. Such teachers will tend to avoid
open-question techniques, for instance, and prefer teacher-led
discussion instead[^42]---clearly an issue given the pedagogy that is
valued in girl-friendly schools. Such teachers will also find it more
challenging to make links between different curricular areas, and to
integrate knowledge in the way recommended by the initiative.
Supervisors also noted that some facilitators were also finding it
difficult to manage multi-grade teaching, and they could not yet emulate
the achievement of Community School facilitators, who had implemented
accelerated learning strategies with gifted pupils. Clearly, many of
these problems are gradually being addressed through the various types
of training provided to facilitators.

*The monitoring and evaluation role played by supervisors*

Supervisors also have an important role to play in ensuring quality in
GEI schools. NCCM employs three types of supervisors: the 'field
supervisors', as they are called, have responsibility for a number of
schools, usually up to ten, though the number varies depending on the
geographical stretch they have to travel to get from one school to
another. Such supervisors visit each school at least two to three times
a month, spending about six hours during each visit. A
'district/technical supervisor' monitors the work of the field
supervisors, meets with them on a regular basis to ensure co-ordination,
and also visits schools. The work of both field and district/technical
supervisors is in turn monitored and co-ordinated by one 'governorate
supervisor', who has overall responsibilities for quality
assurance.[^43]

Some of the supervisors are male, but by far the greater majority are
female. Several interviewees in fact noted that female supervisors have
easier access to communities, and in some cases parents are not happy
when male supervisors visit schools. In other contexts, however, males
may enjoy other advantages and have complementary roles to play---for
instance, their word may, in some circumstances, carry more weight with
fathers.

As noted above, supervisors are also in charge of some of the in-service
training offered to facilitators, and are expected to be able to model
the kind of teaching that they would like to see in girl-friendly
classrooms. They accompany facilitators during their pre-service
training, and in fact end up going through all the training package
several times as observers, so that they integrate the concepts and
skills needed, besides getting to know the facilitators they will be
meeting in the GEI schools. Technical supervisors also help facilitators
plan lessons, engages in active role modelling when necessary, documents
observations of class teaching sequences, and checks if progress has
been made by the next visit. Classroom sessions that I observed together
with the field supervisors suggest that facilitators consider
supervisors as colleagues that they can turn to for support and advice.
Even though visits are unannounced, I picked up no sense of stress or
tension between the supervisors and facilitators, and indeed the latter
were keen to see the former from week to week, in order to show what
they had done with the class, and to also ask for feedback. The
observations made by the supervisor, as well as the targets set, are
agreed to and signed by both parties, and a copy forwarded to the
governorate supervisor. When supervisors notice that there several
facilitators are encountering similar problems---such as in the teaching
of English or Science, for instance---they group them together and hold
joint training sessions.

Typically, supervisors focus on lesson planning and sequencing, timing
and smooth transition between activities, the ability to promote
problem-solving and higher-order skills, the production and use of
teaching aids, how facilitators share the work out between them, the
range of pedagogical strategies they use, the way they assess pupil
learning, their ability to pick up issues associated to the broader
environment, such as problems that girls have with parents or in the
community more generally, and so on.

When a problem is observed, supervisors discuss it with the facilitator,
together try to understand why the problem has arisen, and attempt to
consider options to solve it. Facilitators share concerns, and together
with the supervisor attempt to define the way forward. Some of the main
weaknesses that supervisors note in the facilitators they visit include
dealing with level differences between children, with transforming the
curriculum into learning activities, and with managing behavioural
difficulties on the part of children who are either too shy, or too
aggressive. Some facilitators also feel that they have not been prepared
well enough to deal with children who become adolescents, and who need
to be handled differently.

Supervisors also follow a specialised 4-day training package where they
learn how to develop a supervisory plan, how to carry out field
monitoring and classroom observations, and how to use the tools that
have been developed for supervisory purposes, such as the facilitator
observation forms and check lists. Many of these tools vary from
governorate to another, as they are developed by the implementing NGOs,
based on models that come through from the Community Schools.
Supervisors also hold weekly meetings, where they plan field visits,
review the performance of different schools under their care, and
discuss a range of technical, training and administrative issues. They
also ensure that there are productive linkages between the NCCM and the
MoE, and often work closely with MoE inspectors by integrating them in
some of the visits to GEI schools.[^44]

*The overall monitoring role played by the NCCM secretariat*

The NCCM's Technical Secretariat plays an overall monitoring role, with
its team being involved in all aspects of the initiative---including
ensuring that the criteria for the selection of facilitators and
supervisors---provided by UNICEF in the early stages of the
initiative---are respected by the implementing NGOs, checking that the
training sessions of a suitably high standard, making field visits to
the schools, and generally helping out in problem-solving,
standard-setting, and implementation of the project, with monthly
reporting back to the general co-ordinator of the GEI Secretariat at
NCCM.[^45]

As was noted earlier, there is one member of the secretariat for each of
the 7 targeted governorates, together with other supporters in different
roles. Interviews with consultants who had been involved with the
initiative from the start noted the investment that had been made in
building up the technical capacity of the Secretariat, some of whom had
little background in development work and in educational issues, but
who, through training, involvement in community participation and
mobilization, and particularly through the exposure to the Community
Schools, had absorbed many of the skills needed to support the
development and growth of the initiative. Several of the Secretariat
members interviewed acknowledged their debt to, for instance, the
fieldwork manager, who, having himself been formed through a decade of
involvement with Community Schools, induced them into the spirit of the
initiative by travelling with them to the governorates they were
responsible for. One of them noted, for instance, how he learnt to
interact with the community by watching the more experienced members of
the Secretariat at work, the way they sat on the floor with adults in
the village, the way they tried so hard to understand the villagers'
point of view, and their belief in dialogue as an inroad to community
empowerment and to solving problems. Others noted how this
apprenticeship by observation helped them restructure their personality
in ways that were more suitable given the project's demands, whether
this was through gaining self-confidence in meeting such dignitaries as
governors, or through shedding rigid attitudes and learning to be
flexible and patient when things went wrong.

Despite the investment of capacity-building in the NCCM Secretariat, as
well as in supervisors, the plans are for the Council to invest more
energies and efforts in consolidating the overall monitoring and
evaluation pillar of the initiative. Funds have been allocated by the EU
for this purpose, and for the building of schools.

*The GEI spirit---a guarantor of quality*

In the previous sections we have taken pains to point out the investment
that NCCM has made in training all those involved with the girls'
education initiative. We also have emphasised how this, together with a
close attention to pedagogy, has been accompanied by the clear
articulation of standards and criteria that have been established in
relation to so many different aspects to the initiative. In many ways,
then, the structure of the initiative is there... but while this is a
necessary pre-condition for quality, it is not in itself sufficient.
What makes GEI come alive is what I have earlier referred to as
something impalpable and intangible, namely the spirit that infuses the
initiative. A few words are necessary about this aspect of GEI which, I
feel, is inseparably linked to quality provision.

