Putting Education to Work in Egypt

Publication Date: August 1999

Publisher: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Author(s): Nancy Birdsall

Research Area: Economics; Education

Type: Report

Coverage: Egypt

Abstract:

Across countries, education leads to growth, and education of the poor ensures equitable growth and poverty reduction. Empirical work demonstrates that education broadly shared is critical to equitable growth, and that equitable growth is more rapid and more sustainable than growth built on accumulation and productivity gains that are confined to limited sectors and population groups. Among developing countries, Egypt appears to be in a good position to benefit from equitable education-led growth. It has managed throughout the postwar period to make substantial public investments in education, with healthy emphasis on full and equitable access. The country's relatively equal distribution of income appears to reflect and reinforce a public policy, extending back to the years of Nasser's leadership, emphasizing socialist principles of shared growth built on full access to education and other social programs.