Q: Can you give me some information about the origins of this school?
A: The school was founded in September 2016 and the founder is Mrs. Cecilia and her husband. The school used to be in South Sudan, and due to the war in 2016, they were forced to move to Cairo. So in December 2016, they came here to Cairo, and the school opened in September 2017, five years ago. The first year we just had KG and primary, and in 2018 we introduced secondary education.
Q: Which curriculum do you teach?
A: We teach the Sudanese curriculum, but we have different nationalities from Sudan, South-Sudan, Nigeria, Eritreans, Ethiopians, Ugandans, Rwandans, Somalis, Yemenis, and Filipinos. We have around 11 different nationalities. We provide the Sudanese curriculum that is translated to English from the Comboni school in Sakakini.
Q: Can you further elaborate on the translation of the books?
A: We buy the books from the Combonis that are already translated, but I know that the Ministry of Education in Khartoum wants to change that and translate the books directly. We face a lot of problems with this translation. There are three main schools that translate the book from Arabic to English: Nukhba and Manar, Comboni, and a private school. We consider that the Combonis offer the best translation, but even though, I think it is better if the translation is done by the Ministry of Education because they know the subjects, the meaning, and the purpose, while the Combonis many times just translated the words and not the meaning. I know they want to change that, we had a meeting with them, with a responsible person from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Khartoum. The meeting was mainly with South-Sudanese learning centers because they are teaching in English. They want to change it in about two years.
Q: And how do you do with the books?
A: We buy a hard copy from the Comboni school and then we make photocopies here.
Q: How much do you charge them for the books?
A: It depends, in KG and up to primary five we use McMillan, Oxford. These are the books that private schools in Egypt use because in Sudan they use spine and simile as the brands of the books and those books are too light and easy. So we thought that it was better to give them more difficult books, train them with good English since they are children, and then when they sit for the exam they are not struggle so much with the translation and know better English. We do that with science and English, but for history and geography, we use Sudanese books.
Q: What is your legal status?
A: We are recognized by the South-Sudanese Embassy, but we also have recognition from the Sudanese school here in Egypt. It is basically two schools that the Sudanese government has established here in Egypt for Sudanese refugees and immigrants. Those schools are recognized by the Ministry of Education in Egypt. They are called Sudanese schools, and African Council schools. So when we want our students to sit for the exams, we go to the Sudanese school and ask them about our students sitting for the exam, and they give us a document that allows us to go with the list of our students and register them to sit for the exams.
Q: How many students did you have in grade 8 doing the exam last year?
A: We had 45 students in grade 8 preparing for the exam. Five did not attend the exam because the school fees were too high, and just half of them passed. They failed because they were not prepared enough, the majority live with their mothers only, so some of them need to have a part-time job, also they are teenagers, they do not even have a space for studying, there are a lot of problems.
Q: And what about senior 3?
A: 37 students were preparing for the senior 3 exams, but only 29 went to the exam and from those 19 passed.
Q: Do you have any case of someone with non-Sudanese nationality doing the Khartoum exam but not being able to go to university because of his or her nationality?
A: We have one case, it was three years ago with a brilliant student whose name is Sara, she was in the science section and she had the highest mark at the senior 3 exams in all of Egypt, she got a 78.8, and to this, you must add a 10% so she had a 88%. But she could not enter university, we think there was confusion in her documents, she is Eritrean but did the Sudanese exam, and she is also a refugee, we really do not know what happened. I think that if she would have her documents clear she could have entered, in her case she is from Eritrea but lives in the Sudanese border, Gadarif, so she studied her whole primary education there, and she obtained the Sudanese senior 8 exams, and now she wanted to enter university in Cairo but she was rejected, you know she does not have the national number of Sudan, the ID of Sudan because she is Eritrean. But you know, now they want to introduce something new is that students for entering primary are supposed to do an exam at grade 5 of classical Arabic for entering primary, and this is hard because many of our students struggle with the classical Arabic, the grammar, everything, and this will be a very big barrier for the students.
Q: Do you have more cases?
A: We have three or four cases of Eritreans and Ethiopians that did the senior 3 exams but I really do not follow their cases. In these cases, I guess that they may can go to study in Sudanese universities but not in Egyptian ones because you know Egyptian universities have relations and agreements with the Sudanese and South Sudanese embassies.
Q: How many students do you have?
A: This year we have 430, in the beginning, we had around 450 but the number started to reduce, many of them do not pay school fees, others traveled, and others shift to learning centers. But the majorities are about school fees.
Q: How much do you charge for school fees?
A: We start from 4.750 to KG, then 4.700Egp for KG1-KG6, and then from KG6 to KG8 it is 4.800 Egp and then 5.100Egp from grade 8, senior 1, 2, 3.
Q: How many expenses do you have per month?
A: A lot from the building they charge us 35.000Egp per month, plus the bills that are very high, like the water bill is almost 3000Egp per month because they say that this is a commercial center, but you know we really do not use so much water, now even the electricity is going high, we succeed this year to put this floor with the card
Q: Do you have a rental contract for the building?