One of the outstanding memories I cherish from the field visit is the
enthusiasm, dedication and commitment of the different people I met who
were associated, in some way or other, with the initiative. It was for
me a privilege---as well as a profoundly moving experience---to meet
individuals and teams at the NCCM, in LTFs and NGOs, in education
committees and classrooms, among donors even, who felt that they were
part of an exciting venture that deserved their full commitment, and
were deeply motivated by a heart-felt belief they were making a major
difference in the lives of girls, opening up new opportunities for them,
for their communities, and for the whole country. This sense of mission,
informed by a sophisticated understanding of the set of challenges that
had to be faced, and armed by a set of carefully thought-through
strategies, had a sharp urgency about it, as if people knew that what
they did---or failed to do---really *mattered*, and had consequences on
the real lives of real people.

It is this conviction that their actions mattered which, in my view,
transformed what could have been for some, a mere performance, a
going-through-the-motions sort of affair, into a vibrant and purposeful
initiative. And what made all the difference was the closeness that all
those involved---from the Ambassador down to the facilitators---kept to
the communities they served. NCCM secretariat staff spoke of the way
they felt reinvigorated, despite the very obvious fact that they were
overloaded with roles and with work, when they saw "the joy in the eyes
of the girls...We see them excel...We see the change in their behaviour,
brimming with self-confidence and so eager to learn." One NCCM field
manager spoke of the way he identified with the girls and their futures,
and of how he felt so grateful to the Council for giving him the
opportunity to "do good". He said, eyes shining, "Those girls appreciate
what we are trying to do for them...I get so much joy seeing them happy
at school. They know me, and make cards for me for *Eid* and
*Ramadan*... I even paid a trip---their first out of their hamlet---as
with so little I can make such a big difference in their lives." His
colleague later told me that for him, it was just "great to see the
initiative actually working, and for me to have this ability to solve
problems that ensure that these kids get to learn, and to learn well."

The words that are central to this initiative, and that kept coming up
again and again in my field notes, are 'love' and 'care'. These were not
fuzzy, nebulous words, but again recall the way the great Brazilian
educator used them in his landmark study *Pedagogy of the Oppressed*
(Freire, 1972) one of the main beacons for progressive educators
everywhere. Here, 'love' and 'care' are not superficial, transient and
ephemeral emotions that provide a quick cheap thrill of satisfaction
with oneself, but are rather intensely experienced feelings that leave a
deep mark in the construction of one's identity and sense of mission in
life.[^46]

This life orientation, developed through an involvement with GEI, comes
through powerfully in so many of the interviews that I carried out
during my visits to Egypt: "For me," declared the co-ordinator of the
facilitator training programmes, "it feels as if I'm not at work... I
see the girls, the results achieved, the level these kids attain... you
feel inspired. It's amazing... it makes me feel really happy." One of
the governors interviewed declared, quietly yet powerfully, "I am not
just a supporter of this initiative... I am a *believer*, " while
another---a leading Egyptian intellectual, known for his brave stands on
issues related to development, said that the initiative made him useful
again: "I feel I am doing something for Egypt... You can see that a
cycle of oppression is being broken at the level of the child, of the
family...and it goes all the way up to facilitators, parents and
community. These simple people just bloom... it proves that if you
provide the right environment, the potential of people just comes
through. They have so much creativity in them, which has been all but
killed by an authoritarian system, by an authoritarian family, and an
authoritarian pedagogy. When I see the impact we are having, I give of
myself with pleasure."

One facilitator in Guiza, when asked how she felt about her work, said:
"I just love seeing a girl learn to read and write... Then she can do
anything", while another from Sohaag declared: "These girls are
glorious!\... They are overcoming centuries of prejudice, and look at
them smile!" Her supervisor nodded in approval, describing how one
particular girl in this facilitator's class had spent most of her young
life begging near a cemetery, and that she would see her every time she
went to visit her father-in-law's grave. "And here she is now",
discretely pointing her out to me, "look how self-confident she is, and
how full of dignity!"

One LTF volunteer, recalling experiences she had during the community
mobilization stage of the initiative, gave tribute to the women that had
helped her, saying "There are lots of unknown heroes in these villages."
Working together with the community, sharing---even if for a
moment---their lives and conditions of existence---not only led to
deeper understanding of realities and needs, but also to a personal
'epiphany'. Many of those involved in the community mobilization strand
of the initiative recalled "the warmth and friendship we felt, as if we
had found a new family." This, they said, was "wonderfully reviving for
us." "We usually work on our own in an organisation," three members of
the mobilization team noted, "and you find yourself asking: 'Why on
earth am I doing this!?'...and there's often this sense of deep
loneliness. Then, with this initiative, we experienced again this
momentum of bringing change... You work hard and late into the
night...and you just don't count the hours, or the money that you could
be making if you were involved in something else. You talk about deep
issues, personal issues, becoming really close to the others...This was
not just another assignment, not a business...It just felt great to feel
part of a process that was re-shaping the country in terms of girls'
education."

It is this sense of utter commitment that is the true guarantor of
quality. Educators may have the technical skills, and the know-how; they
may have access to communities as well as the schools and the textbooks
and the resources. All this, however, can be nothing but an empty shell,
unless it is driven by a sense of mission that is, oftentimes, caught
rather than taught.

**8 Impact, Challenges and Way Forward**

*The Initiative---6 years later*

The previous chapters have provided an account of the origins of the
Girls' Education Initiative, its development and growth from the
inception and planning stages in 2000-2002, its launch in 2003, and the
implementation phase till 2006, with its achievements, its close
attention to providing quality education to hundreds of hamlets and
communities in 7 governorates, as well as the challenges it had to face
and surmount. At the time of writing (December, 2007), 711 girl-friendly
schools had been inaugurated, enrolling 19,445 girls and boys (92 %
females) in the seven governorates, to whom education was offered free
of charge, and who were all provided with scholastic materials and
stationery. 178 training sessions had been delivered to 1530
facilitators, and 7 more to 86 supervisors. It is planned that by the
end of 2007, there will be 940 girl-friendly schools in all, catering
for 28,200 children.

We have already seen the impact these schools are having on the life
chances of the children and communities they are embedded in. In this
chapter, we will consider the impact that GEI is having beyond that, by
focusing on the inter-relation between girl-friendly schools and
mainstream schooling. In doing so, we will also consider the challenges
that the initiative has to face in the coming years, as it scales up
even further and reaches more communities in Egypt.

*The ripple effect*

Educational innovations have been compared to Trojan horses in national
education systems, where, like a virus or an ink stain, they spread out
and influence other elements of the educational enterprise. Of course,
educational innovations, when they are like grafts onto a powerful
mainstream system, can also be rejected by the surrounding environment,
much like the human body rejects transplants which it perceives as alien
and incompatible with it.

