VZCZCXRO5789
OO RUEHROV
DE RUEHEG #1158/01 1731350
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 221350Z JUN 09
FM AMEMBASSY CAIRO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 2912
RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 CAIRO 001158 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA/ELA AND NEA/PPD 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV KISL KIRF EG
SUBJECT:  EGYPT - FOLLOW-UP TO THE PRESIDENT'S SPEECH PART I- WAY 
FORWARD IN REACHING EDUCATION GOALS 
 
¶1. (SBU) Key Points: 
-- The President's historic June 4speech in Cairo converges with 
efforts at post and initial discussions with the government of Egypt 
to refocus Economic Support Fund priorities toward poverty 
eradication, with special emphasis on improving education and access 
to opportunity in Egypt. 
-- Many of the President's other initiatives will also find 
enthusiastic support here as well; we will address other 
opportunities septel. 
--Our initial discussions have identified three main educational 
focal areas that will demonstrate the President's vision and find 
ready partners in Egypt.  First, we are prepared to expand 
scholarships for study in the US for young Egyptians significantly. 
Second, we intend to develop more extensive and effective programs 
to match the skills of Egypt's youth with the marketplace.  Third, 
we want to address the overall quality of Egypt's educational system 
by accelerating and improving Egypt's National Teacher Training Plan 
and introduce other high impact initiatives aimed at creating 
graduates capable of innovation and participation in the global 
economy of the 21st century, with heightened focus on science, 
technology, and mathematics skills. 
-- In the short term we will work with funds already allocated to 
expand our cooperation in education.  We have at least $40 million 
in FY2009 that can be redirected toward educational goals, and 
anticipate over $100 million in FY2010 that can fund education 
initiatives. 
-- The President's call to support entrepreneurship, technological 
development, and to create scientific centers of excellence can be 
integrated into our overall education approach.  We envisage 
expanding public-private partnerships in pursuit of these goals and 
also see a role for online networking to amplify success stories and 
create new partnerships.  We can start immediately by injecting 
additional funds into the existing US Egypt Science and Technology 
Cooperation Fund, a longstanding and successful mechanism for 
bilateral scientific cooperation.  This is an immediate and 
effective way to spur innovation. 
-------------------------------- 
Education: Key to Egypt's Future 
-------------------------------- 
¶2. (SBU) The President's observation that "education and innovation 
will be the currency of the 21st century" is nowhere more meaningful 
than Egypt, a country that introduced modern educational 
institutions and methods in the early part of the twentieth century 
but that has sadly witnessed the deterioration of these institutions 
and standards over the last sixty years.  Egyptians across all 
classes agree that Egypt's public education system is failing its 
children and undermining its competitiveness. 
¶3.  (SBU) Egypt has begun to address its educational deficiencies, 
but the size of the problem, lack of resources, and in some cases 
weak political will have resulted in such slow, incremental progress 
that no one has confidence in the government's ability to reform 
this vital sector.  Ongoing USAID programs support GOE efforts to 
fix endemic problems, like illiteracy, with particular focus on 
primary education and teacher training.  Following the President's 
speech, the Embassy received a letter of interest from Egyptian 
Foreign Minister Aboul Gheit (full text septel) which outlined 
interest in exchange programs and capacity building (including both 
infrastructure requests and teacher training programs).  We believe 
given our experience and the GOE's interest, we see a window of 
opportunity to build on existing momentum to accelerate educational 
reform efforts and to offer bold, new high impact programs that 
could attract additional support from the private sector as well. 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
Expanding Exchanges and Increasing Scholarships 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶4. (SBU) Mission Cairo currently supports several hundred successful 
academic exchanges annually, but additional investment in 
post-graduate scholarships will support our goals to create 
measurable change in the Egyptian educational system over the next 
three years.  We believe that a major portion of so-far unobligated 
$40 million in FY2009 ESF can jump-start our education initiative. 
Some of our ideas include:  (1) funding MA and Ph.D programs for 
educators who will lead improvements in the teaching of science and 
math in Egyptian schools; (2) expand the number of students in the 
NESA Undergraduate Intensive English Language Study Program and 
formally tie success in that 6-week program to the chance to 
complete an undergraduate degree in the U.S.; (3)expand the 
Fulbright-supported Community Colleges Initiative to focus on 
decentralized school administration training in rural areas to 
create a cohort of dynamic, jobs-oriented Egyptian school managers; 
(4) enlarge the scope of successful English programs like the 
English ACCESS Microscholarship Program targeting disadvantaged 
youth aged 14 to 17, which has been extremely successful in 
increasing English proficiency and exposing students to American 
culture.  In addition, expand the YES high school exchange program 
to reach more students.  (Note:  We also envisage use of some of the 
$40 million as seed money to develop initiatives described below to 
realize other elements of our education approach:  how to do teacher 
 
