I am Yassir, I am Eritrean and an engineer by profession, and I am the primary director of the Al-Tani branch. I also designed the website for the school, and I am in charge of another branch that we have, the Faysal Sudanese Technical school in Cairo which was opened in the year 2021-2022. The technical branch and vocational training center are for those students that do not want to go to university. So, we offer different courses such as electrical installation, electronics, computer, mobile maintenance or optics.
Q: When did you decide to open the school and why?
A: Well, the Faysal Sudanese school English department was opened first during the academic year 2019-2018 with its first branch in Kafr Thazmos, because at that time we realized that many Eritrean refugees were coming to Cairo and struggling with Arabic, so we opened the school. Around 90% of our students are from Eritrea, but we also have other nationalities such as Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Yemen. We know that there are other learning centers teaching in English, but these are not in their area, like Faisal or Ard el-Lewa. Transportation costs can be an obstacle. Moving from Faisal to Maadi to the South-Sudanese school is a lot of money. It is far away, and travel is also not safe. This is the main reason. When it comes to the language barrier, there are many Eritreans that just understand Arabic but cannot speak it. While there are others who speak it perfectly because you know before 2018 there were so many Eritrean families in Saudi Arabia, working there, and many of their children were born there. So, they went to school there and speak perfect Arabic, but then in 2018 there was an economic crisis, so many Eritreans moved to Cairo. You know in 2018 the law changed in Saudi Arabia and if you were a foreigner, for each member of the family you had with you in the country you were supposed to pay 1960 EgP per month. You see for example at the end of the year I was paying like 46.000 EgP just for that tax. So, after 2018 we have this massive influx of Eritreans coming to Cairo and this is why in 2019/2020 we introduced another branch in the 6th of October, and in 2020/2021 this branch here, and this year (2021-2022) the vocational track.
Q: Which curriculum do you follow?
A: We follow the Sudanese curriculum for primary school. In high school students obtain the chance to choose either the Sudanese curriculum or the Egyptian curriculum. Our legal status is the one of a Sudanese center. We are under the protection of the Sudanese Embassy, recognized by the Ministry of Education in Sudan. We are in the process of recognition by the Ministry of Education in Egypt through the Sudanese Embassy.
Q: What about the other branches that you have?
A: We have three branches with a total of 1.480 students. We offer from KG to senior 3. This is curious because in 2018/2019 we started with 360 students, and then it was 920, and then 1100 and now we have 1480 students.
Q: I have heard about a lot of cases of Eritrean students taking the senior 3 Sudanese exams for entering university and being rejected because of their nationality. Can you further elaborate on that?
A: Yes, we have that a lot. For this reason, we introduced the Egyptian curriculum in the academic year 2020/2021, so Eritrean students can do the Egyptian national exam and then at least, enter university. We offer that for solving the problem. Then the parents can choose between the Egyptian curriculum and the Sudanese curriculum. But if an Eritrean wants to go to university in Egypt the best is to do the Egyptian curriculum because you know, Wafidin has the rule that says that a Sudanese certificate is only valid for entering to University if you are a Sudanese or South-Sudanese. So, if you are an Eritrean, you cannot enter an Egyptian public university with a Sudanese certificate. I think the same applies to students from other nationalities. If you are in Egypt and you want to enter university in Egypt you need to follow the Egyptian curriculum, the international one, or your own curriculum, in our case, the Eritrean curriculum for Eritreans. But the Sudanese curriculum is only for Sudanese and South Sudanese nationalities. Eritreans have too many problems entering university, and even following the Egyptian curriculum is not easy and we face many challenges. And even if they could join the university in Egypt, most of Eritreans do not like Egypt. They do not feel safe here, they see Egypt as a transitory country for going to the West. So, this is why we think it is more important to offer them courses, so at least they have a diploma.
Q: Which challenges does the Egyptian curriculum present?