The GEI, like its source of inspiration, the Community Schools, while
both deeply diverging from the DNA structure of mainstream public
schools, have by and large succeeded in retaining their identity, and
have proved to be resilient enough to withstand the attempts to
incorporate them within the dominant school logic. This they have
managed to do because, between them and with the rest of the Community
Schools movement, they have shown that an alternative type of schooling
*is* possible, and that you can have both equity and excellence if you
attend to the fundamental aspects of the educational enterprise that we
noted in the previous chapter.

They have done this in an impressively strategic way: while developing
an alternative education agenda and practice, they have not distanced
themselves from mainstream schooling by implementing a different
curriculum, or by promoting themselves as parallel initiatives whose
pathways do not, and cannot converge with the public school system.
Rather, they have attempted to maintain strong connections with the MoE,
drawing on its experience and expertise whenever possible, keeping it
informed, ensuring that MoE staff appreciated the potential in these
educational powerhouses in the hamlets so that they invest in them and
learn to see them as theirs. This, of course, opened the doors not only
to funding, but more importantly, to the Ministry's acceptance of
community-based schooling as a model for its own establishments. Many in
fact characterised the Ministry's attitudes to community schooling as
having swung from initial incredulity and scepticism, hostility, and a
'no comment' stance, to acceptance and even to admitting that Community
and GEI schools did indeed provide a more educationally sound model than
mainstream schools.

By working closely with the MoE, therefore, the NCCM made the best
long-term investment possible in GEI. With the Ministry on board, it was
more likely that the girl-friendly model would influence public schools
rather than be co-opted by them, and that they would achieve the
legitimacy and credibility necessary for them to go to scale. NCCM were
sensitive to the danger that the mainstream dominates the new paradigm
instead of the other way round, which is why, as we have seen, and as
one of the Council Secretariat leaders said, "we pick up elements and
try to transfer them, ensuring that public school teachers see that
these methods *do* work, and that they work well in an *Egyptian*
context."

In this regard, the metaphor used by one of the interviewees, when he
compared GEI to the act of throwing a stone in a pond, where the ripples
spread outwards to envelope an increasingly large surface area, is most
apt. Many an innovation, however promising, has foundered because it
failed to get on board the educational ministry and other key partners,
who are absolutely crucial if the expanding 'ripples' are to maintain
their tempo, direction, and vigour.

*"Filtering through"*

Indeed, the impact of GEI has been impressive. Top MoE officials
admitted that the Community and GEI school models had given the ministry
the confidence to seriously engage with the paradigm shift that most
felt mainstream schooling required to make. This included all aspects of
the educational enterprise, from embedding schools in community
processes and dynamics, to the implementation of active learning and the
training of teachers and supervisors. Of course, the obstacles are
enormous given the sheer scale of the country. One Minister of Education
became fascinated by a demonstration of active learning methods as
implemented by GEI facilitators in Menia in the early years of the
initiative, and declared that that was the way he wanted all schools in
Egypt to teach. However, his advisers---initially peeved that he was so
impressed by an educational practice that they could not claim for
starting---rightly noted that such practices would not travel well into
classrooms which had fixed furniture, and which seated as many as 80
students. Despite these very real concerns, MoE officials mellowed with
time, with several aspects of the initiative "filtering through", as one
of them told me. This "osmosis", as another interviewee referred to it,
is no mean achievement, considering that some MoE supervisors, when
first invited to observe a facilitator lead an activity-based learning
session, asked: "But where is the curriculum in all this?!"---and that
others kept insisting that interactive pedagogies were already being
used in mainstream schools, but when they were invited to contribute to
the training of GEI facilitators on the basis of such claims, they
quickly shied away.

"Filtering through" of aspects of the initiative took place at several
levels. MoE supervisors who had followed some of the training for
facilitators and supervisors offered by NCCM adopted and promoted such
protocols as the observation sheet to evaluate teachers, or the pupil
profile forms that served continuous assessment purposes. For the past
three years, too, interactive learning is being piloted in Grades 1 to 3
in some MoE schools, with the support of UNICEF. Community and GEI
schools are also linking up to 'satellite schools' from the public
education system in some governorates, facilitating teacher exchanges.
Indeed, in my visits to some mainstream schools in Assiut, for instance,
it was clear that when teachers wanted to showcase their skills to a
visitor, they engaged in group work and in interactive learning, making
use of puppets and several educational resources, even if the context
they were working in was Spartan at best. Most of the efforts were
gauche, and in some cases off-key, but one could see both where these
teachers were coming from, and where they were hoping to get to, on the
basis of what they had seen in the more conducive environments of the
Community and GEI schools.

That the 'ripple effect' is gaining a critical point became obvious
when, during a meeting at the MoE towards the end of my field research,
the personal adviser to the Minister announced, with a great deal of
satisfaction, the 'breaking news' that the Supreme Committee for Policy
had just decided to generalize the community school model---and hence
GEI---to all remote areas in Egypt. With immediate effect too, the
Department of one-classroom schools would be changed to the Community
Education Department, reinforcing the commitment to the notion of
community participation, identified as one of the six key features in
the 'General Framework for Education Policies in Egypt', the March 2006
education reform document driving the new educational vision for the
country. Interestingly enough---and significantly---many of the terms
used by GEI have permeated the language of this reform document, yet
another indication that the 'ripple effect' is having an impact on the
Ministry's conceptualisation of quality education.

*Challenges and way forward*

Celebration of the successes of GEI should not blind us to the
challenges that it has to overcome, as it seeks to consolidate its
achievements and generalize them among a broader spectrum of Egypt's
population, and to move forward. Countries that look towards Egypt's
Girls' Education Initiative for insights and inspiration in their effort
to implement the UN's Millennium Development Goals and to provide for
all girls the education they are entitled to need to keep the fact
firmly in mind that educational development is a complex affair, and
that it takes years to break down prejudice, and to replace culturally
embedded and sanctioned behavioural routines with new ones. The process
in Egypt had been greatly facilitated by the Community Schools movement,
which had so effectively paved the way for a holistic paradigm shift. It
has also been facilitated by the conviction, on the part of the
political leaders, that, in the words of the First Lady, "Girls'
education is a national priority and the key to comprehensive
development," leading Egypt to realise the extent to which such
education constitutes "a true entry point to many other development
requirements namely poverty eradication, democracy and community
participation, and building a knowledge based society."

If this case study is to be useful in inspiring similar initiatives, it
has also got to be crystal clear about the difficulties that are likely
to be encountered. Several of the difficulties that beset GEI in its
inception, planning and early implementation phases have been outlined
in the previous chapters. As with other innovations, some challenges
arise from what in sociology are referred to as '*effets
pervers*'---perverse or unintended consequences of social action, which
are important, and sometimes even critical, but difficult to foresee or
control, highlighting the dynamic and unpredictable complexity of change
forces (Fullan, 1993). Examples of these were, for instance, the
increasing perception of GEI schools as élite institutions which, due to
their ability to attract more funding from national and international
donors, were better resourced than mainstream schools. In one of the
hamlets visited, it also became obvious that parents were not sending
their children to school, waiting for a vacancy to arise in the closest
GEI school, thus delaying schooling for their daughters.

