The Egypt Education Reform Program (ERP, 2004-2009) forms part of an integrated program combining policy and institutional development with implementation of school and classroom innovations. EQUIP2 ERP activities are intended to establish a foundation of policy and system change to support decentralized, school-based reform.

In the first two program years, ERP participated in a major scaling up of the Governors' Education Reform Network (GERN) and a dialogue-based approach to policy formation and education reform to inform the Ministry of Education (MOE) decentralization and accreditation efforts. A specialized initiative, Community Youth Mapping, focused on improving the linkages between school and work and developing students’ skills in data collection and analysis, community outreach, communication, ICT and leadership.

Community YouthMapping is a community and youth engagement strategy developed by the AED Center for Youth Development.  It has been implemented in Egypt, Haiti, Jordan and over 100 sites across the U.S. 

The Education Support Systems (ESS) component worked with the MOE and governorates in visioning and strategic planning with the training and supervisory system to create a new standards-based, demand driven professional development system for teachers and administrators.

The Faculties of Education Reform (FOER) component linked teacher preparation in nine faculties of education with in-service teaching staff. A two and one-half year, multi-stakeholder effort resulted in producing the Pre-Service Teacher Performance Standards for the primary level and preparatory/secondary level in Arabic, English, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies.
 
The Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) component developed an observation protocol—the Standards-based Classroom Observation Protocol for Egypt (SCOPE)—to measure changes in teacher and student classroom behavior. E2/ERP M&E also worked closely with the National Center for Examinations and Educational Evaluation (NCEEE) to design, write, field test and administer the Critical-thinking, Achievement, and Problem Solving (CAPS) test.  NCEEE administered the test to approximately 30,000 students in grades four, eight, and ten in Arabic, science and mathematics.  The test questions focus on the cognitive levels of factual knowledge, conceptual understanding and critical thinking/ problem solving. M&E staff also tracked and reported progress of USAID’s Strategic Objective 22, Sustained Improvements in Learning Outcomes for all USAID funded programs in education.

A Participant Training component provided technical and logistical support and funding for overseas participant training for ERP. Observational study tours were organized for higher education, monitoring and evaluation, school to work, instructional systems development, and management.