CIRA

completed

CIRA is a leading K-Grade 12 education business based in Cairo and currently operates 16 schools, primarily under the brand name of “Futures Schools”. Futures Schools targets primarily lower to middle income families. CIRA was set up in 1992 and currently has over 13,000 students with a goal to reach 14,000 students for this academic year (2011-2012). IFC is proposing to fund their expansion program over the next 3-4 years to expand CIRA’s reach in Egypt from greater Cairo to other cities in Egypt. The project aims to set up 8 new schools in Egypt (in Assiut, Menaya, Alexandria, Shorouk and Nasr City) with additional student capacity of 14,980 K-12 students.CIRA’s goal is to have 170,000 students in Egypt, and to cover 10% of the private sector market in Egypt. CIRA has two types of school models. The first are schools that are directly owned by CIRA, and the second are schools that are owned by subsidiaries where CIRA owns at least a 70% stake. There are two license types for schools in Egypt. The first entails a license for K – Middle, the second is High School related Grade 9 – Grade 12. CIRA currently has five schools in construction in Egypt, and 25 more schools are being scouted. Local Egyptian Schools take an average of 5 years to reach a 60-70% occupancy rate with international schools taking an average of 10 years to reach this rate of occupancy. CIRA has developed a free online resource designed to help students understand and explore key Science and Mathematics concepts using the online Skoool portal (a worldwide project that has been implemented in more than 25 countries). The Skoool portal is an Education Systems International (ESI) initiative to promote e-learning and digital curricula and offers the Egyptian National Curricula exactly as offered by the Ministry of Education in both Arabic and English. CIRA is the first IT based school in Egypt, whereby the students get a CISCO certificate for IT knowledge.