Other sorts of challenges are emerging as the initiative gathers
momentum and embarks in earnest on the perilous scaling-up journey. In
the following sections we will look at some of the more prominent of
these, including problems associated with the 'disconnect' between the
initiative and its social and educational environment, and with scaling
up.

*The challenge posed by the 'disconnect' phenomenon*

GEI, by definition, challenges deeply rooted beliefs about the value and
role of women in society, the limits that are placed on them, and the
mechanisms that are used to impose such limits. GEI, as we have seen,
challenges these beliefs and practices by offering an alternative
physical and social space in the community where girls are free to
develop alternative personal and social identities. The process is
facilitated by the generation of an ethos of respect and love, and by a
liberatory pedagogy which encourages self-expression, and a sense of
initiative, self-respect and self-confidence. This educational
experience is so powerful that there is a deep re-shaping of identities,
a re-socialization process that puts into question several aspects of
the value system of the community, as well as what counts as a 'good
education'. Both the 'disconnect' from community values, and from
mainstream education practices deserve to be elaborated further.

*The 'disconnect' from community values*

The question that often and repeatedly came to me as I went about the
villages and hamlets and as I visited their girl-friendly schools was:
How can these girls 'survive' outside the cocoon and safe haven that the
classroom provided? How will they handle the confusing and cruel
discrepancy between the messages of the school---where they were being
told that 'girls can do anything', and were being equipped with the
lifeskills necessary to turn this slogan into a reality---and the
messages of the environment that surround the school, where the family,
the mosque, and most of the significant others were loudly, busily and
efficiently putting boundaries and restraints on both body and soul? How
does the school's emphasis on self-worth sit with family practices where
women are programmed from birth to see themselves as inferior to men,
where, as I was told, "women are considered as having a uterus, but not
a brain" where "a younger brother can boss his elder sister around, and
ask her to serve him a glass of water whenever he feels like it, with
the approval of his parents", and where such attitudes are so deeply
engrained that "mothers reproduce oppression in their daughters because
they don't perceive oppression as oppression, but as a way of life"? Do
GEI girls experience the reality of the school and the reality outside
of it as a "sinister estrangement", as the psychiatrist/trainer I
interviewed wondered, as "schizophrenia"?

At one level, of course, the answer is terribly simple: all development
goes through this stage of disjuncture between 'what we were', 'what we
are', and 'what we are trying to become', and that the generation or
generations caught in transition periods have to somehow manage the
contradictions that the winds of change blow up in their face, until
things settle down, and a new value system gains legitimacy till the
next challenge. This taxing process of transition can be eased, of
course, by the exposure of the community to competing value
systems---and the satellite dishes on the humblest of huts in the
remotest of hamlets reminded me that sure enough, alternative forms of
life were being beamed into family foyers for consideration, if not for
adoption. The process can also be eased by participatory and dialogic
processes, whereby the community is encouraged to reflect on its old
value systems and traditions, and to consider them in the light of new
rationalities and a sense of fairness and justice. This is precisely
what the community mobilization process attempted to do, preparing the
ground not only for the acceptance of the school by the community, but
for the identification with the key values underpinning the initiative.
Facilitators too did their best to create bridges between the school and
the community, both during the introductory session to the day's
schedule, where students were encouraged to table issues related to
their lives outside school, and also by giving them advice and training
in handling tensions with the family, safeguarding their rights by
roping in grandmothers and other potential allies if fathers, for
instance, prohibited them from attending school.

But conflicts about gender roles are conflicts about power, and the
powerful are unlikely to give up their advantages and privileges easily,
or without a struggle[^47]---particularly at a moment in world history
where, as three highly experienced development leaders noted, "there is,
like in many other parts of the world, a conservative backlash that is
both troubling and frightening, with religion being misused---by both
Muslims and Copts in the case of Egypt---to justify a regressive way of
dealing with women." It is interesting, for instance, that during a
visit to one of the schools, while enjoying the beautifully-tended
garden with the girls, a group of boys peered through the surrounding
wire mesh and the foliage of banana trees and honeysuckle and
bougainvillea. Some passed comments, and a few started throwing stones
at the girls. This was a solitary incident, one that, I was assured,
hardly ever takes place. But the mere fact that it *did* happen stands
out as a symbol of the potential conflict that can arise as girls---and
women---claim spaces and resources for themselves.

The conflict is even more complicated by the fact that the GEI targets
girls in the main, and an education for gender equity has to also
re-school males, to challenge them to think through the prejudices they
have been socialised into and which have become second nature to them.
As one NCCM consultant noted with some concern, "We may be losing the
boys in the process." Of course, those boys who are accepted in
girl-friendly schools are privileged in receiving a powerful induction
into equitable gender roles and relations. But these are a minority,
and, as we noted, not at all present in Apache-built schools. NCCM
therefore sits on the horns of an uncomfortable dilemma: the focus on
girls to close the gender-gap may be leading to situations where, in the
words of another interviewee, "we may be opening up the cage for the
girls to fly, but not disarming the hunters out there". This is, of
course, not the sole, or even the main responsibility of the Council,
and it is heartening that the government, according to the MoE's chief
advisor, is intent on implementing curricula that reinforce gender
equity, including the revision of school text books to ensure that the
written and visual representation of gender roles are not stereotyped.

*The 'disconnect' from mainstream education*

A second dimension of the disconnect between GEI schools and its
surrounding environment relates to the difference between the approach
to education adopted in girl-friendly classrooms and that practiced in
the mainstream. The MoE's vision for the latter clearly connects to what
NCCM values as sound educational practices. Indeed, the *General
Framework for Education Policies in Egypt* of March 2006 announced that
a first commitment is to have effective public schools which "provide
quality education for every learner, in an untraditional school-centred
environment, using technology and activity learning methodologies to
enable the student acquiring self learning, problem-solving, critical
thinking and life skills."

The Framework also outlines a carefully articulated strategy, which
includes a very ambitious and comprehensive plan to boost capacities in
teachers and school administrators, and to unleash their potential
through decentralisation. Realistically, however, much time will elapse
before there is a match between the GEI model and the MoE one,
particularly as the reform entails a quite fundamental re-shaping of
embedded and institutionalised practices and organisational cultures.
When GEI girls start graduating from the basic school cycle and
transition to preparatory schools in two years' time, they are therefore
likely to experience a challenging sense of discontinuity and rupture.
Preparatory school teachers will also feel challenged, and many will
most likely feel ill-at-ease and unequipped to deal with girls who have
got used to participative and active learning methods, who will be
self-confident and assertive, wanting to express themselves, to ask
questions, and to be involved in pacing the flow and direction of
learning sequences.

