Abstract The Ministry of Health and Population (MOHP) has consistently been the recipient of the Egyptian government’s biggest budgetary expansion in the past decade and the country has made great strides in providing its citizens with easy access to health care through its extensive network of health facilities. The majority of communicable diseases are well controlled, as the country has reached and sustained high immunisation rates. However, the increasing population is straining the public health care infrastructure and rising rates of non-communicable diseases and volatile energy and food costs are placing greater fiscal constraints on the government’s ability to increase health care spending. Faced with these challenges, the government has enlisted the help of the private sector to restructure health care in Egypt, bringing in a new insurance scheme that will broaden the coverage of health care across the country. Meanwhile, growing wealth and the rise in non-communicable diseases are increasing the demand for private health care, with the highest levels of investment in the private sector seen in recent years.
Egypt has made significant strides in the past two decades in terms of education, but the government is reforming public education to give individual institutions more autonomy and to encourage greater participation from the private sector to help increase capacity and improve standards. The government is particularly interested in better preparing Egyptian graduates for the modern workplace. To achieve these goals, the government has created the National Educational Strategic plan for the period of 2008-2012 and has increased the education budget by 12% in 2007/08. Despite efforts, just 20% of 15-year-old children were still enrolled in formal educational institutions in 2008, with most leaving due to poverty or cultural reasons such as ambivalence towards female education in rural areas. While attitudes towards issues such as private sector participation are changing fast within the government, the restructuring process that the government is implementing will take time, so significant change is expected to be seen over the course of the next decade rather than the next few years.
In this chapter Tarek Khalil, Acting President, Nile University, provides a viewpoint on education reform.

View Table of Contents

View Sample Chapter for Free  - The Economy