Globalization Impact on Education in Egypt

Abstract

The Education affair in Egypt is a Janus-faced case considered both as ‘local’ and ‘global’. There are local factors specific to this country - the Islamization of the Egyptian society’s moeurs - as well as elements of global and international nature, that insert the Egyptian education case in the larger analytical framework of Globalization. After highlighting how Egypt got involved in the global system by the application of new economic and neoliberal policies, the paper will focus on the dilemma of the Education affair, on islamized attitudes of the educational staff and on new educational policies aimed at contrasting with the rise of Islamization of all public education system. By this, two opposing forces are being in action in Egypt today: on the one hand, a ‘local’ inner force which pushes a part of society toward a radicalization of religious references and on the other hand, a ‘global’ international force which supports the Egyptian government to enforce laws, projects, programmes enabling to guarantee an apparent and precarious balance in the country.