In the previous chapter we noted the GEI approach is having an impact on
mainstream schools, and that strategic networking and alliances are
being built up so that MoE teachers and supervisors are exposed to
active learning methods. In addition, preparatory schools are often to
be found in the mother village, and this is often not too far from the
hamlet, a factor that could facilitate transfer of practices. Some of
the supervisors felt that girls who had been through GEI schools would
adjust to any environment and go on and not give up, irrespective of the
pedagogy used. Others noted that the biggest challenge would not hit the
girls before they were in Grade 9, when the pressure to sit for the
end-of-cycle examination would take its toll and rote learning takes
over with a vengeance.

However, the general feeling among those interviewed remains that the
transition requires more careful planning, not least because, as a
member of an education committee in Abu Sir said: "We need to know all
this, all that we're doing, has a future.... When the girls go to the
mainstream, they have to pay... and then what?... And what if there is
no preparatory school in the close vicinity?" As one NCCM consultant
noted, "There needs to be a policy bridge to the preparatory schools...
What afterwards? We are not thinking enough about this transfer." [^48]

Part of the problem is that, as we shall see, the Council Secretariat is
being stretched to the limit, by the scaling up process. However, some
answers might be forthcoming from the CS experience, which went through
the same challenge earlier. Community schools had developed a number of
strategies which can guide the GEI in dealing with this important issue.
Thus, whenever possible, CS transferred their graduates to the same
class in the same preparatory school, making sure that a critical mass
of like-minded children were kept together. In some cases, the CS
facilitator accompanied the class and transferred to the preparatory
school as well, while in others, the regular teacher was provided with
further training to be able to implement active learning methods. Other
strategies included encouraging CS facilitators to keep contact with
their girls, or, vice-versa, ex-CS girls occasionally go back to their
old CS primary school to help the facilitator teach her pupils. The
maintenance of contact with the CS environment and spirit helps
strengthen the girls' resolve to keep on investing in schooling. These
experiences can be considered by the NCCM in its attempts to
strategically plan for the challenge that its GEI will have to face very
soon.

*The challenge of going to scale*

As the initiative gathers tempo---and as "the tipping point" (as one of
the corporate donors referred to) is reached, with "news and rumours
about the building of one-classroom schools travelling from one
community to the next, with each hamlet wanting a building of their
own", issues arise in relation to scaling up. This is one of the most
critical phases of any innovation, a hurdle over which many a promising
pilot project have stumbled and fallen, simply because they started
small, and *thought* small. In other words, scaling up requires
*planning* for scaling up[^49], and for a careful consideration of what
experience has taught us in relation to this challenge. One of the key
lessons that has been learnt is that what makes a major difference in
the chances of the survival of an innovation beyond the piloting stage
is that there is clear and sustained local demand for reform. Such local
demand is highly dependent on the extent and success of community
mobilization, which leads to a strong sense of understanding of the
initiative, and ownership of it. This, we have seen, is one of the
strong elements of the GEI in Egypt---but it is of concern that, as we
have already noted, schools are being built faster than the communities
can 'absorb' them, with not enough time for the community mobilization
and participation process to kick into gear, and to work on attitudes
that take time to change.

Other challenges associated with scaling up include organisational and
management problems, and the lure of short-cuts that end up compromising
the spirit underlying the initiative.

*Organisational and management problems*

The challenges here arise from two sources, namely the government and
the NCCM. Several NGOs, supervisors and facilitators noted how
frustrating it was for the initiative when the MoE was late with
delivering its services. The latter included textbooks in some cases,
but more frequently salaries. As we have noted earlier, salaries are
paid by the MoE through its directorates at the governorate level, and
the supervisors' salaries are provided by UNICEF, jointly with the NCCM,
through the implementing NGOs. Many complained that salaries arrived
late, with some not having received their wages for the past several
months. NGOs generally do not have the capital up-front to bridge the
waiting period, which means that GEI staff end up in financial distress.
Some reported that they resort to borrowing money from colleagues, while
others were considering tabling a formal proposal to the UN for a
special fund to be established to financially support staff when
salaries are delayed. While such problems plagued the initiative from
the start, the scale and dimension of the challenge has increased as
more and more schools are opened, and the need to have the wherewithal
to attract and retain the best staff becomes more pressing.

Another related aspect of the organisational deficits at the
governmental level that have an impact on GEI as it goes to scale
concerns the lack of linkages between the national and local levels.
Issues are sometimes addressed at the national level, but decisions do
not filter down to the local level. Alternatively, solutions are found
at the local level, but fail to go to the top echelons who need to know
what the situation is to support with resourcing. This affects several
Ministries and state services, including education, and given the
cross-sectoral nature of the GEI, it has a major impact on NCCM, which
finds itself obliged to make the linkages between the different levels
itself.

All this, however, stretches the already overloaded administrative
capacity of the Secretariat. Some NCCM consultants, who have been with
the initiative from the start, are asking questions as to the ability of
the Council to keep up with the scaling up process, noting that if the
organisation is feeling stretched when 700 schools are in place, it will
certainly not be able to cope when the number hits 2000, and that
therefore, like all other organisations, "the NCCM has to be realistic
about the parameters of scale, and to be sure that plans are
commensurate with its capacities, not to mention the funds it has
available."[^50]

And this is where lies another major challenge. As the initiative picks
up tempo and goes to scale, there is a clear indication that the
structures that were suitable for the earlier phases are creaking under
the strain. And the strain is starting to take its toll. NCCM
secretariat staff, particularly the key co-ordinators, are clearly
over-burdened with responsibilities, with their attention being taken up
by details that distract them from their main focus, and having to be
"like a magic wand for everybody", as one interviewee remarked. Not only
does burn-out make people less effective, but they will also find it
increasingly difficult to maintain the charisma that project champions
need, and which can re-charge tired or despondent troops during field
visits. There have also been some key losses---as there always
are---with lead staff who leave, or who get married and move on, or
whose technical expertise and experience attract lucrative offers from
other organisations in search of excellence. This is the way with all
innovations, whose mettle is tested by the efficiency with which the
initiative can act as a magnet for budding leaders and new champions at
both national and governorate level.

It also became clear that some of the elements in the organisational
structure of the initiative, which had served the project in good stead
in the earlier phases, needed to be reinvigorated. This is particularly
true of the National Task Force, the UN Task Force, and the Local
Volunteer Task Forces in the governorate, all of which still have a role
to play, but whose goals might need to be re-articulated in relation to
the present state of the initiative. It is also true of the
multi-sectoral partnerships that had been welded together at the start
of the initiative, and which are still there operationally, but which
increasingly depend on *ad hoc* bilateral agreements. There is therefore
an important issue of organisational design here, one which all
innovations have to consider carefully as they work through from one
phase to another in their development, in order to make sure that their
structures and institutional practices remain fit-for-purpose. Weak
structures implementing strong initiatives invite hijack attempts and
take-over bids that, if successful, drastically transform the spirit
that gave rise to the project in the first place.

