ABOUT THE PROJECT

THE IDEA FOR THE EDU 2.0 RESEARCH & DOCUMENTATION PROJECT

Meeting with stakeholders to present the concept of the Education 2.0 Research and Documentation Project, Cairo, April 2019. From left, Alethia Blithe Flowers, Linda Herrera, Tarek Shawki, Deena Boraie, Nelly ElZayat

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.

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

An EDU 2.0 project meeting on Zoom during the Coronavirus pandemic, 2020

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.

PROJECT COORDINATION AND RESEARCHERS

LINDA HERRERA, Director and Principal Investigator

NELLY ELZAYAT, Minister of Education Advisor on project

NAIRY ABDELSHAFY, Oral History Coordinator and Researcher

HANY ZAYED, Digital Transformation Coordinator and Researcher

HEBA SHAMA, Case Study Coordinator and Researcher

MOSTAFA HANAFY, Video Production and Coordination

AHMED ALAA, Video Production, Post-Production, and Archiving

AHMED SHERIF, National Center for Educational Research and Development (NCERD)

KAMAL NABIL, National Center for Educational Research and Development (NCERD)

HELEN GABRAH, Project Assistant and Researcher

DINA MOKBEL, Project Assistant and Researcher

MOHAMED YEHIA, Researcher

NEVINE EL SOUEFI, Researcher

MENNA MANSOUR, Researcher,

AYMAN ELHOSEINI, Researcher

ABDELHAMID MAHMOUD, Poducation Producer

NARIMAN MOUSTAFA, Harvard Graduate School of Education Oral History Team

EBTIHAL ELGHAMRAWY. Harvard Graduate School of Education Oral History Team

THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION, EGYPT

DR. TAREK SHAWKI, Minister of Education and Technical Education (2017-2022)

DR. NAWAL SHALABY, Director of the Center for Curriculum Instructional Materials Development (CCIMD) (2018-2022)

DR. DEENA BORAIE, Senior Advisor for Assessment, Examinations and Curriculum (2018-2022)

DR. AHMED DAHER, Deputy Ministry for ICT

FUNDING & TECHNICAL SUPPORT

BRITISH FOREIGN, COMMONWEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT OFFICE

ALETHEIA BLIGH FLOWER, First Secretary Education, British Embassy Cairo

YARA ELKOREITY , Education Program, British Embassy Cairo

DINA EL MAAYERGY, Education Program, British Embassy Cairo

FATIMA AL-BANNA, COFFEY, Governance, Security & Justice

ALY EL SHEREI, Dcode Economic & Financial Consulting

MOHAMMED YOUSSEF, Dcode Economic & Financial Consulting

THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO

HODA RASHAD, Director, Social Research Center (SRC)

DORA ALBERT, Office of Sponsored Programs

NEVINE TORKY, Office of Sponsored Programs

NASHWA REZK, SRC Support Staff

THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA CHAMPAIGN

CAMPUS RESEARCH BOARD

ESSAM ELKORGHLI, Research Assistant

SUNERA KHAN, Research Assistant

JAMES ANDERSON, Dean, College of Education

PARTICIPANTS OF ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS

DR. TAREK SHAWKI , Minister of Education and Technical Education (2017-2022)

DR. NAWAL SHALABY , Director of the Center for Curriculum and Instructional Materials Development, CCIMD and Head of Curriculum Development Research Division

DR. DEENA BORAIE, Senior Advisor for Assessment, Examinations and Curriculum, Ministry of Education and Technical Education

NELLY ELZAYAT, Advisor on Early Childhood Education and Educational Policy to H.E. the Egyptian Minister of Education

DALIA IBRAHIM, CEO of Nahdet Misr Publishing House

DR. DAHLIA FOUAD, Director of Educational Content & Translation at Nahdet Misr Publishing Group

AMIRA KAZEM, Senior Operations Officer - Education Global Practice, The World Bank

DR. YOUSRA ALLAM, Marketing and Communication Advisor to H.E. the Egyptian Minister of Education

MAJID M.AL-SADEK, Head of the National Information Network at the Academy ofScientific Research and Data Center Administrator at EKB

MOHAMED H. EL-ARABY, EKB Coordinator, Technical Support Division

INGY MASHHOUR, Assistant Minister for Executive Affairs and Special Needs

DR. JUAN MANUEL MORENO, Lead Education Specialist in the MENA Human Development Department of the World Bank

MANAR AHMED SHAROUDA, Education Specialist at UNICEF

MAHMOUD DAWOUD, Marketing & Training Director at LIMS Egypt

MAHMOUD HUSSEIN, Managing Director at LIMS Egypt

EMILY WATERS, International Senior Project Director, Discovery Education

THOMAS KELLEY, Cultural Expert, National Geographic Learning

NEVINE SOUEFI, CEO of Edupedia

MAI MAGDY, Channels Manager for Madrasetna 1 and 2

A SPECIAL THANKS AND APPRECIATION TO THE TEACHERS, STUDENTS, AND PARENTS WHO PARTICIPATED ANONYMOUSLY IN ORAL HISTORY RESEARCH ABOUT EDUCATION 2.0

ABOUT THE PROJECT DIRECTOR

Linda Herrera at the Ministry of Education and Technical Education, Cairo, 2019

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, education policy 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: Civic Values and Ideological Struggles (American University in Cairo Press, 2022), Global Middle East: Into the 21st Century (University of California Press, 2021), Revolution in the Age of Social Media: The Egyptian Popular Insurrection and the Internet (Verso, 2014), Wired Citizenship: Youth Learning and Activism in the Middle East (Routledge, 2014), Cultures of Arab Schooling: Critical Ethnographies from Egypt (SUNY Press, 2005), Being Young and Muslim: New Cultural Politics in the Global South and North (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.