On the importance of education and healthcare in Egypt’s developing economy

Although countries often boast of the development of their economies, rarely do the citizens of these countries feel the positive chances occurring in GDP. This misperception is because the weakness of economic development in society when it comes to income, health, and education, instead focusing on business and consumption. According to the UNDP report of 2018 of Egypt, Egypt’s Human Development Index (HDI)(1) approached 0.70, a medium score, which can be considered an accomplishment in terms of quantitative approach; however, from the qualitative approach, the education and health of citizens remains questionable with regards to development indicators.

Education

Since the movement of 1952, education has been a point of debate for many in Egypt. More recently, education has again been in the spotlight as the government enacts measures of reform. The core for economic development is an educational pathway since education is considered the main supplier for the labor market. However, as illustrated by Radwan (2002), Egyptian demand for labor is more concentrated in the fields of the industrial sector (46.5%), services (28.1%), and trade (7.1%), with the high demand for technicians 31% compared with services (7.8%), and sales (7.5%). Meanwhile, Assaad (2007) explains that from 1998 and 2006 the only educational group to have experienced unemployment is university graduates, with their unemployment increasing from1998 to 2006 by 5% for urban males, nearly 7% for urban females, and 10% for rural females (with a small decrease of 2% for rural males). In fact, as of 2020, 48.8% of those unemployed were university graduates. This proves that there is a mismatch between the needs of the labor market and the supply of the education system. As such, more effort needs to be applied to strengthen the connection of education to the labor market.

In addition to this, the quality of education is a huge concern that has to be into taken into consideration. Although increasing the number of schools and universities is a step towards more inclusive education, it is not enough. Educational attainment in Egypt has increased greatly since 1952; however, educational quality has remained steady or even decreased since then. Public spending isn’t efficiently allocating the limited resources that aid the educational system. Especially since Egypt adapted more neoliberal methods, public education has been pushed to the back, leaving room for private education to emerge. Public school teachers are underpaid, especially as inflation increases while their salaries remain stagnant, and the curriculum has reused materials for decades.  Moreover, resources needed to be expanded to satisfy the education’s system needs. Egypt’s population has been increasing for years, yet the government’s expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP has not been increasing in parallel, with the highest percentage of government expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP being 5.61% in 1982. An increase in investing in education would help the country advance through increasing the quality of education, thus producing a more qualified labor market.

Health

Health is also a significant factor as it also relates to the quality of labor. As presented in Gericke (2004), the macroeconomic reforms in 1990s positively impacted the macro-indicators such as growth 6%, budget deficit 1.3%, and kept inflation below 4%. However, these economic reforms didn't positively affect poverty and unemployment, food subsidies, and government spending. While the economy was earning more, by 1995, the financial spending on the health system was only 3.7% of GDP (US 38$ million).  Ahmed (2020)explains that the Egyptian constitution allocates of 3% of GDP for the health system. This allocation doesn’t fulfill the needs of the health system in Egypt because of the growth of population. In addition, this allocation doesn’t present the quality of health system in Egypt. To illustrate, Nesreen (2016) proves that the health system in Egypt is in inefficient, with shortcomings in Human Resources such as low capacities, unskilled workers, and low distribution of physicians across geographical regions, in addition to the deteriorating infrastructure such as buildings, furniture, and increasingly needed maintenance. As illustrated, the health care in Egypt is in need of more of the budget allocated to enhance the quality. This will result in improving the factor endowment “labor” that will result in more inclusive, economic growth. 

While GDP, GNI, and other economic measures provide a glance at the production abilities of a country, they also do not portray enough information about the inclusivity of that country’s economy to all members of its population. Poverty and inequality are main indicators of economic development that need to be taken in consideration in Egypt to approach inclusive growth and development. As of 2019, the World Bank calculated the poverty rate as 32.5% (calculated on the international poverty line at $3.20 per person per day) of the population. Moreover, the rise of inequality, usually presented by the Gini-coefficient. as a ratio the perfect equality scenario to actual inequality, by condition, is at 30%. This presents that there is a huge rise in poverty and inequality, negatively affecting the well-being of Egyptians which is considered a major obstacle toward development and inclusive economic growth.

As such, it is heavily important to discuss the quality of education and health as we compare measures such as GDP and GNI. By focusing on increasing the quality of education and health care, we can begin to decrease the effects of poverty on the lives of Egyptian citizens as well as promote a more inclusive economic development, accessible across all socioeconomic classes. 

Notes for further understanding:

(1)  The Human Development Index is a measurement of a country’s achievement with regards to standards of living. Published by the UNDP, it focuses on three dimensions: a long and healthy life (calculated through life expectancy at birth), knowledge (calculated through the expected years of schooling and the average years of schooling), and a decent standard of living (measured using the country’s Gross National Income per person). Read more about it on the UNDP website!

Citations and sources for further reading:

Abd El-Galil, Tarek. “Egypt's Private Universities Start Offering Graduate Degrees as Job Prospects Worsen - Al-Fanar Media,” September 18, 2020. https://www.al-fanarmedia.org/2020/09/egypts-private-universities-start-offering-graduate-degrees-as-job-prospects-worsen/. 

Assaad, Ragui. (2007). “Unemployment and youth insertion in the labor market in Egypt,”.  

Assaad, R., Badawy, E., & Krafft, C. (2016). Pedagogy, accountability, and perceptions of quality by type of higher education in egypt and jordan. Comparative Education Review, 60(4), 746-775. doi:10.1086/688421

Ahmed, Yara & Ramadan, Racha & Sakr, Mohamed. (2020). Equity of health-care financing: a progressivity analysis for Egypt. Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Sciences. ahead-of-print. 10.1108/JHASS-08-2019-0040.

Radwan, S. (2002). Employment and unemployment in Egypt: Conventional problems, unconventional remedies. The Egyptian Center for Economic Studies.

Gericke, Christian. (2004). Financing health care in Egypt: Current issues and options for reform. Technische Universit�t Berlin, School of Economics and Management, Discussion Papers. 14. 10.1007/s10389-005-0006-4.

World Bank (2020), Arab republic of Egypt , retrieved from http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/556111554825475343/mpo-egy.pdf?fbclid=IwAR33y8NF5Kw1QMA_-tKiDjpRGRTJwAxcy-cLua79SppwOd7koUeYl3YsX2

Nesreen M. Kamal Elden*, Hoda I. Ibrahim Rizk*, Ghada Wahby*(2016). Improving Health System in Egypt: Perspectives of Physicians. The Egyptian Journal of Community Medicine, 34(1), 45-58. doi: 10.21608/ejcm.2016.646