In this regard, therefore, the First Lady's comments---provided in
response to policy-related questions fielded to her towards the end of
the present documentation exercise---are particularly apt. She in fact
underscored the role of the NCCM as the lead coordinating agency, tasked
with the responsibility of ensuring that all government efforts are well
integrated, and with leading quality assurance through the design of
training, capacity development and close monitoring of the initiatives
against clear standards. The First Lady also highlighted the
complementarity of roles between the NCCM and the MoE, as it is in the
sustained and strategic combination of the strengths of both that the
Girls' Education Initiative can continue to thrive. The NCCM should
therefore play a key part in the community mobilization component, with
the MoE focusing on implementation and school building, expansion of
sites and teacher training.

*The lure of compromises during scaling up*

The temptation to take short-cuts and to do the best one can under the
proverbial 'prevailing circumstances' can be both a smart flexible
response that saves the initiative, or a compromise that rings its death
knell---and it is not always to tell the difference or the outcome. As
with every innovation, however, there are key principles underlying GEI
which need to be safeguarded. If, for instance, funds for training of
the different GEI cadres are being spread too thinly as more and more
facilitators and supervisors come on board, then alternative strategies
need to be developed, given the absolute centrality of quality education
provision at the heart of girl-friendly schooling. If time is becoming
an increasingly precious commodity, and schools are being built at a
faster pace than communities can absorb them, then the initiative must
dream up other forms of community mobilization and outreach, as this is
the heart and soul of the initiative, and the secret of its success. To
compromise on this would put in jeopardy the very spirit that infuses
GEI, leaving what would be little else but an empty shell. If monitoring
and evaluation are resource- and time-hungry exercises, then alternative
ways need to be found to assure quality, with strong vertical and
horizontal networks[^51] within the whole initiative to ensure exchange
of experience and of good practices, a common understanding of standards
is maintained, and that moral support, and acknowledgement of effort and
excellence make up for inadequate salaries. Failing this, deep gaps are
bound to develop, with a "decoupling" taking place where administrative
levels develop directions and regulations, while actual practices in
rural classrooms are less affected. The First Lady's unequivocal
indication that "while international funding is being secured, national
budgets will continue to be the backbone of the initiative with funds
being allocated for the next five year plan" provides a sound basis for
hope that the continued scaling up process will be sufficiently
resourced to avoid the kinds of compromises we have referred to.

*Epilogue*

As announced from the outset, the aim of this publication is not to
evaluate the Girls' Education Initiative in Egypt, but to document it.
It is a testimony of an initiative in process, caught like a bird in
mid-flight, as it were, as it engages a particularly challenging phase,
that of sustaining the scaling process. We have, I hope, adequately
captured the sense of purpose and of mission, as well as of exhilaration
and enthusiasm on the part of those who, with utter dedication, have
committed themselves to making a difference in the lives of so many
girls across Egypt. We have also, hopefully, adequately represented the
many hurdles encountered on the way, and the challenges that still have
to be overcome. The obstacles are daunting, not merely for logistical or
material reasons, but because Egypt's GEI is transforming power
relations---not just between males and females, but also between
learners and teachers, and between communities and official government
structures. And it is precisely because so many elements of the social
fabric are being transformed that the achievements are all the more
commendable. If readers from other countries, far and wide, find lessons
to learn from this account, and are inspired to address the gender gap
in their own context with the same resolve that we have documented here,
then it will have served its purpose.

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[^1]: Save the Children (2005a) *60 Million Girls*. London: Save the
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[^2]: See, *inter alia*, N. Rao & I. Smyth (eds)(2004) *Partnerships for
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    Children Fund.

[^3]: Annan, K. (2004) 'No development tool more effective than
    education of girls, empowerment of women.' The United Nations
    Secretary General's Address to the Women's Health Coalition,
    reproduced in
    <http://www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/pressrels/2004/sgsm9118.html>

[^4]: See N. Fergany (2000) 'Towards high-quality universal basic
    education for girls in Egypt.' Proceedings of the Workshop on the UN
    Secretary-General's Initiative on Girls' Education in Egypt. Cairo,
    24 October.

[^5]: In Egypt, for instance, curricula tend to cater mainly for urban
    lifestyles, and do not acknowledge or connect with realities of
    rural children. See Ghada Gholam (2000) 'Determinants of gender gaps
    in basic education in Egypt.' Proceedings of the Workshop on the UN
    Secretary-General's Initiative on Girls' Education in Egypt. Cairo,
    24 October.

[^6]: See <http://www.ungei.org/whatisungei/index_715.html> for details
    of Global Advisory Committee Members and Partners.

[^7]: See C. Wright (2003) 'Understanding UNGEI as an EFA flagship:
    issues of leadership and coordination in girls' education.' Paper
    presented at the Fourth Meeting of the Working Group on EFA UNESCO
    HQ, Paris, 22-23 July 2003.

[^8]: See Sultana (2001), UNESCO (2003), UNICEF (2004), ETF & World Bank
    (2005), Bardak (2006) and especially the extended discussions in
    UNDP (2002, 2003). Many of the educational reforms in the MEDA
    region attempt to address these challenges, and much headway has
    been made in some countries.

[^9]: For details on this phenomenon in Egypt, see the monograph by Diaa
    El Din Zahir, Kamal Hosney Bayoumy, A. El Shukhebi & M. Abdel Kader
    (2006) *Education Finance in Egypt*. Dakar: CODESRIA-ADEA. See also
    R. Assad & A. Elbadawy, A. (2003) 'Private and group tutoring in
    Egypt: where is the gender inequality?' Minnesota: Humphrey
    Institute of Public Affairs.

[^10]: The gender parity gap is showing signs of improvement across all
    the MENA region. Some---like Tunisia and Bahrain---have attained
    gender parity in access, and the region had the highest average
    annual rate of increase in net enrolment/attendance ratios among all
    regions between 1980 and 2001, with 1.4% a year. Half of the
    region's countries are on track to meet the goal of universal
    education by 2015. Nevertheless, some 8.8 million children---5
    million of whom are girls---are out of primary school, and closing
    the gender gap remains a challenge.

[^11]: This information is culled from a variety of MoE documents,
    including its 2006 'General Framework for Education Policies in
    Egypt.'

[^12]: UNICEF was responsible for designing the initiative, conducting
    training, providing furniture, equipment and stationery, and (with
    other partners) supervising, monitoring and evaluating the schools.

[^13]: An account of the Community School initiative can be found in
    Malak Zaalouk (2004) *The Pedagogy of Empowerment: Community Schools
    as a Social Movement in Egypt*. Cairo: The American University in
    Cairo Press.

