Ashley Wu

Every afternoon in Cairo, as the final bell rings, students pour out of school buildings only to enter another educational world, one that is unregulated, expensive, and increasingly essential. These “shadow classrooms,” Egypt’s vast private tutoring system, have become so normalized that many students consider school optional and tutoring mandatory. But behind this parallel system lies a troubling truth: relying on private instruction to compensate for public-school shortcomings deepens...

The United Kingdom spends billions annually on education, yet inequality thrives in plain sight. The divide isn’t between north and south, but between state and private—a structural hypocrisy Britain has normalized for generations. Seven percent of British students attend private schools, yet they dominate Oxbridge admissions, top professions, and Parliament seats. Eton alone has produced twenty prime ministers. Meanwhile, public schools in deprived areas struggle with teacher turnover and...

Beyond the tourist boulevards of Paris and the Riviera’s gleam, many French suburbs—known as banlieues—experience a different reality....