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Egypt is home to one of the world’s oldest universities and was once a center of education for the Middle East. But Egypt faced an illiteracy rate of approximately 47 percent of its population more than a decade ago. This led the government to launch a series of reforms since the early 1990s which have pushed the literacy rate to 71 percent today. Now, with the higher rate of literacy, the Egyptian government wants to push reforms toward intellectual development.

A leader in education reform, Creative Associates International, Inc. launched the Technology for Improved Learning Outcomes (TILO) project in late 2007. TILO supports the introduction of technology in schools as directed by the Egyptian Ministry of Education (MOE). Supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the four-year TILO project will build support for computer use in the classroom while promoting critical thinking in its curriculum. To ensure that Egyptian students are professionally competitive in the world, TILO will strive to build the capacities of education officials and communities to use and maintain computers, to help ensure sustainability of its initiatives.

TILO will draw on Creative’s expertise to train and support primary and secondary teachers and introduce them to the strategic use of technology as a tool to improve teaching and learning. Creative will develop public private partnerships and build capacities within the Ministry of Education to ensure best practices and management of the total system. Creative’s partners in TILO include Pal-Tech, of Arlington, Va., Keys to Effective Learning, a Cairo-based training group, and Seward, Inc. of Minneapolis, MN ― each of whom brings specialized technical expertise to the team.

“In partnership with USAID, the Creative team supports the children of Egypt to be ready to learn and compete in a world where technology and new knowledge give us all a chance for equality and peace,” said M. Charito Kruvant, Creative’s President and CEO.

Egypt, like many nations, has encountered challenges in introducing educational reform and increasing learning outcomes in schools. The Creative-led TILO team is improving the quality of teaching, learning and management of educational technology in selected 190 School-Based Reform schools and 85 Smart Schools and Ministry of Education offices in ten governorates in Egypt.

“TILO provides opportunities for Egyptian students and communities to be prepared for the challenges of the 21st century,” said Rida Baidas, Creative’s TILO Project Director. “We are very enthusiastic to be working with students, teachers, administrators, the government and the private sector.”

TILO is designed to help students think critically and improve their problem solving skills. TILO’s objectives are tied to MOE standards for student learning in several domains: computer-literacy skills; higher-order critical thinking skills; and active-learning, problem-solving, and cooperative-learning skills, for which computers open doors to an infinite range of creative and productive learning activities.

Creative’s TILO activities include providing hardware, connectivity and digital resources for the training of teachers, supervisors, inspectors and other governorate educators through a series of collaborative sessions, including awareness-raising among parents and communities.

With a commitment to promoting sustainability, the Creative team is developing public-private partnerships to strengthen TILO’s contributions to education through alliances with businesses, NGOs, communities and academic institutions. TILO is further building the capacity of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology to manage ICT resources for continued implementation, maintenance and growth of education technology initiatives.

The project is the sixth task order issued to Creative under USAID'S Assistance to Basic Education/Basic Education (ABE/BE) IQC. This IQC is designed to improve education for communities in need, through formal and non-formal education approaches, that help surmount challenges confronting societies experiencing social transitions.

For more information, please contact TILO Project Director Rida Baidas at RidaB@caii.com.