Q: Can you give me a brief description of your learning center?
A: This is Nile Modern School Academy, a refugee school. Here we have refugee students from South Sudan, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Zimbabwe, and many other countries. This is a community school, we help refugees who have fled the war but we also give opportunities to young university students that are studying to become teachers, to gain experience here. The school is three years old ow, it was created in 2019. We offer kindergarten, primary and secondary school. Well, last year we offered kindergarten but this year, unfortunately, we could not offer it because we are lacking kindergarten teachers because not everyone can teach KG, so we are trying hard to find teachers that can teach KG starting the next academic year.
Q: Do you follow the Sudanese curriculum?
A: Yes, as the exams come from Sudan. We have a relationship with the North Sudanese Embassy so they can help us. That means that our curriculum is recognized by the Ministry of Education in Khartoum.
Q: What is the cost of doing the exam? Do these costs differ according to the level and nationality?
A: When it comes to the exam taken in grade 12 for accessing university, students now pay 550 dollars, but if you are from North Sudan you pay 250 dollars. The cost of the exam at grade 8 is 150 dollars, but if you are from North Sudan you pay 130 dollars.
Q: Do you already have students from Nile Academy passing the exam for accessing university?
A: Yes, we had a student who passed the exam in 2019 and entered Nasr University to study to become a teacher. Now he comes here to volunteer. He is from South Sudan. He obtained a scholarship for his studies. You know when you are a refugee, you go to your embassy and apply for a scholarship to study for free.
Q: All the students get the scholarship?
A: Some of them, it is not really difficult, if you do not get it you just pay the fees, which would be around 500 or 600 dollars per year, depending on the bachelor's degree that you want to obtain. But I feel that if you do the Sudanese curriculum it will be much easier for you to enter university and get scholarships, while with other curricula it is much harder to get a scholarship.
Q: Do you have any student who graduated and who is not from Sudan or South Sudan and entered a public university in Egypt?
A: Not yet, but for example, we have an Ethiopian girl. She is in Senior 3 and she will take the grade 12 exam in May and she will go to university.
Q: Do you think she will be accepted even if she does not have the Sudanese or South Sudanese nationality?
A: I do not have enough information about that. I have also heard about difficulties, but I think it depends on your nationality and the diplomatic relations that Egypt has with that specific country.
Q: But I know a specific case where the guy was rejected and he was half Tanzanian and half Egyptian.
A: That is weird, but you know I have some colleagues at Cairo University from African countries like Tanzania and Kenya, but you know maybe they need an international diploma for accessing university. If it is so, I might ask the South Sudanese Embassy to give her a scholarship for ‘non-Sudanese’. I had something like this before, but I am not sure about it.
Q: How many students do you have now?
A: Right now we have 250 students, we shift, we have the morning shift from 8:00 to 12:00 (noon) and the evening shift is from 13:00 to 18:00. We have 9 classrooms so it is not enough.
Q: Do you provide lessons in English? Do they have books? Who provides them to you?
A: Yes, all in English, but just one subject that is in Arabic. Yes we have books, see this book, it is a South Sudanese book in social studies. Each book costs around 25 EgP but this is included in the school fee. The books that we have are from someone that I know in South Sudan that sent me all the books in PDF and I just printed it here.
Q: Why do you use South Sudanese books from Juba when you are following the North Sudanese curriculum from Khartoum?
A: We teach them the South Sudanese curriculum until grade 7, and then in grade 8 and secondary school we teach them the North Sudanese curriculum. We are trying hard to get the South Sudanese Embassy to accept our students to do the Juba exams and not the Khartoum ones, but for the moment there is no response. We are trying to get approval from the Ministry of Education in Juba because you know most of the students here are from South Sudan so we try to teach them about their country, their culture, and their geography. This also helps them with a sense of identity, to know where they are from. And you know that South Sudan and North Sudan were one country. The curriculum is also not so different, so it also helps them to get prepared to take their exams at the Sudanese Embassy.
Q: Which are the main differences between the Sudanese and South Sudanese curricula?
A: As I said before there is not really a big difference when it comes to content
Q: Have you thought about implementing another curriculum?