CAIRO 00001158  002 OF 002 
 
 
training more effectively; how to use online networking capabilities 
to support educational reform; how to coordinate with existing 
public-private partnerships in education to maximize their impact in 
Egypt.  End Note.) 
-------------------------------------- 
Connecting Graduates to the Job Market 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) Efforts to address the gap between students and potential 
employers begins with dialogue.  A number of successful, albeit 
limited, programs already exist in this area, many involving the 
private sector, and the Mission will explore if these can be 
effectively expanded.  The U.S. can encourage collaboration with the 
private sector by establishing networks of business leaders, 
Egyptian, American and international luminaries, civil society, and 
foundations to address major impediments to youth employment.  Such 
a system would be open, encourage transparency and competiveness 
while also encouraging a refocus of curriculum goals to meet the 
labor market with private sector input. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Egypt's current education system, established in 1952, was 
designed to train bureaucrats to enter public service.  In today's 
job market these graduates are ill equipped to enter the workforce; 
the private sector and GOE have expressed interest in remedying this 
problem.  We can bring US expertise in the area of curriculum 
development particularly in science and technology.  (Note: We have 
faced challenges in working with the GOE on issues of curriculum 
development in the past.  It is a sensitive area but an important 
one.  End Note.)  We will look to lessons learned from recent USAID 
secondary education programs targeting training in agriculture 
sector where jobs will make a significant impact on the lives of 
those outside the society's elites.  Focus on this sector helps 
support the expanding production in agriculture based exports that 
create income and support the Egyptian economy. 
 
----------------- 
Capacity Building 
----------------- 
¶7. (SBU) Neither adequately paid nor trained, instructors have been 
known to leave their teaching position for better paid positions in 
other sectors.  To address these constraints, teachers will need 
adequate living wages, on-going professional training, and possibly 
exchange programs.  Centers of Excellence for teacher training could 
be established to upgrade the teaching profession.  The MOE is 
interested in such a model. 
¶8.  (SBU) One idea that we have is to refine Egypt's existing "model 
schools" (public schools with better infrastructure and teachers) 
further as sources of academic excellence and as laboratories for 
teaching training and curriculum development. Upgrading their 
English-language training, and science and math training in 
particular could produce a steady stream of high-school graduates 
who could compete for foreign scholarships and become the brain 
trust of the next generation. 
-------------------------------------- 
Fostering Innovative Approaches to Reform through an Endowment 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) The GOE has been interested for some time in developing an 
endowment mechanism that over time could become the legacy 
institution of the U.S.-Egyptians ESF program.  The GOE is pursuing 
Public Private Partnerships in higher education as a sustainable 
vehicle towards expansion and diversifying institutional funding. 
Through a US-Egypt endowment, we can encourage this and similar 
initiatives, such as student micro-loans, which exploit alternative 
funding streams, permit autonomy, and engage the private sector.  We 
will begin discussions in July with the GOE on the form of a 
possible endowment.  We anticipate that negotiations for this 
instrument could take well over a year. 
 
¶10. (SBU) The Egypt Science and Technology Cooperation Fund is one 
of the most active and productive bilateral relationship in OES. 
Since its creation in 1995, there have been over 400 funded 
scientific collaborations between American scientists and their 
Egyptian counterparts.  Our efforts have also led to the development 
of the Egypt Science and Technology Development Fund (STDF), modeled 
on our own National Science Foundation (NSF).  Building on the fund 
to create an independent, autonomous organization, better equipped 
to manage scientific research, answers the President's call to 
support both research of young scientists and to identify scientific 
interactions that have strong commercial potential - leading to the 
creation of new jobs. 
¶11. (SBU)  Extending the work of the Fund to educational 
partnerships, likely on-line, that focus on science education, 
particularly girls education and the environment are in line with 
the goals set out by the President's speech and a natural 
progression of this successful partnership. 
SCOBEY