By Khaled Habib News Focus Freeing Taxpayers The ruling NDP cut personal income and corporate taxes in half, but the emergency law is here to stay High Times Bankers expect higher interest rates to heat up the investment climate and cool inflation Mastering Law A new law program at the American University in Cairo seeks to get students serious about law Until the Cows Come Home Consumers are still waiting for Sudanese beef to hit the market AloAchoo! The next generation of viruses has hit mobile phones Star Power The 2004 Olympics created some unlikely national icons and a powerful lineup of marketing potential Below Par The World Bank says Egypt is handicapped by the high costs to start a business and the difficulty of firing people, to name a few Corporate Bonding Orascom Telecom and Telecom Egypt have made a splash in the bond market, but rising interest rates may damper enthusiasm Unmaking Monopolies Opposition MPs say changes to a proposed anti-trust law defy the purpose of the law by protecting monopolies On Topic The Euromoney conference put an exclamation point on the liberalization efforts of the government Investment Matchmakers Egypt Invest 2004 seeks to convince foreign investors that the country has finally turned a corner ’Dish’ing it Out Satellite TV stations are set to give the state-run channels a run for their advertising revenues during Ramadan Cargo Crunch As exporters complain about skyrocketing airfreight prices, the government seems to be turning an unsympathetic ear Star Power The 2004 Olympics created some unlikely national icons and a powerful lineup of marketing potential By Courtesy Hoda Baraka Hoda Baraka, deputy minister at the Ministry of Information Technology and Communication By Mohsen Allam Sherif Iskandar, regional manager of Google Middle East and North Africa

By Andrew Bossone

Some say it takes a village to raise a child, but what about the whole country raising one? That’s the idea behind putting technology in schools under the Egyptian Education Initiative (EEI), which began at the 2006 World Economic Forum in Sharm El-Sheikh.

Under the first phase of the initiative, which will last for three years, 2,000 of the nation’s 36,000 schools will be equipped with computer labs and high-speed communication infrastructure. The idea is that once the entire country’s schools are wired together by computers, a community of teachers, students, parents and experts will be able to address many of the issues facing Egyptian education today.

“Technology is only a tool,” says Hoda Baraka, deputy minister of communications and information technology (MCIT). “When you give the students and the teachers IT in the schools, you can have more methodologies for learning. If you would like to have a connected community, then technology will give you the platform.”

Of course IT on its own is not a panacea for the many challenges Egypt’s ailing education system now faces. It has to be part of a larger program of reforming the curriculum, training teachers and improving the overall quality of schools. At the very least, though, implementing IT in schools will be important for improving basic skills such as reading and writing, especially since the national literacy rate still remains below 60%.

“There is such a big gap between people who are lucky enough to have an education and those who have nothing. The so-called ‘knowledge divide’ is so huge,” says Jyrki Pulkkinen, a Finnish IT-development expert.

At its best, technology can help teachers harness innovative methods of instruction, and open the world to their students. Young children usually know little outside of their immediate surroundings, so computers not only provide access to the world, they do so, advocates say, in a more aesthetically pleasing way than via textbooks.

“Let’s say you’re talking about a certain plant and you haven’t seen this plant in your whole life,” says Khaled Abdel Kader, government-sector account manager for Microsoft Egypt. “And you hear the word zagzeek, baladeek or whatever word. And you don’t have a clue what it’s like. You have a black and white book with an almost black picture.

“You don’t need to go through the whole 45 minutes for your class [for a lesson]. By providing this kind of information, with a knowledge society, you can talk about how we use this plant instead of knowing the plant; you start talking and thinking about the benefit of this plant,” he says.

Many schools — here and abroad — value memorization rather than thinking, or developing cognitive skills. In the near future, however, near-endless volumes of data will be available on the internet. It will no longer be important to have memorized every piece of information, but knowing where to find the answers and being able to discriminate between truth and inaccuracies will be invaluable skills.

Some other education problems could be alleviated through the incorporation of technology. For example, in rural areas, schools need to emphasize technical vocational skills used in agriculture, but they lack access to new methods. The internet, in the hands of a user with the right skills, can overcome this. Furthermore, children in overcrowded city schools do not receive enough individual attention, but educational software offers a substitute: an interactive-learning environment.

