Thank you for returning to the Australian School of Cairo homepage for an update and welcome if you are a first time visitor.

Our school began as a modest notion in Australia in 2007. The notion was to start small with perhaps 200 preschool and lower primary students in a villa or other suitable rental, opening somewhere in Greater Cairo in September of 2009.

Upon returning to Cairo in April of 2008, months of searching and learning more of Egyptian school licensing requirements resulted in 1) no suitable premises being identified in Cairo's heady real estate market, and 2) learning that villas and other buildings that might seem suitable can fail Egyptian licensing requirements in many instances due to one inadequacy or another.

Work through the second half of 2008 was focused on costing purpose-built construction but through that time investor confidence fell almost daily and high-tuition international schools are, perhaps, the most difficult for which to predict financial outcomes in the current worried economic times.

As a practical matter, it is too late to begin construction for September 2009 and it is about this time of year that publicity for parents and teachers must be clear with finalised plans. So we can neither build fast enough if we were to have that option nor announce the school's opening soon enough if a suitable rental became available April or later. Thus we now envisage opening a school in Cairo no sooner than September 2010.

Australian education is "tied for second". Only Finland has been shown to produce better results. This speaks well for Australian teachers and curricula and we look forward bringing both to Egypt.

We look forward to hearing from you! We are happy to meet with parents at their convenience.

Jeff Marck PhD (Linguistics, Australian National University)
Managing Director
+2-0168-407-394
welcome@australianschoolcairo.org
+2-02-3385-5350 messages