Photo courtesy of Egypt's ministry of education
Minister Mohamed Abdel-Latif highlighted the figures during a meeting with Stefan Emblad, the World Bank’s regional director for Egypt, Yemen, and Djibouti, to assess the pace of reforms and explore deeper cooperation.
Abdel-Latif said average teaching capacity has risen by 33 percent, describing the data as evidence of "a genuine transformation" in a system that educates millions of children.
The minister said literacy gains were achieved through a national Arabic language development program, with the proportion of students struggling to read and write falling across three successive phases from 45.5 percent to 32.4 percent, and then to 13.9 percent.
Class sizes have also dropped below 50 pupils, he further noted.
In recent years, Egypt has amended curricula across all school grades to replace rote memorization with critical thinking, while rolling out mandatory weekly and monthly exams to help boost attendance.
Minister Abdel-Latif added that Egypt is overhauling its mathematics and science curricula in partnership with Japan.
He clarified that an updated math syllabus introduced in first-grade primary classes will extend to second and third grades in the upcoming academic year, while science and math courses for the Egyptian Baccalaureate are being developed with Japanese experts.
The ministry has also signed an agreement with the International Baccalaureate Organization to review exam frameworks and assessment methods.
In digital education, first-year secondary students are learning programming and artificial intelligence through Japan’s "Kiryo" platform, he pointed out.
In a move the minister described as a first for Egyptian schools, financial literacy and entrepreneurship have been added to the secondary curriculum to equip students with practical economic skills before they enter the workforce.
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