“We are encouraging analytical skills in the schools and research methods,” Baraka says. “[Children] can use the internet for this.”

Under the EEI, a total of 66,000 teachers have already received instruction in educational IT, and Baraka says the government is currently evaluating the training to continue with the first phase of the program. But all the training and computers will have limited value if there is not more Arabic content on the web. Only 1% of all the content on the internet is in Arabic, despite it being spoken by over 300 million people worldwide. Baraka, in particular, has been emphasizing Arabic e-content initiatives that will significantly increase the amount of cultural heritage, entertainment, science and technological information on the web.

The goal of the EEI is to build a platform with the support of public-private partnerships (PPPs). Eight multinational technology firms have signed onto the plan: Intel, Computer Associates, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Siemens, plus 25 local firms.

“You need [an environment] that provides affordable access to information and communications services,” Pulkkinen says. “If you have to fix your computer, you shouldn’t have to send it to Cairo from 600 kilometers away. So you have to have the private sector providing services related to [information and communication technology].”

The first of similar PPPs began about five years ago with the Smart Schools program launched by the MCIT and the Ministry of Education, which tested technology in 100 experimental schools. Although it was not as comprehensive as the EEI, it served as a good trial for PPP in the school system.

“The model of implementation was basically dependent on having the private sector as a partner in the operations and management of the infrastructure and technology in the schools,” Baraka says. “What happened is that we would replicate the model on a larger scale. In 2003, the World Economic Forum started a global initiative with Jordan. What we did in the Smart Schools would end up being a good base.”

In the case of the Smart Schools Program, it was better to make mistakes on a small scale to have the benefit of learning from a few bumps on the road.

“When you look at the whole picture, we developed [an IT-education plan] over years,” Abdel Kader says. “We didn’t just sit down and say, ‘This is what we’re going to do.’ We learned a lot and we made mistakes and we learned from our mistakes. We’re always insisting on doing everything with the Ministry of Education.”

Microsoft currently has three education agreements with the government. The Schools Agreement, according to Abdel Kader, will provide the Ministry of Education with technology and product keys for all of its desktops, servers and applications, including about 200,000 personal computers. The Partners in Learning project, of which the EEI is a part, is part of Microsoft Egypt’s overall education strategy — Abdel Kader asserts Microsoft Egypt has one of the highest reinvestment rates of any Microsoft country office. Egypt also touts one of only five applied-research Microsoft Innovation Centers worldwide, and the only such center in the developing world.

“That gives you the impression of how Microsoft is committed to the Egyptian government,” Abdel Kader says. “We’re hiring 20 senior consultants from the US. They’re going to work here and they’re going to be corporate employees. They’re not going to report to the subsidiary.”

Still, there are some hurdles to clear, not the least of which appears to be an organizational one: Microsoft says it has a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Ministries of Education and Higher Education to provide a communications platform for schools, but in November 2006, arch-rival Google also announced an MOU with the ministries. According to Microsoft, the agreement duplicates many aspects already covered by its deal with the state.

“I don’t like to have Google coming in, doing something by signing a paper and they haven’t done anything,” Abdel Kader says. “I’m being very frank. I shouldn’t say this. But coming in, without really []as an Egyptian, what did he do? What are you planning to do, even?”

Sure, Microsoft has been working with the government since before Google was an incorporated company, but can you really blame Google for striking while the iron is hot?

“We are making similar investments,” says Sherif Iskandar, regional manager for Google Middle East and North Africa. “We’re making huge investments in terms of what we’re offering. That’s the way of doing business. You make an investment and you gauge [what] the return should be like. So we’re making an investment and we’re estimating the return ourselves.”

It was not only the deal itself that bothered Abdel Kader, but also all the media attention. “You’re coming out and the first thing you’re doing is hitting the media?” he says. “In the past five, six years [] when did Microsoft put coverage around training 60,000 teachers? We leave the government to do it, but we don’t do it. So we let our work speak on behalf of us.”

