A history of teacher training in Egypt

What is it about?

European-style schools were central to the emergence of Egyptian nationalism at the turn of the twentieth century, despite the efforts of British colonial officials to prevent this synergy. This chapter provides fresh insight into how this happened. It provides a history of Egyptian teacher training from 1863 until 1923, focusing in particular on the period after British invasion of 1882. Most histories stress how British officials under Lord Cromer (Evelyn Baring) limited the size of the Egyptian civil school system for financial, political, and cultural reasons. In the eyes of nationalists, the expansion of schooling in the 1890s after a decade of austerity was negated by the anti-Arabic and pro-English policies of administrator Douglas Dunlop. This chapter demonstrates that British cultural and linguistic control over Egypt and its education was far from absolute, despite Dunlop's influence. It shows how Egyptian educationalists borrowed ideas and practices from a wide range of European countries, especially France, throughout the 1890s. However, it was also during the 1890s that the groundwork was laid for increased British cultural and linguistic influence after the turn of the century via a study abroad scheme for Egyptian teachers at England's Borough Road teacher training school, as well as the opening of an English-language teacher training school in Cairo.

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