My career in education, although limited in time, has been quite diverse and has allowed me to experience the educational process from multiple perspectives. I have been a teacher, a lecturer and a faculty developer and during each of these spells I have grown more and more fond of creative pedagogies and their impact on education. Most recently, I have been enamoured by the concept of gamification and have decided to take my first venture into gamifying my syllabus.

I decided to start small and only gamify a part of my syllabus to see how that would go. I was initially apprehensive as I was teaching full time in-service teachers and was not sure if gamification would be too childish for them. I quickly ditched any concerns the minute I started researching the topic, mainly due to the fact that most gamification that has been taking place has been for enterprises and businesses to...

The Value of Education: The View of a Devil’s Advocate

My passion for educational development and education in general is fueled by living in a country like Egypt, especially over a significant period like the past four years have been. While for the majority of the population there has been an epic focus on the ‘deep state’ or ‘corruption’ or ‘social security’, these times have done nothing but amplify the alarm bells going off in my head on the current and future state of education. My premise, as I am sure that most pedagogues in Egypt will concur, is that a large proportion of the issues facing Egypt, in particular your average Egyptian today, are down to the poor levels of education they have experienced over the past thirty years. A premise that seems so logical … yet is it?

I have recently been watching the TV show ‘Game of Thrones’ and aside from the gripping action and...

I recently came across an article titled ‘Higher Education in Egypt’ written in the the Daily News Egypt identifying the cultural problem of the must-have degree that has been predominant in Egypt for a fair few years now. The article raises some genuine concerns, I however, disagree with their rationale.

Firstly, I believe the root to this problem is not the initiative of ‘free education for all’, its in the mismanagement and poor delivery of this free educational system! I feel there are a few factors, if appropriately addressed can achieve a significant and noticeable improvement. I disagree with the notion that people all feel the necessity to have degrees stems from the fact there is free education available. I believe that this occurs due to the frowned upon notion of the blue-collar job, a direct by-product of the government mismanagement. Had the minimum wage law come in years...