100 Red Sea Nursery Staff Trained in a Japanese Play-Based Method, Including Early Disability Screening
Egypt's Ministry of Social Solidarity has trained 100 nursery facilitators from Ras Ghareb down to Halayeb in the Japanese "learning through play" model, with a strand on spotting disability early. The reports do not say which nurseries took part.
4 October 2026
One hundred nursery staff from across the Red Sea Governorate have been trained to work with young children through a Japanese method called "learning through play", in a programme run by Egypt's Ministry of Social Solidarity, according to Al-Masry Al-Youm.
The training covered nurseries in seven administrations: Ras Ghareb, Hurghada, Safaga, El Quseir, Marsa Alam, Shalateen and Halayeb. Hanan Mostafa, head of the ministry's Central Administration for Family and Women's Affairs, said the Red Sea was chosen as one of Egypt's largest border governorates, under a plan to take capacity-building programmes out to the border governorates. The method is being transferred in cooperation with the Japanese agency JICA.
The 100 places went to facilitators from NGO nurseries, private nurseries and nurseries holding temporary licences, and the teaching was delivered by five certified trainers whom the ministry had itself trained in March 2026. The programme runs in three strands:
- basic training, on the principles of the Japanese model and the strategies of learning through play
- advanced training, on facilitation skills, innovation and running an interactive classroom
- inclusion and early detection, intended to let facilitators spot disability early and integrate children with disabilities into their nurseries
Each of the 100 facilitators was given two guidebooks — one covering children from one day to two years old, the second from two to four years — plus a kit of simple tools meant to be used to make interactive teaching aids out of materials already to hand, building sensory and motor skills rather than traditional rote academic teaching.
Amr El-Tohamy, director of the Red Sea Social Solidarity Directorate, said the training is an important step in raising the standard of services for children, taking account of the governorate's geography and how its nurseries are spread across it. Dr Hanem Omar, general director of the General Administration for Child Affairs, said local trainers were selected against criteria meant to ensure training quality and fair geographic distribution.
For parents on this coast the practical question is left open: neither report names the nurseries that took part, gives the dates of the training, or says when a parent would see the method in use in their own child's room.