Over the last two decades, international development work in Egypt has focused on enhancing the status of women and girls through fostering agency and empowering communities. In 2001, Population Council, a large international non-governmental organization, designed and implemented Ishraq (Sunrise), a 20-month second-chance school program for girls in rural Upper Egypt, aiming to transform the lives of girls between the ages of 12-15 through literacy and life-skills training. In examining the legacy of educational intervention in Egypt since the colonial period (1882-1922), this paper draws on Timothy Mitchell’s (1988, 2002) works concerning the mechanisms of social control used by the British colonial administration as they relate to the practice of schooling. This contextual framing is particularly important as Ishraq was implemented against the backdrop of larger national level reform strategies. Through a critical examination of Henry Ayrout’s (1938) work on rural development and Egyptian peasant life during the interwar period, this analysis illustrates how the State and non-state actors historically favored interventions that focus on eradicating behaviors deemed ‘backwards’ or ‘pre-modern’ in rural areas. In addition to this historical analysis, this paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted over a six-month period between 2011-14 to reveal the uneven experiences of Ishraq staff and students are largely sustained through colonial-era schooling practices employed by teachers. Through examining program documents and conducting interviews with program staff and their locally based Egyptian NGO partners, this paper illustrates that Ishraq does not adequately account for the historical, sociocultural, and structural conditions that have come to shape the experiences of girls living in rural Upper Egypt. These historical and textual analyses illustrate how Ishraq’s advocacy for the reform of local “culture” affects the experiences of teachers, students, and program staff in uneven ways. This critical poststructural analysis of the research findings suggests Ishraq furthers the divide that exists between rural and urban communities in Upper Egypt.