It’s only by coming out of the UK and teaching abroad that I’ve realised how well-respected our education system truly is worldwide. The desire to succeed and attend a British university is extremely strong across the world and especially where I teach in Alexandria, Egypt. There’s a strong belief that the quality of teaching is much higher in the UK than it is in Egypt.
 
Here, the disparity between the rich and poor is huge, much more so than in the UK. A small minority can afford private schools (there is a wide range of these, in both quality and price) but most children are below the poverty line and attend public schools where the education provided is inadequate.
 
The majority of the students I teach are relatively privileged, but with this comes different challenges. The pressure on them from their parents to achieve great results is immense, mainly due to cultural attitudes towards obtaining A* and A grades.
 
Even if these results are achieved, the recent devaluing of the Egyptian pound means that fees for universities abroad have doubled. Often, students’ dreams of a attending a British university can’t be realised and they have to look to other universities in Europe. The cost of studying medicine and engineering, for example, is extremely high in the UK and some turn to the German higher education system instead.
 
A lot of our teaching aids, materials and equipment are sent from the UK but it can take months for these to clear through customs. Simpler access to teaching materials would make life much easier. The international order from the UK includes science supplies but we have stopped shipping textbooks over because of the problems when they reach customs. A great deal of our resources are created in-house, but also in the age of the internet, we are able to source online resources relatively simply.

We don’t have access to supply teachers, so when bouts of food poisoning at staff meals happen, it means all hands on deck. We only employ staff that have the PGCE qualification and there is not a supply pool of those teachers here in Egypt. Often classes can be combined with one teacher managing two at the same time and SLT frequently step in to cover.  
 
Politics and education policy never used to have an impact on our day-to-day teaching and we had freedom to teach topics we found interesting. As head of sixth form, I implemented a popular university preparation course that partly focused on global citizenship issues. However, there has been a move to focus more on Arabic subjects recently, and this means taking lesson time from other subjects, which of course affects all our teachers. This switch has been to accommodate changes requested by the Egyptian Ministry of Education.  
 
We’re a relatively small school - we only have 160 students in our secondary campus, and five of our students have received Edexcel examination awards in the past two years. These include the best iGCSE history result in Africa, iGCSE economics in Egypt, and two girls achieved the highest in the world for iGCSE Edexcel mathematics. The students were extremely proud and it was wonderful seeing them receive their awards.
 
It’s because of the students that I look forward to going to school every day. I’ve been at The British School for five years, and I really do think they have the perfect mix of intelligence and humour. Our students are predominantly Egyptian (some with dual nationalities) but we do have students from over 20 different countries. Most, if not all, have a full schedule with school commitments and sporting passions. We have a large number of strong athletes representing their country in various sports including golf and swimming. 

A typical day begins at 8am, following a very relaxing five-minute walking commute to school. Teachers here live in an exclusive neighbourhood around the school - it’s one of the most exclusive in Alexandria and all apartments are provided by the school and typically are large and grand in terms of the furniture. Students arrive by 8.15am and tutor time lasts 15 minutes. Lessons are 55 minutes long and go on until 3pm. We have two breaks, with the second break (acting as lunch) lasting 40 minutes. Teachers are expected to stay at school until 3.30pm but I usually find myself at school after this. As I teach 23 lessons a week out of 30 as well as two other responsibilities, I find that I have to respond to emails and plan events outside of the school day.  
 
I love teaching history, leading sixth form and also working as the student leadership coordinator: having many hats means that I always have something to work on and the ideas constantly spring up in my mind. As the student leadership coordinator, I have tried to ensure that our students have plenty of opportunities to lead (such as running student-led anti-bullying weeks), with seminars/specialist programmes designed to help build key skills.
 
After five years, I still haven’t got used to switching back into the classroom in August after two months of wearing shorts and flip flops - wearing a suit in this heat can be excruciating. Of course, living here does have its advantages: Egypt is full of wonder and history as well as great beauty in terms of the beaches. The perfect weather here also means I can play golf 12 months a year!
 
I left the UK 10 years ago and have taught in Thailand, Canada and Russia. I don’t ever think that I’ll return to the UK; as a family, we prefer the challenge of living abroad rather than having the comforts of home. That being said of course we always return to the UK at Christmas - it’s the best in the world. 

Nicholas Rudd is the head of sixth form at The British School, Alexandria. 

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