A: Yes we are planning to introduce an international curriculum, but the problem is that we do not have books. Here in Egypt, there are more than 30 refugee schools, so yes we know there is a lot of competition so we need to make our school different from other schools. I met professor Chris Rupke from African Hope, he has a lot of different things and I love the way he is running his school, I want to implement something different but I still do not have something in mind and I also need sponsors.
Q: Do you consider your school a secular one?
A: Secular, because we do not have a partnership with churches. Our budget is just from the school fees that parents pay for their children. We charge 2.500 EgP/year for primary school and 4.500 EgP/year for secondary school, and from that we pay salaries, the rent, and the food for feeding the kids.
Q: So you do not have donors?
A: No, we do not have donors. I sent applications for support to different embassies but I did not get any response yet. Because you know the issue of breakfast is very hard, some of them even do not have money to buy something for breakfast, and you know in Africa we have this parabola that says a hungry man cannot think, so we need to give them food to do well in class. We give them food at both shifts, but the evening shift is quite good because they are mature.
Q: Can I ask you how much do you pay the teachers?
A: I pay them 2.000EgP/month. This is for the full professional teachers here. The ones that are graduated from university. If they are voluntary teachers we pay them 1.000 EgP. For example, we have a teacher who graduated from Ain-Shams University and is now doing his master’s in Education, and we also have teacher Wannisam who was recommended to me by Mr. Chris. He used to teach there. He is a doctor, so he teaches science and biology. Then we have teacher Jorge who also graduated in science.
Q: Do the children wear a uniform?
A: Yes, I chose to implement the uniform here because it always makes a difference. The uniform from the morning shift is different from the uniform in the evening shift. I think the distinction between these two uniforms is very important. I remember two months ago, one of our students found a 5 or 6 years old kid who was lost, but he knew that this student was from African Hope because of his uniform. So he just brought the student back to African Hope. And you know, we also have Egyptian neighbors here. There cause a lot of problems. Many Egyptians are racists but if the kids wear a uniform they know that this is a student, this is a school, and this prevents some Egyptians from fighting or insulting them.
Q: Do you think you could get recognition from the Egyptian Ministry of Education?
A: We are registered as a community school, so the Egyptian Ministry of Education allows us to work freely. But you know if they would come here they would not recognize the school since our premises don’t meet their criteria.
Q: Which are the main difficulties that you find while running this learning center?
A: First of all the issue of the neighbors, you know the issue of racism and also some people complain because of the noise. It is important for a learning center to have a good relationship with its neighbors. For example, they just closed Good Shepherd Learning Center because of the neighbors complaining. The second is the issue of rent. We pay 30.000 EgP per month. Also the issue of salaries, also with the teachers, when someone new comes in we are really frank with them. We explain to them what our budget is, how we organize ourselves, and what we can offer. We are also clear to them that if they take their holidays we won’t be able to pay them. So in holidays teachers may need to search for another job. Then another issue is breakfast and feeding the kids. We have a big kitchen and a woman that cooks, but you know that also costs money.
Q: Can the parents pay the school fees in different periods?
A: Yes, in two periods, one at the beginning and one at the end. The problem is that many parents do not pay. They do not complete paying the school fees, they just pay the first semester but not the second one. So we are building our budget from these school fees, and when five or six parents do not pay we already have an unbalanced budget. But we are also flexible, for example, I have a mum who has three kids here, and she brings every month 1,000 EgP, so she pays it little by little.
Q: Do you have a waiting list? Students waiting to enter your school but you are not able to give them a place?
A: Yes, the problem is the space. The classes are very small. We would love to have more students because that would mean more money and budget, but the space is very small. This is because we always try not to take more than twenty at most in a class. We are planning to search for another place with more classes, so we can have more students.
Q: Are there a lot of students that fail the grade 8 and grade 12 exams?
A: This depends on the teaching system. For example in 2019, in grade 8 56 students sat for the examination and only 20 passed, but last year we were very happy because 43 students were seated and just 3 failed. Every year we are trying to learn from the mistakes that we had before, and we are trying to improve because at the same time we are competing with many schools here, and parents are trying to find out which is the best school. I think that the most important thing is to have qualified teachers, but it is very difficult to find qualified teachers. This is why I admire African Hope and its teaching system. I am in a kind of partnership with Chris and this year he has sent all his students in grade 8 to our school for secondary education. So for example now in grade 9, we have around 15 students that came from African Hope.
