Cheating is ruining Egypt's education quality indicators

There are more than 25 million students across all levels of the Egyptian education system, which is the largest in the Arab region. Egypt, however, scores low on education quality indicators in the Arab world and globally. This is caused by the spread of cheating, exam leaks, the growing shortage of teachers and the continued randomness of education policies.

The significant rise of failure rates in the faculties of medicine in Egypt’s universities is one of the catastrophic repercussions of the deteriorating level of education in the country. It threatens the reputation of Egyptian certificates in Gulf and European countries.

Despite the government’s actions to contain the situation, it portends a disaster that may increase the level of illiteracy in the coming years, especially with the increasing percentage of children suffering from learning poverty, where they are unable to read, write or understand a short text.

The alarm was sounded at the Faculty of Medicine at Assiut University in the south, which saw a failure rate of 60 per cent when 720 of its 1,207 students failed their 2023 academic year exams. At Sohag University, 346 students out of 600 first year medical students also failed (60.91 per cent), according to the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Dr Magdy Amin.

The Faculty of Medicine at South Valley University had an even worse outcome with 72 per cent of its students failing. The failure rate for the Faculty of Oral and Dental Medicine at the same university, was even higher, at 80 per cent, according to Egyptian newspapers.

Failing scores were also seen in other science faculties such as physical therapy and engineering.

This makes failing first college year a phenomenon in the science faculties in Egyptian universities and institutes which have nearly four million students.

These shocking results prompted Egyptian member of parliament Samira Al-Gazzar to ask the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research to investigate the high failure rates in medical schools. Answers came from the deans of the concerned faculties, the most shocking of which was what the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at South Valley University, Dr Ali Abdel Rahman Ghoil, said as he revealed that 90 per cent of failing students graduated from certain schools in Qena Governorate, and that the majority of the 368 failing students failed in all their classes and not just certain ones, according to Al-Gomhuria newspaper.

Ghoil revealed that 80 students who enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine come from a certain high school, which he did not name, of whom only one student passed. In an attempt to save its reputation, the President of South Valley University, Youssef Al-Gharbawi, attributed the test results of the first year of the Faculty of Medicine to what is known as group cheating in some high school exams.

The Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Assiut University, Alaa Attia, attributed the high rate of failing at his college to the weak educational level of students. These first-year students come from the high school class whose results were questioned and said to be inaccurate, with allegations of exam leaks, Attia told Sky News Arabia.

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A source close to the education field, who requested anonymity, told me that, “There are instructions from the ministry of education not to fail anyone in order to get rid of the crowded classes. No one is getting held back and during repeat exams students cheat the most and everyone passes, especially in high school.”

There is something called VIP testing halls in Egypt. These are examination rooms where sons and daughters of officers, judges, members of parliament, executive leaders, the wealthy and businessmen are gathered in specific rooms and the answers are passed to them, or the exams are leaked to them.

This allows “VIP children” to get higher grades that are inconsistent with their real academic levels.

Months ago, more than 500 students at Al-Salihiya Secondary School in Sharqiya Governorate received scores above 92 per cent, while the results of Dimshelt Secondary School in Dakahlia Governorate showed that nearly 100 students in the science section received scores above 93 per cent. This was mocked and ridiculed by many Egyptians.

Teachers in various schools confirmed to me that there are instructions from education administrations not to let any student fail, and not to give anyone a score of zero. Rather, students must be given points for attendance, good behaviour, homework and verbal and written performance, regardless of their educational level. This, on top of increased incidents of cheating during final exams, leads to students being issued primary and preparatory certificates (covering basic education) while they are actually unable to read or write.

Previous estimates issued by the former Egyptian Minister of Education, Tarek Shawky, said that the cheating rate in pre-university education exams is 85 per cent, reported Al-Ahram Gate newspaper.

Over the past few years, the Egyptian authorities have failed to stop the cheating groups spread across social media, or to stop exam leaks, which have become an annual exam ritual in the country. When the Ministry of Education banned smartphones from exam halls, students resorted to using wireless headphones to cheat. These tiny headphones can be fixed inside the outer ear, or inside pens or glasses, so that students can send exam questions and receive their answers. Some of these electronics are equipped with cameras that can send copies of the exams and leak them.

Meanwhile, in rural schools, more primitive ways are used: teachers will write the answers to test questions on the blackboard, or give the answers verbally to some questions. This way they’re showing leniency towards the students and allowing them to cooperate among themselves during final exams, eyewitnesses have reported.

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One Egyptian teacher requesting anonymity said that teachers often leave the students in the exam halls alone. Some teachers may answer some of the exam questions towards the end of the time allotted for the exam; it may even get to the point where some teachers would add answers in pencil when correcting answer sheets to make sure students get pass grades.

Despite strict penalties for cheating, which were passed in a 2020 law stipulating “imprisonment for a period of not less than two years and not more than seven years, and a fine, for anyone who prints, publishes, broadcasts or promotes by any means exam questions or answers, or any evaluation tools in the various stages of education, Egyptian or foreign, with the intent to cheat or disrupt the general system of exams,” Egypt is ranked low internationally in terms of the quality of education.

In 2022, Egypt ranked 79th globally according to the Global Knowledge Index issued by the UN Development Programme in cooperation with the Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Foundation. It also ranked 104th internationally, according to the British Legatum Institute classification for the year 2021, and ranked 93rd out of 141 countries in the latest assessment of the quality of education within the Global Competitiveness Index in 2019.

In the Academic Ranking of World Universities, Shanghai Ranking (ARWU), Cairo University, the second oldest Egyptian university and the third Arab university, founded in 1908, ranked in the 301-400 ranks in 2024, while no other Egyptian university was able to get on the list of the top 500 universities in the world. Meanwhile, just seven other Egyptian universities were included in the list of the top 1,000 universities globally.

The American University in Cairo came in 416th position and is the only Egyptian university within the top 500 universities, according to the QS World University Rankings 2023, issued by the British Quacquarellu Symonds Foundation, specialising in the education field.

Educational expert Mohamed Salama believes that allowing students to be absent, the continued shortage of about half a million teachers, low wages for teaching staff, the deteriorating condition of educational facilities, the popularity of private tutoring and the expansion of the private education sector have all been adopted by the regime to ease the burden of a huge budget that it is no longer able to bear in a country shackled by foreign debt of more than $160 billion.

Lowering the spending on education, the shortage of teachers and overcrowded classrooms are behind the decline in the quality of education in Egypt, according to a 2022 World Bank report. Egypt allocates Egyptian pounds 294bn (about $6bn) to the education sector, representing 1.7 per cent of GDP. This is less than a third of the constitutional requirement calling for 6 per cent of GDP to be allocated to government spending on education and university education.

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