[^14]: See, for instance, M. Zaalouk (2004) 'Innovation and mediation:
    the case of Egypt.' In N. Rao & I. Smyth (eds) *Partnerships for
    Girls' Education.* Oxford: Oxfam Publishing. The NCCM has given much
    importance to documenting all the phases of the project, using the
    material strategically to raise awareness, and to mobilize support
    from the community, the government, and national and international
    donors.

[^15]: I would like to acknowledge some of these key people by name. Dr
    Magdi el Atawi's in-depth knowledge of the education system in
    Egypt, his prior experiences as a member of a Faculty of Education,
    and his responsibility for the educational programme at NCCM,
    including the training of facilitators and supervisors involved in
    GEI, made him a perfect sounding board to whom I often turned for
    information and advice. Dalia Hassan, coordinator of the GEI
    secretariat at the NCCM, provided me with a great many insights
    about the historical development of the initiative, and with an
    in-depth analysis of the factors that led to its success. Mohsen
    Kamel, the GEI field manager at NCCM, accompanied me during my trips
    to Assiut and Sohaag, and was most generous in sharing his profound
    knowledge of the contexts we were visiting and of the dynamics
    between the different players. His many stories and vignettes,
    culled from years of involvement in community mobilization and
    Community School projects, helped me capture the spirit of the GEI
    initiative and to make my field visits both memorable and infinitely
    more effective and enjoyable. Over and above these three key leaders
    on whose shoulders fell the main responsibility of directing the GEI
    at the NCCM, there are several other individuals---too many to
    mention by name---whose absolute commitment to enabling educational
    access to girls in remote rural areas in Egypt proved inspirational.
    We will have occasion to note in later sections of this testimony
    how their contributions to what one of them aptly called 'Schools of
    Love' was marked by a desire---indeed a passion---to make a positive
    difference to the lives of individuals, and to the country as a
    whole. Thanks are also due to the NCCM for handling the logistical
    aspects of the field visits.

[^16]: See, *inter alia, Sultana* (2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007).

[^17]: The idea of engaging Ms Refaat was initiated by the UNICEF
    regional office and was negotiated between the NCCM and CIDA. The
    Agency loaned their senior staff as yet another contribution, on
    their part, to girls' education in Egypt.

[^18]: A frequent comment from NCCM interviewees was that "the GEI has
    educated the other projects we run", with several structures (e.g.
    Local Voluntary Task Forces, Technical Secretariat, local
    information units) and practices (e.g. participatory, bottom-up
    approaches) being adopted wholesale.

[^19]: Interestingly enough, though, one (male) interviewee felt that
    educated girls would suffer from the delay in the age of marriage,
    what he referred to as the 'baru' or 'spinster' complex, i.e. the
    fact that with education, girls would not be satisfied with just
    anyone, and that men reaching their expectations are hard to find in
    their hamlets and villages.

[^20]: Although work is strongly associated with not being in school for
    both boys and girls, studies suggest that, in Egypt, a strong causal
    relationship between work and lack of school attendance holds true
    only for girls. See Ragui Assaad, Deborah Levison & Nadia Zibani
    (2002) 'The effect of child work on school enrolment in Egypt.'
    Working paper 0111, Cairo: Economic Research Forum.

[^21]: For an anthropological discussion of the code of honour and shame
    in the Mediterranean region, see the classic work by J.G.
    Peristiany, J.G. (ed.) (1965) *Honour and Shame: the Values of
    Mediterranean Society* London: Wiedenfeld & Nicolson.

[^22]: Further funding is coming through the EU in support of the GIS
    aspect of the initiative, with expertise made available by Siemens.

[^23]: In reality, only USD 13.56 million were made available since some
    of this funding that was expected to come through international
    sources did not materialise.

[^24]: A major concern here was to avoid large associations that
    function like private sector agencies rather than NGOs. Such
    associations usually have strong technical skills, which they use
    effectively to attract funding from international agencies. A good
    part of these resources, however, tend to be used to fulfil the
    needs of the organisation, rather than in the best interests of the
    targeted communities.

[^25]: Some of these schools will eventually add a second classroom in
    order to absorb more girls from the community.

[^26]: The corresponding figures for the other governorates are: 7 in
    Sohaag, 12 in Menia, 3 in Fayoum, and 14 in Guiza, bringing the
    total of such integrated classrooms to 165.

[^27]: The insistence on catering only for girls is based on the
    understanding that the main goal behind GEI is the reduction of the
    gender gap, and that in order to achieve this quickly, the focus
    should, at least in Apache schools, be solely on them.

[^28]: This cost includes such services as septic tanks and a water
    reservoir. The unit cost is higher than that required to build a
    regular school, even if here one is not comparing like with like,
    given that regular schools also have a library, a laboratory, and a
    computer room.

[^29]: Some of these 'creative' ways of interacting with school
    buildings need not necessarily show lack of respect or rejection.
    This is true of graffiti, for instance. Initially, some interviewees
    expressed concern at the fact that walls were being written on. The
    graffiti however turned out to be in praise of the school, or of the
    facilitators---with walls effectively providing an unexpected space
    for villagers to express themselves on in writing or in drawing.
    This is not at all unusual in villages and hamlets, and even in
    urban centres, where one often sees drawings on the facades of homes
    depicting the voyage that the owner had made to Mecca for the
    *hajj*. Other practices may be deleterious, however: the WFP ,
    Girls' Education Initiative Monitoring Report, (2006) for Fayoum,
    for instance, mentions the fact that 19% of the schools had exposed
    garbage piles around the school area, and 44% had visible animal
    manure piles close to the school that attracted flies---denoting a
    clear need for raising community awareness in maintained a more
    hygienic environment for children to grow up and learn in.

[^30]: The readiness to provide flexible school hours went so far as to
    offer that classes would be held in the evening, as in one
    particular hamlet in Sohaag, a wealthy land owner---much like a
    feudal lord of old---was not allowing his army of what were
    effectively indentured girls to attend school during the day. He
    refused the NGO's offer, fearing that 'his' girls would no longer
    want to tend to his 300 *fiddien* of land once they got a taste of
    education.

[^31]: Many of these natural leaders are women, and are called
    *ra'idet*: despite living in rigidly patriarchal communities, these
    women find a way to assert agendas, going around their men, using
    their embeddedness in the community and their informal networks to
    'use' other people who are respected by their husbands to get a
    point across to the men which, if they made it themselves, would not
    be accepted.

[^32]: The WFP (2006) monitoring reports for Fayoum, Menia, and Sohaag
    Governorates indicated the need for an increase in the number of
    women on the Committee, and for a better use of the committees who
    were mainly resorted to in times of trouble (Fayoum). It also
    indicated that 29% of the schools were without an Education
    Committee in Menia, as they were still in the process of being
    established.