Q: And how do parents know about the school?
A: We have a Facebook page. It was just created this year, and we also do advertisements in churches mainly, and then it is the community.
Q: Do you give the students private lessons if they are struggling with any subject?
A: Yes, that is what we are doing right now. Every Sunday the students that have problems with English and Arabic come here and take extra lessons. You know the students mostly struggle with those two subjects. Most of them do not know how to write English. They make grammar mistakes. So a teacher takes a group of 3 or 4 students and helps them. We also do this in Arabic. I was born in Egypt, I completed primary school in Egypt, and then in 2009, I went to Khartoum with my family. In 2011 we moved to South Sudan where I completed my secondary education. I then went to Cairo to do my university studies. I obtained my degree in mass media and communication at Cairo University. So you see, I have mixed a lot of languages, English, Arabic, and Swahili, and I really never knew exactly the Arabic grammar, the same happens to many refugee students here.
Q: Do you have a partnership with the UNHCR?
A: No, we just have a partnership with CRS. They are helping the school here. They provide us basically with cleaning stuff and sanitary services. They also pay the school fees of some students, like orphans, children of widows, and other refugee students but you need to apply for that. But the UNHCR, no. Since 2019 we are trying to apply and ask them for help but we received no response. This year we will change our direction and apply directly to charities so they might provide us with qualified teachers, breakfast, and food. Because you know when you apply somewhere asking for help, they always think that we want money and we must always make clear that we are not in need of money as much as we are in need of providing good education. If they can provide us with teachers it is better than money. If they can provide us with breakfast for the kids, it is better than money. I know some schools around here that have applied and got money, but you know, you need to know how to use this money, and many schools do not know how to do it, and because of this, they have closed their doors. I have visited different refugee schools and even worked in some of them. I know how the mentality of many South Sudanese principals and teachers are, and I have learnt from that. In education, you need to plan carefully and think about how to use your money, if you want to do it quickly you will fail.
Q: Are the teachers okay with their salary?
A: No, they are not okay. For this reason many teachers work in two or three learning centers at the same time. We have teachers who work here in the morning shift, and then they go to another school.
Q: And how do you feel about the translations of the Sudanese curriculum?
A: Yes, they are bad. This is the history book in English that the Khartoum Embassy provided us, and when I am reading this book, I need to correct so many things. Because those who translated the book are not fluent in English, they are Arabic speakers. This does not only happen with the books, but also with the exams that they take at the Sudanese Embassy. If they take the exam in English students may find it difficult to understand what the questions in the exams mean. So we would be happy if we could get the British or American curriculum, we would teach them this curriculum in primary and prepare them in grade 8 and in secondary school with the Sudan curriculum, so they can do the Sudanese exams, but the problem is where do I get this curriculum?
Q: And do you think that the translation of the books from the South Sudanese curriculum is more accurate?
A: Yes of course, because this translation is done by an intergovernmental organization. It is not translated by the South Sudanese themselves. I think it is a translation from UNICEF.
Q: Are you part of the association of learning centers?
A: Yes we have this association. If we have any problem we just gather and talk together, also about the issues of harassment that might happen at school. There is a lot of help. For example last year the cost of the senior 3 exams was 250 dollars, and this year they increased it to 550 dollars. Many parents were angry so we decided to gather at the learning center association and discuss it. We organized a strike and complained about it but nothing has been done. I think they increased the prices for political reasons. But you know that is so bad. A lot of students cannot afford these costs. So what happens is that they skip one year and just work as a cleaner or whatever to collect the money, and then they study again to pay for the exam with that money, it is hard to work and study at the same time.
Q: Could you give me an exact number of learning centers?
A: In Cairo, there are 45 learning centers. I am trying to get involved in this joy and learn the company, they give you furniture and stuff and then you pay it in tournaments. They have connections so maybe they can help me to find a new building.
