Illiteracy in Egypt decreases, but number still high: official

CAIRO – 12 November 2019: Head of the General Authority for Literacy and Adult Education on Monday said Egypt faces a high illiteracy rate, but managed to decrease it to 27 percent from 42 percent.

In an interview with Salat al-Tahrir on Sada al-Balad, Ashour Amry said Egypt currently has around 18 million illiterate persons over 15 years old.

Sheikh Ali Tayfour, undersecretary of the Ministry of Awqaf in Sohag, said on Sunday that the ministry aims to open in November more than 1,000 literacy classes in mosques to teach reading and writing.

This comes within the framework of the joint cooperation between Sohag Endowments Directorate and Sohag Literacy and Adult Education Authority to activate the protocol signed between them.

Tayfour told Egypt Today that the imams will teach the illiterate to read and write in mosques.He pointed out that Awqaf Ministry inaugurated 1600 classes in April 2018, adding that the ministry does not spare anyeffort toservethe society and work on the elimination of phenomena that hinder its advancement.

In June 2018, Egypt’s Ministry Of Local Development announced targeting the elimination of illiteracy in Egypt, along with raising Egyptians' capabilities in the next three years. The ministry affirmed working toward achieving the zero percent of illiteracy goal in Egypt.

In 2014, Egypt’s Central Agency for Public Mobilization (CAPMAS) and Statistics announced that over a quarter of the Egyptian population is illiterate; 18.5 percent of males and 33.6 percent of females cannot read or write.

According to the World’s Women 2015 report, published every five years, 781 million adults over the age of 15 are illiterate; more than 496 million of them (two thirds) are women. In Egypt alone, women and girls constitute 10,469,330 of the illiterate population, compared to 7,596,425 males.

A more recent study by CAPMAS published in 2017 places illiteracy at 20.1 percent in Egypt, or 14.3 million individuals, with women forming 9.1 million of the total number. Women constitute almost 64 percent of the total number of Egyptians above the age 9 who can’t read or write.

According to Egypt’s 2030 vision published by the Ministry of Planning, illiteracy is expected to fall to the minimum percent in the coming years.