When the EEI was announced, Abdel Kader spoke to the press about what Microsoft would do to fulfill its part of the agreement. In an interview with Al-Ahram he described in detail what “Microsoft will bring in on the table.”

Education is one of the biggest prizes when it comes to contract tenders. An education contract is guaranteed to be large anywhere in the world, since the smallest of them usually includes several schools and many thousands of students. Here in Egypt, the tenders will cover millions.

“It’s a huge responsibility: 18 million students and teachers with a budget that cannot really afford to accomplish the objectives [the Ministries of Education and Higher Education] are setting,” Abdel Kader says. “They need to redesign their directives and they have political pressure around free education. When you really sit with them and you know the resources, you can find they can sustain everything they’re doing if it’s built right.”

Some international technology firms, including Knowledge Adventure for example, focus exclusively on education. Others, such as Apple computers, gained a reputation as a strong partner for education and then became known for something else, like its iPod line of music players. But the majority of technology companies want to get into education either for lucrative contracts, or because they can reach future consumers.

Consider Microsoft, for example: The vast majority of personal computers use its Windows platform. Its Office suite is the de facto standard for creating documents and presentations. The only way people will use its products, however, is if they learn how to use it. That’s why getting into schools is so important to Microsoft — or any other big company, for that matter. Get them while they’re young, and they’re yours for the long haul.

Google and Microsoft are making similar promises about what they will bring. Microsoft is promising a connected learning community of email accounts, shared calendars, shared space on the internet, and personalized accounts and web pages.

“Worldwide now, it is more around sharing,” Abdel Kader says. “You share and you listen to your peers. That takes the paradigm to more of a communication model. So if you want to share, you need to provide the best communication channels for people to share information and knowledge.”

Google is offering something similar. “We’re offering the full portfolio,” Iskandar says. “So we’re basically offering the hardware, the software — the whole solution. I can’t comment on what Microsoft is offering, but we’re offering the fully integrated solution.”

Both are also offering to power mail servers with their own software, meaning students will have an email address with their school’s server name (yourname@cairouniversity.edu.eg, for example) while still using the Gmail or Microsoft Exchange interface.

The question will be decided when one of them actually delivers. Government officials have declined to comment on the rivalry. One official says there is enough room in Egypt for everyone. In other projects, competing companies like Siemens and Intel have provided technology infrastructure without stepping on each other’s toes.

“If [Google] can deliver, they are welcome to deliver,” Abdel Kader says. “I care less about what is going to happen from their side. I am concentrating on providing and delivering what we promised to the Ministry of Education. If you think that having a Google account — an email account or storage — will be a benefit for you, I cannot stop anyone in the world from doing that.”

Abdel Kader says the 2,000 secondary schools Microsoft has already wired under the EEI cover an estimated 65,000 teachers and administrators and 850,000 students. Through its MOU with the Ministry of Higher Education, Microsoft will also cover the Faculties of Commerce, Law and Computer Science in Sohag University, Cairo University, Ain Shams University, Helwan University and Alexandria University. The first phase will be up and running by March 15 and the second phase — which will include the rest of the secondary schools and more university faculties — is expected to launch in June.

No matter what company is the provider of email, the most important thing is that the students have access.

“The main issue that faces the Ministries of Education and Higher Education is not which solution they’re using,” Iskandar says. “It has to do with access points. How will all the students access these tools? [The ministries have] very big issues they’re trying to tackle. Any help they can get is much appreciated. Everyone appreciates the help they can get. And whether they are getting it from one company, two companies or ten companies is beside the point.”

In the long run, every technology company has a vested interest in developing IT education. When Intel CEO Craig Barrett came through Cairo last December, he spoke about driving the next billion users of the internet — users who will come not from developed regions, but rural and disadvantaged areas, like the digital village Intel started in Oseem (see our February 2007 story “An Encouraging Development”).

“What we’re trying to do is help drive internet adoption,” Iskandar says. “That’s our ultimate goal right now. And we feel these agreements fall within that objective. I just think we should focus on the tools and the people, in terms of getting access to the internet, getting people educated on using the internet as quickly as we can.” bt