German Schools Teaching Homosexuality for Egyptian Students

German curricula on Egyptian soil teach and promote homosexuality and intrusive concepts to conservative Egyptian children of various sects and religious beliefs.

The story began on April 10, 2024, when a parent of a student at the Rahn German school in Cairo was skimming through his son's textbook out of curiosity.

The father's shock came when he discovered that the large, lavishly bound book contained some images of homosexuality in a few pages alongside explanatory paragraphs in German.

Homosexual Content

Immediately, the father took the book and went to have it translated, only to be shocked once again to learn that his son was being taught a curriculum promoting homosexuality.

In the Biology textbook for sixth-grade students at the Rahn German school, the first chapter is titled "Homosexuality."

This chapter includes several questions, such as: What is sexual orientation? Are love and sex linked to each other? What are the forms of sexual orientation?

As for the second page, it contains terms explicitly expressing homosexuality where the text says: "What am I? Many teenagers begin their first sexual experiences with people of the same sex, but this does not mean that the person is abnormal."

The German book on the second page refers to "homosexual partners" and says: "Some people need to establish emotional sexual relationships with people of both genders, and these two individuals can have dual and reciprocal relationships with more than one person."

The matter quickly spread among the parents of students at the school, who promptly took urgent action and filed official complaints against the administration, which attempted to conceal the matter.

Questions arose about how these curricula infiltrated Egypt and who monitors international schools. How could a German school spread its culture unconditionally within a large country like Egypt without any accountability or control?

Intrusive Ideas

Indeed, on April 15, 2024, Egyptian lawyer Ashraf Nagy filed a report with the Public Prosecutor, on behalf of a group of parents, against a German international school in Cairo over teaching materials that reportedly "promote" homosexuality, according to Egypt Independent.

"During a phone interview with the Akkher el-Nahar [End of the Day] show, Nagy said that he was shocked to find materials promoting homosexuality in biology books for the sixth and ninth grades of primary school," Egypt Independent wrote.

The school administration asked parents to tear up these pages, he said, and sign a declaration that these materials are present in the curriculum but not taught.

Nagy noted that the school teaches the same subjects taught in Germany, where homosexuality is not criminalized, according to Egypt Independent.

He said that while there are teachers who refuse to teach these subjects, the German administration replaces them with others to teach it under training programs for students.

The crisis of the Rahn school reached the Egyptian parliament when Member of Parliament Mahmoud Essam submitted a parliamentary question to Council President Hanafy el-Gebaly, directed to Minister of Education Reda Hegazy.

The MP requested clarification from the minister regarding the initiation of a German school in Cairo to teach materials that promote acceptance of homosexuality, contrary to the established values ​​in Egyptian Muslim society, as an abnormal and reprehensible act prohibited by religious and divine laws.

Essam made statements to Sada el-Balad channel, describing the actions of the German school as "shocking."

He affirmed that the West is behind what happened, attempting to infiltrate Eastern societies and propagate these ideas through various means, notably the famous Netflix platform for movies and series.

German Schools

"Egypt has always been one of the most important countries relied upon by the German school education system outside of Germany," the Berlin Embassy in Cairo published on its official page, considering the penetration of German schools in Egypt.

It mentioned in the news article dated February 14, 2022, that the total number of students in German schools throughout Egypt currently amounts to about 4,500 students, the majority of whom are Egyptian nationals.

It noted that the German Evangelical High School in Cairo and the German School Saint Charles Borromeo School in Cairo and Alexandria have been established for over a hundred years and are among the oldest international schools in Egypt.

On March 7, 2024, Ralf Beste, Director of the Culture and Society Department at the German Foreign Ministry, announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Minister of Education Reda Hegazy to establish 100 Egyptian-German schools in various parts of the country.

He added that Berlin aims to increase the number of those learning the German language in Egypt, pointing out the existence of 7 German schools in Egypt and 30 schools supported by the Goethe Institute.

Cooperation was close until the incident of the Rahn German school promoting sexual deviance in Egypt.

In response to the escalating issue, which had garnered public attention and reached the parliament, coupled with a formal complaint lodged with the Public Prosecutor, the Ministry of Education initiated measures to address the situation.

On April 17, 2024, the ministry confirmed the first move, as the minister directed the formation of a committee of ministry leaders and sent them to the school to assess the situation and take all necessary legal actions immediately if the circulated violations were confirmed.

State of War

Strangely, faced with that storm at the Rahn German school, the school's reactions were controversial.

On April 18, Al-Sbbora local news website reported that the school is trying to absolve itself of the charges leveled against it by communicating with parents and demanding that they send the books to the school and hide the reality of teaching homosexuality curricula, or else the school will be closed.

It reported that "Rahn began to resort to strange matters to avoid being exposed, such as communicating with parents and threatening them."

As for Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper, it added in a news article published on April 16 that the school administration requested parents to tear out the pages containing such materials and sign an acknowledgment that they exist in the curriculum but are not taught.

Quoting a source from the parents of the students, it explained that some teachers refuse to teach these materials, but the German administration replaces them with others to teach them under the pretext of student training programs.

Al-Estiklal interviewed Egyptian educational expert Khaled Khairy on the incident at the Rahn German school.

Describing it as "chaos," he said, "We are in a comprehensive war targeting religion, values, constants, and the nation itself, and a German school cannot teach curricula related to sexual deviance in a country without prior planning and intent.

"We are facing a set of scenarios, the first being that the German school acted independently of the Ministry of Education, knowing that there is no overseer and no follow-up to pass what it wants to pass."

The second and most dangerous is that there may be undisclosed coordination with the Egyptian authority, which is possible and likely, especially since the revenues of that school are tempting and in hard currency, according to Khairy.

This prestigious school has an annual tuition fee for some of its stages reaching 138,000 Egyptian pounds (2,860 dollars), according to its official website.

Khairy wondered, "There are many foreign and international schools in Egypt that may disseminate values ​​that are highly dangerous, not related to a matter like homosexuality, but there are other issues such as atheism, normalization with Israel, and others, so where is the state from all this, especially since we are facing a deteriorating local educational situation?"

Previous Incidents

What the German school did was not the first incident concerning attempts to penetrate Egyptian society through international schools promoting homosexuality.

On December 27, 2017, the Ministry of Education conducted urgent investigations into a case involving a curriculum image circulating on social media platforms promoting "homosexual culture."

The ministry's spokesman at the time, Ahmed Khairy, stated in a press statement, "The ministry decided to form a committee from the public education sector to verify the authenticity of the circulated image and whether it belongs to international school textbooks or external books to take strict action in either case."

Activists on Facebook and X at the time published an image of an English language book, which its publishers claimed to be from one of the language books in international schools in Egypt.

The image explained the family structure to students through four pictures, "the first includes grandparents and parents, the second includes parents and children, the third includes two women and a child accompanied by the comment 'two mums and child,' and the fourth includes two men and a child accompanied by the comment 'two dads and child.'"

Activists at the time saw that the image promoted homosexuality and entrenched a culture of same-sex marriage in the new generation of Egyptian children.