ABOUT THE PROJECT

THE IDEA FOR THE EDU 2.0 RESEARCH & DOCUMENTATION PROJECT

began in 2018, when Dr. Tarek Shawki, Minister of Education and Technical Education (2017-2022), contacted Professor Linda Herrera of the College of Education, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, to ask if she could come to Egypt to work with his advisory team to support the education reform. She proposed to establish an independent project to research and document the reform. In the process, she would work towards strengthening the capacity of an emerging generation of educational researchers, generate policy-relevant research, and provide resources for students, researchers, and stakeholders working in the education sector. The Education 2.0 Research and Documentation Project was established in 2019 with funding from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) via the British Embassy in Cairo’s Education Department, and housed at the Social Research Center of the American University in Cairo. It formally closed the end of 2020 due to the Coronavirus pandemic, but the documentation, research, and training activities continued on a volunteer basis. Professor Herrera established the project’s YouTube channel in 2020 (73 videos), and the website in September, 2023. An edited open source book with oral history interviews and research by the team is forthcoming, as is a dedicated archive of the 2.0 reform to be housed in the library of the University of Illinois.

SEE THE TEAM IN ACTION

INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERS

This project has relied on the institutional support of the American University of Cairo, The Office of the Minister of Education and Technical Education of Egypt, The Education Section of the British Embassy in Cairo, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND SPECIAL THANKS

A number of people contributed to this project by way of administrative and technical support, funding, taking part in workshops, working as researchers, and participating in research. The project acknowledges these many contributions.

ABOUT THE PROJECT DIRECTOR

LINDA HERRERA (PhD Columbia University, MA American University in Cairo, BA University of California, Berkeley) is a professor in the Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. A social anthropologist with regional expertise in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), she lived in Egypt for 17 years and has worked for over three decades in academia and international development. She has studied, written about, and taught courses on education and power in the MENA region, qualitative research methods, international development policy, youth and generations, childhood in global context, the social effects of technological change, and critical democracy and citizenship education. She has authored, edited, and/or co-edited the books, Educating Egypt (American University in Cairo Press, 2022), Global Middle East (University of California Press, 2021), Revolution in the Age of Social Media (Verso, 2014), Wired Citizenship (Routledge, 2014), Cultures of Arab Schooling (SUNY Press, 2005), Being Young and Muslim (Oxford University Press, 2009), STAND UP! SIT DOWN! Cultures of Schooling in Egypt (Population Council, 2003-in Arabic), and Between Field and Text: Emerging Voices in Egypt Social Science (Cairo Papers in Social Science, 1999). She has also curated the YouTube channels Critical Voices in Critical Times, Education 2.0, and Democracy Dialogue.

THE WALL OF EGYPTIAN MINISTERS OF EDUCATION