How involved is the private sector in training K-12 teachers? The short answer: not very. Government schools have been facing a substantial shortage of teachers, which the education minister has put at as many as 250k. The government intends to hire an additional 30k teachers every year for the next five years, a step that the sector has welcomed though some argue the target should be higher.

Training is one reason why filling the gap may not be straightforward: Egypt’s K-12 teachers generally face a host of challenges, including (pdf) low salaries and a lack of necessary qualifications. Teacher training is especially challenging, as the education system often values academic prestige over the practical skills that would help teachers become better educators. “We absolutely need more Egyptian teachers, but we can’t do this without proper training,” Elsewedy Capital Holding CEO Haytham Sabry tells Enterprise. “The key point is to teach the teachers how to convey knowledge to students,” he adds.

But most private sector players don’t really see a market for offering teacher training as a standalone service: The private sector has a market share of about 10% of Egypt’s total education market, and most private education operators active in the market already have their own teacher training mechanisms in place, for the teachers they employ, CIRA CEO Mohamed El Kalla tells Enterprise. “Historically, beyond the work with donors, the Education Ministry didn’t really offer chances for the private sector to train teachers for the public sector to then recruit from,” he adds.

CIRA is a case in point: As well as running its own in-house training programs for teachers already working inside CIRA-run institutions, CIRA subsidiary Edu Systems International offers training every year for at least a few hundred entry-level teachers — either fresh graduates or people looking to make a career change, says El Kalla. These programs are run without charge for the participants, usually last for three-four months and cover basic teaching concepts, including pedagogy and classroom management techniques, he adds. Most participants then enter CIRA schools as teaching assistants. “This is how we create our supply chain. Some program participants do end up going to work in other institutions. But given CIRA’s size, we absorb most of them.” CIRA doesn’t currently have much of an incentive for offering standalone teacher training services beyond this, he notes.

“There aren’t many private teacher training providers in the market,” agrees Salma El Bakry, Managing Director of BalancED Education — a major private sector operator that runs internationally-certified standalone teacher training programs. “We’re one of few.”

BalancED Education has trained over 17k teachers from 1024 governmental schools since 2014 — working mainly with the Education First (EF) foundation, El Bakry tells Enterprise. Program participants undergo 18 hours of training, spread over three days, BalancED Education Executive Manager Mahmoud Hamza tells Enterprise. The methodology focuses on active learning, differentiated instruction, assessment strategies, classroom management, and English proficiency. The long-term plan is for the program to be sustainable, under a training-of-trainers model, say El Bakry and Hamza.

And the scope of this training is set to keep expanding: “The plan for this year is to have a professional development program for kindergarten and early childhood teachers,” says Hamza.

Its training happens within a framework of national and international partnerships, but takes place under the Education Ministry’s purview: BalancED Education’s government school training programs are rolled-out in partnership with the Florida Atlantic University College of Education, says El Bakry. It partnered with the Vodafone Foundation to launch the Ta3limy digital platform, and with the Japan International Cooperation Agency and Education First to train Applied Technology School teachers, she adds. And it’s partnering with Nahdet Misr, to train kindergarten to 4th grade teachers on the Education 2.0 Arabic curriculum, says Hamza.

And it’s financed through partnership: Training sessions are co-funded through the Education First foundation, BalancED Education, and the IACC — which is the main financial partner in most of these training programs, say El Bakry and Hamza. Banks and multinational corporations have also supported the programs, says El Bakry. Public sector participants attend training sessions at no cost, while any private sector participants attending training sessions will pay, she adds.

In general, teacher training in Egypt is seen as being primarily within the purview of academia, says El Kalla. An estimated 15 universities in Egypt offer Bachelor’s degrees in teaching, though their quality may vary considerably, while several universities also offer education-focused Master’s and PhD programs, he adds. AUC’s School of Continuing Education course offerings include a 30-hour standalone Teaching Essentials online course, and a 36-week Career Certificate in Math and Science Teacher Training course. Tuition fees for these courses range from EGP 1.2k-1.7k, and each also has an admission fee of EGP 75, and an English exam fee in the range of EGP 245-370.

But some leaders argue there’s scope for the private sector to play a much more active role in teacher training: Certified private sector-managed teacher training programs would ensure better quality, says El Kalla.

The training of private school teachers should be entirely private sector-led, Sabry argues. Programs could be run in fee-paying teacher training academies. Or they could be subsidized by the private sector, following a model similar to the El Sewedy Technical Education Academy — where 1k students every year embark on a three-year program that gives them on-the-job factory training by specialized German instructors, Sabry says. “We subsidize this, as CSR, and graduates of the program are then free to go and work anywhere,” he adds. Private sector organizations offering these services wouldn’t necessarily have to be profitmaking, because raising the quality of teachers ultimately benefits everyone, he notes.

So, what would it take to get us there? Private sector interest in being a service provider to the public sector in this field could be high if the chance was there, says El Kalla. “The Education Ministry needs to open public tenders for private sector institutions to provide teacher training, to help cover gaps in the market. If this happened, a lot of private enterprises would be interested in developing training programs, to get a part of a big contract.”

Might this actually happen? “I’ve heard of possible interest in this from the ministry, but I'm still waiting to see any contracts,” El Kalla says.

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Your top education stories for the week:

• EFG Hermes’ fintech firm ValU is in talks with e-payments startup Klickit to offer tuition financing.
• E-learning framework for public universities: The Supreme Council of Universities and the Egyptian Knowledge Bank signed a cooperation agreement to create a “management system” for remote learning in public universities.
• The Madbouly Cabinet issued a decision to establish a Private Universities Council.
• A boost to our German language teaching: The Education Ministry has signed an MoU with the Goethe Institute to enhance cooperation on German language teaching.