Digital Paradoxes: Technological Promises and Educational Realities in Egypt

An exploration of the contradictions between technological promises and educational realities in Egyptian education.

Digital Paradoxes is an inquiry into the realities of digital technologies in Egyptian education. Hany Zayed explores what actually happens when a constellation of digital technologies are inserted deep into an educational system with a long historical lineage, in a complex social milieu, amid a disruptive global pandemic, with the promise of transforming education. Using the case of the “digital transformation” of secondary education in Egypt, the book shows how digital technologies produce paradoxes in education—contradictions between technological promises and educational realities—on the levels of institutions like public schooling and private tutoring, processes like learning and assessment, and practices like resistance and refusal.

The author argues that the digital transformation of Egyptian education resulted in five key paradoxes. First, as opposed to fortifying public schooling and stemming private tutoring, digitalization weakened public schooling and created novel forms of private tutoring. Second, against an individualized ethos of self-directed learning, digitalization gave rise to learning communities encased in a social identity and imbued with a collaborative ethic. Third, instead of eliminating examination cheating, digital technologies afforded a new modality of collective cheating with an unprecedented scale and speed. Fourth, in contrast to ensuring educational control, technologies facilitated bottom-up resistance practices against the top-down educational change. Finally, rather than leveling the playing field, digitalization exacerbated inequalities based on class, geography, gender, and citizenship status.