A: You need to pay the registration fee for doing the Egyptian curriculum and this price already includes sitting for the exam. You can choose to even do the Egyptian exam in English. But the main problem is that the costs of doing the Egyptian curriculum are higher than the Sudanese curriculum and that the students need legal documents, like residence permits, and birth certificates, and this is a problem for Eritreans. Many do not have this and if they try to obtain this it can take months.
We register Eritrean students who wish to do the Egyptian curriculum as distance education as if they were studying on their own as independent learners. What we do is we go to Egyptian governmental schools and register them as online students, and we do not leave them, we prepare them here. You know our students will always prefer to be with us then go to an Egyptian school. There is a problem as they face racism. The cultural differences between Eritrean and Egyptian students are very big.
Q: How many of your students sat for the Egyptian exam last year?
A: Last year for example we had 26 students sitting for the Egyptian exam, 10 of them passed the first time. We are doing our best, we have a passing rate of 60%. I really do not know if they are now at university because you know their real dream is to go to the West to study at university and not in Egypt.
Q: Are your teachers mostly from Eritrea?
A: Most of our teachers are from Eritrea. Why? We feel that this is important for our students as this enhances this feeling of belonging, and also as they are part of the refugee community they can sacrifice. They know our purpose and are willing to help and give their best even if the salaries are really, really, low. And also from experience, we know that Eritrean teachers are doing better with English than some Sudanese. The Sudanese teachers used to struggle with English. You know they have been educated in Arabic and they have grown up in an Arabic environment. On the contrary, the Eritrean curriculum includes both, Arabic and English, for example from grade 1 to grade 5 I took everything in Arabic in Eritrea, but from grade 6 onwards, even in university, everything was in English. So we are here in the English department, so we need to make sure that our teachers speak good English.
Q: How many teachers do you have? And classrooms?
A: We have a total staff of 105. Of them 92 are teachers. For example, here in the Al-Tagsim Branch, we are giving only KG until grade 6, and these are 397 active students. We have 16 classes in total, in KG we have A and B. In grade 1 we have A, B, C, and D, in grade 2 we have A, B, and C, and the same for grade 3. Grade 4 has two sections A, B and grade 5 has just one section. We used to have between 25 to 30 students in a class.
Q: How much do students pay for school fees?
A: They pay 3.200 EgP. I know in comparison to other learning centers it might be high but you know we really try to give them a good environment. We have a computer lab, and a library. We also have a sanitary station where the students can go if they feel sick. We have our schools full of paintings. We even have 14 buses, and we also have additional staff such as the finance officer that is really taking into consideration the whole budget that we have and distributing it correctly. And year after year we are improving, we ask every year the community what they want, and what they need, for example, this year we had this vocational track because the students were asking for it. But you know many families struggle in paying school fees. We support them in everything we can. We are also very flexible and we try not to kick children out of school because of that. For example, for those who cannot afford it at all, every year we try to contact people that can pay for the entire school fees of some children. But at the beginning of the school year we already count on that when it comes to organizing our budget. We know that around 20 or 30% of our students will not be able to pay the school fees.
Q: How much do you pay for rent?
A: In this branch I pay 19.000 EgP/month, in the other buildings it is more.
Q: How much do you pay the teachers?
A: At elementary school, the basic salary for teachers was in 2021-2022, 2.200 EgP for 20 credit hours. For every additional credit hour paid 100 EgP. We can see that the maximum credits that a teacher is able to take is around 25 credits. With 25 credit hours a teacher earned 2200 + 500 = 2700 EgP/month. So here I paid around 66.000 EgP per month for teachers’ salaries.
Q: How do you finance yourself?
A: Only school fees, no donors, but we have a finance director in every branch that manages the budget, and everything is registered in the system.
Q: Do you only provide the Egyptian curriculum at the senior level?
A: Yes, they pay a lot of money for registration like 10.000 EgP
Q: Which is the relationship of Eritrea with its refugees?