[^33]: I had the opportunity to observe two Education Committee
    meetings, with discussions revolving around birth certificate
    issues, the upkeep of the school garden, and the attending to
    several school needs, cleanliness, the removal of some trees from
    the garden because they were attracting snakes and ants, the need
    for a gardener, and the need for a ladder. In one case, the
    committee felt that they should have more members: their village was
    getting larger, and they needed to have representatives from a
    broader geographic area. One of the members also suggested that they
    should carry out a proper survey to assess community needs and
    identify issues. When I asked them about their roles, they felt that
    members should be appointed for a fixed period, and that NCCM should
    give the committee a formal mandate.

[^34]: This often consists of a commercially produced snack, such as
    biscuits. In countries with stronger traditions of community-based
    action---such as in Bukina Faso, for instance---volunteers prepare
    cooked meals for children in school canteens. Egyptian communities
    were not keen to adopt this idea and to take responsibility for such
    an initiative, even when the WFP offered to provide kitchens by
    converting rooms or building annexes to the schools. The restriction
    of the project to three governorates is due to budget constraints on
    the part of the WFP.

[^35]: The value of this food package is estimated to be around EGP50
    (USD8.7), which is a third of a salary that a government worker
    earns on average. The WFP country officer indicated that families do
    not tend to monetarize the rations, and cases where this happened
    were allowed, as long as it did not become a trend. On average, each
    family has 5 members.

[^36]: Opinions were divided as to whether this was an appropriate role
    for NGOs. Some felt that their intimate knowledge of the communities
    in the governorate served the project in good stead when it came to
    efficient distribution and monitoring, and in addition they had
    warehouses in which to store the food. NGOs were also involved in a
    lot of capacity-building, with the WFP providing training in
    electronic store-keeping, monitoring and evaluation, and so on.
    Others however felt that the key strength of the NGOs was their
    knowledge of educational matters, and that another NGO ought to take
    responsibility for the rations. Indeed, one solution that is being
    considered for those governorates where the NGOs are feeling
    overburdened by having to cope with both tasks is to outsource the
    food distribution responsibilities to another organization, so that
    GEI implementing NGOs can focus on educational matters.

[^37]: GEI facilitators get a monthly salary of EGP129 (or USD22.6) if
    they have a university degree, and EGP98 (or USD17.2) if they have
    an intermediate level of education. This is similar to the pay MoE
    teachers get, but GEI facilitators do not enjoy security of tenure.
    They are employed on a six-month contract by the implementing NGO,
    which is renewable on an indefinite basis. This has some negative
    implications, the most important being that facilitators are not
    eligible for health insurance, and holidays are not paid. The latter
    drawback is attenuated by the fact that most GEI schools organise
    summer schools, run between mid-June to end of August, on a
    three-day week from nine o'clock to mid-day.

[^38]: It also initially led to some difficulties, with applicants who
    were not chosen for the facilitator vacancy writing to the governor
    to complain, and with NCCM staff having to justify each selection
    made. In other cases, efforts were made to influence the selection
    process by families who were well connected and who wielded *wasta*
    and influence. However, with time, the transparency and fairness of
    the procedures earned NCCM staff credibility, and both complaints
    and pressures subsided.

[^39]: There are in fact few boys enrolled in girl-friendly schools. In
    Menia, for instance, a baseline study by the World Food Programme
    (2006) found 96 boys present in 31% of the GEI schools in the
    governorate, representing only 5% of all students catered for.

[^40]: On the value of Professional Development Schools in training
    novice teachers, see, *inter alia*, R.V. Bullough, D. Kauchak, N.A.
    Crow, S. Hobbs & S.D. Stokes (1997) 'Professional development
    schools: Catalysts for teacher and school change.' *Teaching and
    Teacher Education*, Vol.13 (2), pp.153-169.

[^41]: Indeed, according to some reports, some Community School
    facilitators are providing training teacher educators in Faculties
    of Education in active learning methods.

[^42]: See G.W. McDiarmid, D.L. Ball & C.W. Anderson (1989) 'Why staying
    one chapter ahead doesn't really work: Subject-specific pedagogy.'
    In M.C. Reynolds (ed.) *Knowledge Base for the Beginning Teacher*
    (pp. 193-205). Oxford: Pergamon.

[^43]: Some interviewees recommend that instead of one supervisor having
    overall responsibility for a governorate, there should be a team,
    with members pooling their different strengths in order to better
    the initiative. Areas where specialized skills were required
    included field work, community relations, and administration and
    management.

[^44]: This can create problems, as the criteria of what constitutes
    good and effective teaching are not always the same. However, the
    NCCM considers the inclusion of MoE supervisors strategically
    important, because this helps them become persuaded of the value of
    active learning methods and adds to the credibility of the
    girl-friendly schools.

[^45]: Some monitoring is done by the donors as well. Apache, for
    instance, carries out what it refers to as "friendship visits", and
    even though the focus on such calls is on the way the school
    buildings are being kept, the fact that the donors are visiting has
    a positive impact in relation to many other aspects of quality
    provision. As the Apache interviewee noted, "All kids want their
    house in order before the parents visit...They want to shine."

[^46]: The uprightness with which the whole initiative is led comes
    through another the emphasis on another Freirian value, humility.
    The initiative does not encourage personality cults: while some,
    such as the Ambassador and the UNICEF regional director, are clearly
    inspirational figures, whose example spurs others to action and
    emulation, it is made clear that the focus should remain on the
    communities and the girls.

[^47]: I, as a male, am not outside this struggle, of course. The very
    act of writing this text has, ironically, implicated me in obliging
    my partner to carry the full burden of housework, of child-minding,
    and of tending to my needs and those of our sons in a traditional
    division of labour.

[^48]: Another transfer relates to the employment prospects for girls
    once they leave school---which, in many cases, are close to nil.
    Some proposals that were mentioned by interviewees in relation to
    this very important challenge, including a preferential Loans scheme
    to help women set up small businesses and co-operatives.

[^49]: As Samoff and his colleagues put it, "Scaling up is most likely
    to be successful when it was envisaged from the outset." See J.
    Samoff, E. Molapi Sebatane & M. Dembélé (2003) 'Scaling up by
    focusing down: Creating space to expand education reform.'
    Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Association for the
    Development of Education in Africa, held in Arusha, Tanzania, 7--11
    October 2001 (p.15).

[^50]: In addition to all this, NCCM success with GEI has also led
    government and other donors to entrust it with a broader portfolio
    of projects with a focus on children at risk, including initiatives
    on Female Genital Mutilation, child labour, street children and
    children with disability. Also, awareness of the impact of early
    socialization is leading NCCM to think of also investing its
    energies in pre-primary education.

[^51]: This is happening in some governorates, with forums and
    publications for the exchange and showcasing of good practice
    becoming increasingly popular. In Sohaag, for instance, supervisors
    also put up an exhibition of educational aids produced by
    facilitators. Field data suggests, however, that the linkage between
    the different parts of the structure need to be strengthened at all
    levels, including within and between NCCM cadres.