Community Education Project Leadership: Perceptions of Empowerment in an Egyptian NGO

• In Event: Empowering perspectives on community education, literature, and special education in Egypt

Proposal

Originating from a dire need to empower change agents capable of building a nation to catch up with the ‘developed’ world, education quality and access, remain major challenges in the face of this goal. Many solutions have been studied and implemented globally, and various rural educational innovations were established to address authentic community needs and reach to the most deprived areas through partnerships with NGOs. In an attempt to provide quality education to deprived areas where children have no access to education, the community schools initiative in Egypt was launched. The Community Education model is based on the philosophy of transforming individuals to reach their full potential and on instilling the seeds of empowerment and citizenship to induce societal transformation through transformative learning pedagogies. Community schools, established in 1992 in 3 Egyptian governorates, have made evident transformations in the lives of the children and communities (National Center For Examination & Educational Evaluation, 2001). “We want more schools, it is more important than anything else, it is more important than having electricity. The lamps will light the roads, but the school will light our minds.” (Nagwa, member of the Education committee in the hamlet of AbuRisha, Assiut, as cited in Zaalouk, 2006). As the Community Education model is heavily reliant on profound partnerships with local NGOs at the grassroots to reach out to the most underserved areas and provide inclusive education. The purpose of this study was to examine the leadership style at an Egyptian NGO that situates itself as a key player in the Community Education scene in Egypt. The leadership style was used as an indicator to the degree it mobilizes an empowering environment for communities to demonstrate a sense of empowerment and the degree of sustainability community schools model demonstrate after more than two decades of its initiation. The findings of this research also serve as an indicator to how viable the community schools model is to expand and ignite the spark of reform to quality universal primary education in Egypt. This mixed-methods research utilized surveys and semi-structured interviews to capture the perceptions of empowerment in the views of a sample of 380 community schools facilitators (teachers) spanning eight Egyptian governorates. The findings demonstrate interesting leadership approaches with traits from transformational and servant leadership theoretical models. The perceptions of empowerment were positive and several success stories were uncovered in spite of the many challenges faced on the national level and despite the scarcity or resources. The significance of this research effort lies is the scarcity of literature about the current Egyptian community schools.

Author

• Aisha Khairat, The American University in Cairo