A: It is really bad. If you are holding the UN card the Eritrean Embassy will not help you at all. This is one of the biggest challenges that we face, especially for getting the birth certificate. But you know in general, the Eritreans do not ask for help from their Embassy. They prefer to seek protection under St. Andrews, CRS, Save the Children, UNHCR, whatever.
Q: Which are the documents that you need for registering in the Egyptian curriculum as an online student?
A: You need to ask that teacher Mohamed
Q: Do your students face racism?
A: I would say not that much because they live in a neighborhood where the inhabitants are mostly Eritreans. But you know anyways their safe space is always school, not home nor the streets. The streets are not safe, they are not clean, and their home is overcrowded. Many of the students share bedrooms with brothers and sisters and in the most extreme cases, they do not even have a house. I know from a family that the mother is living with their kids on a rooftop, no food, no beds, no nothing, they are in urgent need. But you know parents are concerned about racism, harassment, the police, the government, and the embassy. So, they feel that it is not safe for their children. They always try to bring their children and pick them up. I mean we always need to try to avoid racism, harassment, and security issues because if something really happens, we are unprotected. We do not have the tools to deal with that, so avoiding it is always the best. So in this branch parents come to pick them up because they literally live in this street, but in other branches like the one in Kafr we have 14 buses.
Q: Did you have any bad experiences?
A: Last year we encountered a group of people who were trying to beat our students outside the school, so what we did was try to build a good relationship with the people of the area, for avoiding again these types of actions. As soon as we feel a potential tension and bad relationship with the neighbors, we go and avoid that.
Q: Can you estimate how many Eritrean refugees in Cairo are at a schooling age?
A: There are 20.770 Eritrean refugees registered at the UNHCR. We can guess that around 35% of them are children. That means that we have around 7.270 Eritrean children in Cairo, most of them concentrated in the geographical areas of Faisal and Ard el-Lewa but Eritreans are also living in October City, Maadi, and other places.
Q: How do you find the teachers?
A: You know the Eritrean community knows each other. So when we need teachers we just share it, even some of the teachers are in Khartoum, and when they hear that we offer a job they come. We have criteria.
Q: Do you face problems with the neighbors here?
A: Yes, this is a big challenge, especially between class and class. When a teacher leaves the class until a new teacher comes. So the neighbors do complain because of the noise, but we came up with some solutions such as closing the windows.
Q: Do you feed the kids?
A: No, we feel that feeding the kids might be wasting resources because you know it is difficult to give them good nutrition, and also every child might have some allergy.
Q: What is your legal status?
A: Last year we were a learning center, under the protection of the Sudanese Embassy, and registered our students under another school that was recognized by the Ministry of Education in Egypt. But this year we applied for recognition from the Ministry of Education in Egypt. This will allow us not to depend on other schools when we sit for exams, and no one can close our school. That will make us protected by the government. I cannot give you the exact figures, Abduselam at the branch in Kafr will know it, but all the centers that meet these requirements will be recognized.
Q: Do you know if those not recognized will be closed?
A: From what I have heard from the committee the other centers will be closed. But this is one of the dilemmas that we have. What will happen to all the other students? You know we need to think about ourselves, and I also understand that the Ministry of Education does not give recognition to everyone like you enter many learning centers and you do not have the impression it is a school. Learning centers need to be serious about education.
Q: Do you train your teachers?
A: Yes, we just need to send a letter to St. Andrews asking for that and they train our teachers. It is basically a one-week workshop, they are really useful.
Q: Did you think about offering the international curriculum?
A: Yes, we tried that last year, but the government was asking us a lot of requirements, like a proper building, having also international teachers, and we would need to pay the teachers much more, so what shall we do? Shall we increase school fees? The students are already struggling to pay our current fees, we cannot charge more. And we also need to train the teachers for teaching the international curriculum. But of course, it would be amazing to introduce the international curriculum.
