PLANNING FOR THE REAL WORLD: Bridging the Gap Between Planning Education and Practice in Egypt Ahmed Yousry Hala Mekawy Faculty of Urban and Regional Planning Cairo University ABSTRACT This paper focuses on bridging the gap between education in planning schools and the skills needed by practitioners facing urban realities. The authors explore the nature and scope of this discrepancy in the Egyptian context, highlighting problematic issues in planning education and practice. A review of the recent emerging trends in planning practice of strategic management, environmental sustainability, and community-based, action-oriented intervention, outlines skills enabling practitioners to deal effectively with various factors shaping the contextual environment. Such skills incorporate mastering the choice and application of basic methods of scientific thinking, as well as actively adapting to complexities, uncertainties, and continuous change in different settings. The paper proposes various educational methods and techniques to develop needed skills for practice. These propositions include developing formal pedagogy to emphasize first, formulation of creative ways of thinking and innovative, flexible methodologies in contrast to acquiring rigid theoretical techniques; and second, enabling multi- and interdisciplinary education to encompass managerial and environmental requirements. In addition, the paper calls for informal approaches such