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ENGLISH PROFICIENCY LAGS
BY RASHAD MAHMOOD
Ask Egyptian business leaders to identify the single most important skill they look for in job applicants and invariably their response is “English” – the near ubiquitous language of international commerce. If Egypt’s economy is to continue to grow, employers will need an amply supply of competent English speakers. However, the quality of instruction in public schools is questionable and the price of private programs beyond the reach of most Egyptians.
“Proficiency in English is the most important factor for employability in Egypt,” says Stephen Hanchey, a Cairo-based international education consultant. “English is even perceived as more important than computer skills, since knowing English can help you learn computers.”
One reason for the growing demand for English is the growth of call centers that handle everything from customer service to advanced technical support for clients all over the world. SYKES, a global call center company, started operations in Egypt in mid-January and employs approximatelt 100 people handling technical support calls for a well-known brand of laptop computers. The company serves customers in English- and French-speaking countries in Europe, and plans to add Spanish, German and Italian. SYKES Egypt country manager Yaser Heda says “English levels among those we hire are very good. We look for people who are interested in [English-language] culture, and seek out opportunities to improve. They tend to have high fluency and cultural awareness, even though they may have never left Egypt.”
To find its English speakers, Heda says SYKES “doesn’t just look at what degrees people hold. We look at people from all [academic] departments.” In particular, he singled out the faculties of commerce, English sections, of Cairo, Ain Shams and Helwan universities for the quality of their graduates. Supporting Hanchey’s claim about the primacy of English, Heda says: “Some of our best performers are employees who started with a strong language assessment, but who barely passed the technical requirements.”
However, Heda admits that “when we get to the point of needing to hire several hundred high-level English speakers in the space of three to six months, it will become a challenge.” With rising demand, many question the ability of the education system to produce sufficient numbers of proficient speakers.
Professor Nadia Touba, director of the English studies division at the American University in Cairo’s (AUC) School of Continuing Education, is more blunt: “The education system we have has failed. That’s why continuing education programs like we have at AUC and the British Council are flourishing.” While there are high-quality alternatives to the public education system, “not everyone can afford to come to AUC or the British Council,” she notes.
Given the numbers involved, it is hard to disagree. According to Touba, approximately 30,000 students are taking English language classes through AUC’s School of Continuing Education. Steve Oxley, teaching center manager at the British Council, says the council has about 25,000 students enrolled. The total number of English-language learners is much higher.
Though Egyptian public school students start English-language lessons in first grade, they often seek supplemental language classes due to the poor quality of instruction. “The problems with English-language education in Egypt are the same problems that the public education system as a whole faces – overcrowded schools, teachers who aren’t well qualified, and old infrastructure and materials,” explains Touba.
Many efforts are under way to improve the quality of language instruction in public schools in Egypt. Robert Lindsey, regional English language officer at the US embassy in Cairo, says the embassy has been heavily involved in trying to improve teaching. For example, the English Language Fellows program sends about 10 Egyptian teachers to the US each year and a recently completed program provided training for 60 teachers. Lindsey says teachers often request help with their English-language ability, and embassy programs also offer training in teaching methodology. He also touted the embassy’s English Access Microscholarship Program, which provides two years of language instruction for 14- to 18-year-olds from low- and middle-income families. The program focuses on supplementary English-language education and “increases their chances for success in life,” according to Lindsey. Currently, approximately 1,000 students are enrolled in the program in Egypt.
Both AUC and the British Council are involved in teacher-training programs, but Touba acknowledges that these efforts are mostly just a drop in the bucket. “Donor organizations have provided lots of funding for teacher training programs,” she says. “These have had an impact on individual teachers, but not the system. Also, many of these newly trained teachers then leave the public education system for more money elsewhere.”
A large-scale attempt by the government to address the challenge of teacher quality is the new teachers cadre, which is working to put in place a promotion system that will keep skilled teachers in the classroom and provide performance-based pay increases. Incentives can result in salary increases as high as 150 percent. “Teachers used to be promoted based mostly on seniority, and many of the best teachers would be promoted out of the classroom to administrative positions,” says Touba.
The new cadre has five levels, each based on tests focusing on teaching methodology, as well as specific subject matter. The program started in 2008 with over 80,000 teachers, of which 89 percent passed exams to qualify to enter the program. “There was a lot of pressure to include as many teachers as possible, so over time the program will be more selective,” notes Touba. While this is a large number, it is still less than 5 percent of Egypt’s approximately 1.7 million public school teachers.
Touba, who was a consultant to the program, says “initially, we wanted to just focus on teachers, but because [the program] involved a salary increase we had to include the administration and other staff, otherwise many of the teachers would be making more than their superiors.” She adds that “the competition gives teachers an incentive to improve their skills and increase their pay.”
Private language schools are proliferating quickly in Egypt. AdvancED, a major accrediting agency from the US, has approved 27,000 schools worldwide, including 73 in Egypt. However, Touba says most English-language schools are failures, even though the language of instruction is ostensibly English. “Accreditation for the American diploma is too easy in Egypt, so the quality of the schools varies greatly, and they are developing a reputation for poor quality education,” she observes. She also says that since the government requires registration of these schools, it is partly to blame for encouraging their development. “In the lower-performing schools, students don’t become proficient in either English or Arabic,” she says.
In response to the problem, Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, through the cabinet, is promoting a new bilingual schools initiative. Touba says the government is trying to keep a low profile until the program gets off the ground, noting that the only official announcement has been an ad in newspapers seeking applicants for the new schools. These schools are being equipped with state-of-the-art equipment, highly qualified teachers, and funding from a combination of government and private sources. The program targets the middle class, with an entrance exam for older students, and some combination of interviews and a lottery for primary school admission.
Corporations also are stepping into the breach. Oxley says many of the British Council’s students have their classes paid for by employers, and some, such as SYKES, are taking matters into their own hands. This month the company will launch the SYKES Language Academy, a free intensive English-language program designed to help applicants who don’t quite meet the company’s English standards but show promise in other areas. Heda emphasizes that participants will be under no obligation to join the company at the end of the course. Efforts like these seem likely to benefit everyone, since whether or not SYKES ends up offering the participants jobs, they will have improved their skills. Heda says that SYKES has established similar programs at call centers in other countries and that they have been successful. SYKES Egypt’s first class will consist of 15 students.
However, corporate-funded education has problems as well. “One challenge is that companies pay for [British Council] classes, but then do not give their employees time to do the necessary work. They often don’t have time to do the homework, and miss class when they are too busy,” says Oxley.
One of the main challenges of language learning is getting intermediate students to continue to higher levels of proficiency. According to Oxley, the British Council offers only a few classes of advanced English. “This is a phenomenon common to all languages – it very difficult to get over the hump from intermediate to advanced. It requires a higher level of commitment and more time,” he says.
Despite all the problems, it seems that English-language education in Egypt does work for some. The lure of higher-paying jobs and the spread of language schools is undoubtedly increasing the number of graduates with at least a basic proficiency in English. The question is whether the public education system can provide the high-quality speakers of English that the job market demands. “In spite of all these problems, learning does happen,” says Touba. “We just need to make it happen more often.”
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