At the age of 76, Fatma Ali was getting ready to take her literacy exam. Ali, from Aswan, had enrolled in the Ministry of Social Solidarity’s “No Illiteracy with Takaful” initiative, which aims to eradicate illiteracy among families benefiting from the Takaful and Karama (Solidarity and Dignity) conditional cash-transfer programme.
Born in 1949 into an impoverished family, Ali was the only girl among four siblings. Her father passed away when she was small, and she dropped out of school during her second year of primary education because her family could no longer afford to send her. Being the youngest of her siblings, her brothers provided for her, and she married at a young age, bearing five boys and four girls. Today, she is a grandmother.
Ali was determined to educate her own children despite the harsh living conditions in the area she comes from. Three of her daughters now work as teachers, and her sons pursued intermediate-level education and have received diplomas in commerce and industry.
Decades on, Ali has never given up on her dream of learning to read and write. Her goal was to be able to read the Quran herself one day, and one of her granddaughters began teaching her the alphabet and how to write some simple words. When the granddaughter joined the “No Illiteracy with Takaful” initiative as a teacher, Ali joined the classes as a student.
Ali passed the first exam, and she is getting ready to complete the written test that will prove she has beaten illiteracy.
“I am proud of my grandmother. She has endured so much to realise her dream. She can now read and write, conduct transactions using her debit card, and is proficient in using a mobile phone,” said Alaa Essam, Ali’s granddaughter.
“It’s never too late to learn,” insisted Saber, who in September 2024, at the age of 103, also joined the initiative. Saber, from Alexandria, is the oldest person ever to join the programme. He has seven children and 55 grandchildren.
“My strongest incentive to overcome illiteracy was to be able to take my medications on time in case one of my children was not around and to be able to read the Bible on my own,” Saber said.
Zebeida’s story is another show of determination. In early 2023, at the age of 87, she passed the literacy exam. Zebeida was born in Menoufiya to a father who did not believe in the importance of girls’ education. Upon her father’s death, she insisted that her sisters enrol in school, supporting them by all possible means until they had completed their education.
After marrying at the age of 18, Zebeida had four sons and four daughters, eventually losing a son and a daughter, and 13 grandchildren. She was committed to her children’s education, even selling simple goods in front of their school to stay close to them and ensure they did not drop out. She also always longed to be literate herself and often tried to imitate her children’s writing.
Because of her advanced age and concerns about her health during the long commute to class, the initiative offered Zebeida a teacher to be sent to her home. She refused, saying that “my lifelong dream is to sit on a classroom bench with other students. I will come to the class wherever it is.”
When Zebeida earned her literacy certificate, she described the achievement as her “new birth certificate”. She passed away two years later, having fulfilled her lifelong dream.
“The initiative has contributed to ending the illiteracy of 1.6 million participants of the Takaful and Karama programme, reducing illiteracy among its beneficiaries from 62 per cent to 19 per cent. It has cost over LE50 million since 2019 when it was first launched,” Omar Hamza, director of the initiative and adult education consultant at the Ministry of Social Solidarity, told Al-Ahram Weekly.
He noted that more than half of the students are between the ages of 18 and 45 and that 90 per cent are women. “This reflects the deep educational gap between men and women in Egypt, rooted in a long-standing preference in many families to educate sons over daughters,” he added.
Enrollment in literacy classes is not a condition for eligibility or continued benefits under the Takaful and Karama programme, he stated.
The literacy classes are held in homes, public spaces, and places of worship. Invitations are extended through the Takaful and Karama beneficiary database, which is updated monthly. The instructors themselves are qualified Takaful and Karama beneficiaries.
“This is a key advantage,” Hamza explained, “because they are part of the same community and know how to bring people together in the classroom.”
The curriculum is designed to meet learners’ developmental and cognitive needs, he explained. It includes simplified explanations of everyday concepts such as financial inclusion, using an ATM safely, identifying signs of addiction and depression at home, addressing social issues, and critical matters such as female genital mutilation (FGM) and sexual harassment.
The programme also accommodates people with disabilities. Specialised curricula have been developed for the blind, as well as for the deaf and mute. In addition, the initiative includes 32 trainers certified by the UN cultural and educational agency UNESCO and affiliated with the Ministry of Social Solidarity, Hamza said.
Zainab, one of the teachers in the literacy classes, comes from a family that benefits from the Takaful and Karama Programme. She is currently a second-year student at the Faculty of Education and said that the initiative takes into account the realities of the daily lives of students.
“Some prefer to go to class after working in the fields, while others attend the class after watching their favourite television series. We try to accommodate all of these circumstances,” Zainab said.
She noted that motivations for seeking literacy vary. For many older participants, the primary driver is religious, as they want to be able to read the Quran or the Bible themselves. Others are socially motivated, hoping to avoid feeling inferior to those around them. Some mothers want to learn so they can help their children study and save on private tutoring costs.
“Some women even want to learn just so they can check their husbands’ phones when they have doubts,” she said.
Hamza suggested that the government introduce incentives to make education more attractive to older students, such as food ration points, discounts on electricity bills, and simple service packages.
“We need more community schools to make it easier for people to return to education, along with benefits like tuition waivers,” he added.
The “No Illiteracy with Takaful” initiative has generated 13,000 employment opportunities to facilitators nationwide, including around 8,600 qualified beneficiaries of the Takaful and Karama programme.
According to a World Bank report, the programme is one of Egypt’s largest investments in human capital development. Launched in 2015 and implemented by the Ministry of Social Solidarity, it has served 7.7 million families to date and currently supports 4.7 million families.
All beneficiaries receive a comprehensive package of social-protection services, including exemption from school fees, full health insurance, and an integrated services card for people with disabilities, in addition to support under the Decent Life Initiative.
The programme prioritises access to education and healthcare for the children of enrolled families and includes a number of recently introduced conditions aimed at raising social awareness, such as a ban on the early marriage of girls.
Finance Minister Ahmed Kouchouk has recently stated that allocations for the Takaful and Karama programme in the 2025-26 state budget may exceed LE55 billion, after President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi’s decision to raise monthly support by 25 per cent, bringing it to LE900.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 7 August, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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