Abstract
The 1923 Constitution prepared the legal framework for Egypt’s semi-independence from British imperial control under a newly established liberal monarchy. This Constitution carried a promise for a significant change in setting the ground for a nascent national system of mass elementary education for boys and girls that would also be free of charge and compulsory. As I discuss in this article, this vision hardly matched Egyptian socio-economic and cultural realities of the time. I explore this gap through a study of the deliberations of the Constitutional Commission that first drafted and later debated the various articles of the Constitution. I argue that the Constitutional Commission followed a consensus, in both Egypt and abroad, over the necessity of establishing a national system of mass education as a means for a broader social reform. Setting high expectations, this consensus would simultaneously enhance national education and the future setbacks that would beset its implementation.
Original language | American English |
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Pages (from-to) | 630-645 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | History of Education |
Volume | 48 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 3 Sep 2019 |
Keywords
- Constitutionalism
- Educational reform
- Globalisation
- Social reform
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Education
- History and Philosophy of Science