It’s not about FREE education, but QUALITY education
Taha Hussein pledged for free education and started under King Farouk, this did not improve the situation much.
It’s not only about the spaces, it more the content and teaching. I am not happy with the Arabic language curriculum compared to the English or French, very shallow. You need money to train and pay teachers.
It also about qualified teachers who can read and write correctly and can teach. In some cities and villages in the Red Sea Governorate for example children reach technical secondary education while they can barely read and write. How? Teachers gave them the answers during national tests.
hi all ! sorry for leaving the discussion all that long , anyway here is some notes I collected during my visit to 2 democratic schools in Berlin as an alternative to formal education .
1st of all in the 2 schools the people believe its an alternative among with other alternatives also it is not the only way to go and not meant for every child ,
the main value behind this way is to set the “pedagogical education” aside and let the children decide for themselves and this makes the difference between democratic and homeschooling as in home schooling it is hard to discard the paternalism or the authority of the parents on the child .
although this creates a “bubble” where the school has it’s own way of life like meeting every week or a justice committee to decide in different issues but it is actually nearer to the "real world " than traditional schools as the child faces real problems and try to solve it on his own and that makes the child more independent and self oriented or motivated .
some problems :
-still follow the state (in Germany ) so that kids have to pass some national exams at the age of 16 , it is the same problem of certification everywhere .
- if parents don’t follow the same values at home it becomes harder for the kid to have 2 different life styles and affects their progress
- not for everyone as this 2 much freedom and self dependence don’t work with “shy” kids for example , there should be mentors or something like that for especial kids and here comes the problem of scaling
- may be it is a coincidence but in the 2 schools the internet isn’t used to its full capacity -lets say it like this- or it is not well introduced to be a source for any information ,its used mainly for gaming -which is not a wast of time - and for basic searches . but not to collaborate in an online project or course or whatever .