ALEXANDRIA, Egypt — The merits and drawbacks of home schooling have recently become a topic of debate in Egypt. Students educated using this method forgo enrollment in the state’s public education system to be instructed by their parents and friends. They are taught from a very young age, including some at 3, until 17, using various sources of knowledge, especially digital resources.

Calls for such a system began to be made some five years ago, when increasing numbers of graduates of the public education system were no longer able to meet the standards and objectives set by the state and aspired to by the students themselves. These graduates, therefore, also did not meet the requirements of the labor market, as suggested in part by World Bank statistics documenting Egypt’s high rates of unemployment. In 2013, overall unemployment stood at 12.7%, with youth unemployment at 38.9%. An additional problem experts have noted is that the state’s education system does not harmonize curricula with the needs of the labor market.

In “The Centralization of Education in Egypt and the State Monopoly of Knowledge” a research paper published by the Faculty of Economics and Political Science at Cairo University, Ayman al-Husseini describes alternative education as a spontaneous and unbiased initiative by individuals and groups who object to the state’s centralization of education policies and its authority over educational institutions.

The public education system is based on a large number of students attending school for a certain number of hours during a fixed semester. These students follow uniform educational curricula determined by the state and are subjected to assessment, standards and academic tests that do not take into consideration individual differences among students. Alternative education opposes this approach, preferring instead home schooling, Friends (Quaker) schools and Montessori schools, among other options.