Final Report on Combating Corruption in the Education Sector Workshop at the BA
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Alexandria—
the BA Arab Reform Forum in cooperation with the Egyptian Alliance for Transparency and Combating Corruption Aml organized on Monday, 12 February 2007 a workshop on Transparency and Fighting Corruption in the Education Sector. The workshop discussed fighting corruption and the flow of information in the education sector, one of the most vital sector for the future of millions of population.
Dr. Youssry El-Gamal, Minister of Education, Dr. Hany Helal, Minister of High Education, and General Adel Labib, Governor of Alexandria, and Dr. Hossam Badrawy, Chairman of the Egyptian Alliance for Transparency and Combating Corruption Aml participated in the workshop. Representatives from the Ministry of Education, heads of governmental and private educational institutions, students and parents, civil society organizations, academia, legislative institutions representatives, and media men also participated in the workshop.
Dr. Ismail Serageldin, Director of the Library of Alexandria, gave the opening speech, in which he presented experiences of other countries in the issue of education reform to draw lesson from their experiences. He also reviewed some statistics and reports showing the steps taken by each country to develop the education process.
The first session of the four -session workshop was an open discussion with the main beneficiaries on the issue of combating corruption in the education sector, moderated by Hossam Badrawy. Speakers stressed the importance of transparency individually and on the public level, as a main value of the modern society. Badrawy emphasized that choosing leaders is a crucial matter that directly affect the development process, and he added that generally the process of choosing leaders lack transparency and criteria. Failure to choose efficient leaders is the first step on the way to corruption.
The second and third sessions focused on the educational curricula in general, their content and scientific aspect in specific. Ibrahim El-Moalem and Nadia Gado discussed books and educational materials in the second session moderated by Soliman Awees. Essam Fouda referred to corruption as a symptom and not a disease in itself and that combating corruption could not be realized without the role of the government. A strategy should be developed to combat corruption through enhancing the efficiency of government and private sector. For example, sound economy with fixed growth rate characterized by transparency and just equitable income rate leaves no room for corruption.
Farouk Abu Zeid, Mahmoud Khalil, Hisham Attaia discussed in the third session, moderated by M. Said El-Dakak the content of the educational curricula. Abu Zeid presented an important study on the human rights discourse in the school books. Twenty six primary school books and 46 secondary (general, commercial, industrial, agricultural) school books were included in the study. He recommended the amendment of such curricula with the help of experts in human rights, women issues, and minorities, since ignorance of human rights is the main cause of corruption.
The fourth session tackled one of the most serious educational issues in Egypt, which is the private lessons. Shebl Badran, Mohamed Sakran, Mai Shehab, and William Obied discussed private lessons theoretically and practically and how it affects the educational process at large in the fourth session, moderated by Mohamed Abdel Zaher El-Tayb.