A: Yes, we have a contract and the contract will finish September this year, and once you renew they increase the rent a 10%, so we would be paying like 3,500 EgP pounds more, we expect around 38,500 EgP.
Q: Do you have problems with the neighbors?
A: Yes, the first two years were really serious because the neighbors did not accept us, they used to throw our children and our guests cold water, and they also us to throw onions and bottles, especially those neighbors on the third floor. Then we went there calmly and tried to talk with them in a friendly way, and they always were like “Oh sorry, these are our kids”, but how can a kid throw cold water? But slowly we tried to build a good relationship with them because we knew that that was really important because if the neighbors complain a lot the police can come and close our center. So we finally were able to build this good relationship and now we have been two years without disturbances.
Q: The school is surrounded by many other Egyptian schools, both public and private, how do you feel about that?
A: Yes all the schools here are Egyptians, except the Nigerian school here, Bright future. But yes the Egyptian students fight and disturb our students in the road, they are facing a lot of problems, now it is maybe reduced but some years ago it was really really serious, my children were studying in African Hope and every time when they returned home they took their bags, they beat them, they throw them things.
Q: How many classrooms do you have?
A: We have 10 classrooms, from 1.3 to 17.3 we have grade 8, senior 1, 2 and 3
Q: Do you face any other challenges like finding qualified teachers?
A: Yes that is a very big challenge, we used to have good teachers but suddenly they just leave. We also have 4 teachers that are university students, they are trying their best. Then we have a big problem in finding science teachers we have Dr. Samar who graduated from Pharmacy at Faisal University. Another problem is that we have 3 or 4 students that are Sudanese and they are struggling with understanding their English accent, many of them come from Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda. Also in the syllabus itself, the senior 3 in the Art section struggle the most, history and geography, for them it is hard for them to keep Arab names, concepts, and others, so most of them go to science sections because the exams are different.
Q: Which are the most difficult subjects for the students?
A: I have had a lot of complaints with math and physics in senior 3, science track study math, science, physics, chemistry, and biology, and then they can choose between family science, engineering science, and computer science. And in arts, you do history, geography, and literature, and then they can take choose fine arts (drawing).
Q: Can I ask you how much you pay the teachers?
A: The majority is 2.000 EgP but we have teachers who pay 2.500 EgP and 3.500 EgP as the highest if they work two shifts.
Q: Do you have teachers that because of the salary have decided to leave the school?
A: We agree with them from the beginning, but most of our teachers decide to stay here, because what happens is that other learning centers promise them high salaries but then they fail in doing that, there are delays in the salaries so maybe the teachers are like two months without receiving their salary, or they just give them half. But they know that we will pay them every month. We have the case of 3 teachers complaining about the salary so they left the school and went to other learning centers, but then they saw this problem happening and they left the other learning center and wanted to come back but unfortunately, we cannot accept them. But you know it is hard to find qualified teachers, we have qualified teachers and to keep them in the school you should use different techniques, give them alabacies, but you should try to keep the qualified teachers because if you lose them you will accept anyone just to replace them, we need the qualified teachers for our students passing the exam.
Q: How do you recruit new teachers?
A: We announce on our Facebook page, also through the church, community speaking, and others.
Q: Do you have any partnerships with NGOs?
A: We do not have donors that help us with money, in that field, we depend on the schools fees, but what we have is the UN partners, the CRS that gives 1.200 EgP for each student, that is not enough, I do not know why they do not increase, but at least it is something. And this year we have an Egyptian association called Development, we have a contract with them this year, they do a very very very good job, they renovated the school, the covers of the suits, the electricity, the doors, we do not pay them, it is a contract, I think they are related to the government, and I also think it is another way for the Egyptian government to maintain refugees in Cairo, make them stay here because we refugees are contributing a lot to the Egyptian economy. We even contribute much more than the Egyptians by themselves, for example, an Egyptian family pays like 500 EgP per month for an apartment, but I pay around 2.800 EgP for mine because I am a foreigner.
Q: Do you have a projector?
A: Yes
Q: Which is your legal status?
A: We are recognized by the Embassy of South Sudan. They came here in 2019/2020 and visited the school and saw if we have a villa, a separate space, with enough classrooms…We as a school cannot address the ministry of education in Egypt, so everything is done through the embassy. But the embassy recognized us because we are professional, we organize three meetings with the parents per year, we also have emergency meetings with the parents, and we have an Egyptian doctor, doctor Ahlam that has workshops with our parents to address the issue of nutrition of the kids, we also have afro-act, an Egyptian organization that comes sometimes and talks about illnesses, we also have psychological assistance for the teachers and mothers, and organization that gives any parent that wants to open their own business between 5.000 EgP and 10.000 EgP. But you know I know our school fees are higher than usual, but parents know that we include all those services, so they are willing to pay it. But we also have to pay our workers, even though many schools do not have workers, we have an Egyptian guard at the gate that is very important, and also a secretariat, cleaning services, and a financial department.
We have contact with CRS, StARS, Save the Children, those came to us and also through other organizations.
