The Minister of Education holds a discussion session with the editors of the education file in newspapers

Mr. Mohamed Abdel Latif, Minister of Education and Technical Education, held a discussion session with the editors of the education file in newspapers and websites; to review all the details of the decisions that have been taken over the past months in favor of the educational process. The session also comes within the framework of the community dialogue on the "Proposal of the Egyptian Baccalaureate Certificate".

At the beginning of the meeting, the Minister stressed the importance of listening to different points of view, pointing to the role of the media as a strategic partner in clarifying issues to public opinion and providing accurate and objective information, and combating rumors that may affect the course of the educational process, indicating that the Ministry is keen on the participation of all parties in making decisions that affect the future of education in Egypt, enhancing transparency and clarifying all efforts and projects implemented by the Ministry to develop the educational process.

During the meeting, the Minister spoke about the decisions taken during the past six months, which provided positive and constructive solutions to the chronic challenges of the educational process that have lasted for about 30 years, including student densities that used to reach 120 students per class and have now reached less than 50 students, as well as addressing the problem of the shortage in the number of teachers, especially in basic subjects, in addition to the student attendance rate, which currently reaches more than 85%, after it did not exceed 9%, stressing that reaching solutions to these challenges was the result of visits to more than 300 schools, meetings with more than 15,000 school principals, and everyone’s cooperation to build plans that were implemented in order to solve these problems on the ground, saying: “And we succeeded in facing these challenges by 99%.” The Minister pointed out that the educational system includes more than 25 million students and about 1.2 million teachers, and there are mechanisms and controls for the system that are present and strong, stressing that despite the increase in the attendance rate in schools, problems within schools have decreased and are almost non-existent as a result of the mechanisms of the learning process becoming disciplined and there is always a process of continuous reform and evaluation through the participatory roles of all those in charge of the system, whether students, teachers or the media, and all those concerned with the educational process.

Regarding the weekly evaluation program and classroom performances, the Minister of Education explained that this system is applied globally, explaining that assignments have been unified at the republic level from the class booklet, homework and weekly evaluations, and this mechanism was applied in the current academic year to official government schools for a good educational process.

In this context, the Minister stressed that the interest of the student is the main motive behind all the decisions taken by the Ministry, and there are absolutely no decisions taken individually, but all decisions come after studying, polling and researching with all levels of implementing the decision, and therefore the decision to evaluate students in the first and second grades came, to preserve their integration into the educational process, and to avoid long periods of interruption at this young age, which is an important foundational stage, adding that for the same motive came the decisions to increase the number of school days to 173 days this year.

Regarding the expansion in the number of schools and classrooms, the Minister explained that 150,000 classrooms have been built in public education schools in the past ten years, bringing the number of classrooms to 480,000, so what has been built and created is considered a third of what has been built in Egyptian schools over decades, but this year alone, 98,000 classrooms have been created, bringing the total number of classrooms to 580,000, noting that classrooms have been built in many remote areas in the various governorates; in order to serve our students.

Minister Mohamed Abdel Latif noted that there are 3,000 schools operating in two shifts across the country out of 60,000 schools in governorates with high densities, most notably Cairo and Giza, noting that during the coming period, solutions will be proposed to reduce the number of schools operating in two shifts resulting from the high student density in some schools.

With regard to overcoming the deficit in the number of teachers, the minister explained that the distribution of the legal quota is done in a way that ensures justice among teachers, so that the quota ranges between (16 and 24) classes according to the teacher's cadre, and as for senior teachers, they are required to have 16 classes, which is equivalent to three classes per day, knowing that the school day includes seven classes, and teachers who exceed their legal quota receive an immediate financial allowance estimated at 50 pounds for each additional class, which represents one of the ways to increase teachers' income.

Minister Mohamed Abdel Latif revealed that an evaluation of the performance of directors of educational directorates will be conducted during the current month.

During the meeting, the Minister also provided an introductory explanation of the reasons behind proposing the proposal for the “Egyptian Baccalaureate” certificate system, explaining that in light of the challenges facing the educational system in Egypt, especially secondary education, where secondary schools lacked student attendance and 32 subjects, which is not found in any country in the world, which negatively affected the quality of education and the educational climate, adding that the large number of subjects caused great pressure on students, in addition to the fact that this amount of subjects also caused teachers to be unable to complete the curriculum on time, which prompted some students to resort to external sources, which represents a financial burden on parents. In addition, there was not enough time to teach students the necessary life skills, which affected the integration of the educational process.

Regarding overcoming the shortage in the number of teachers, the Minister explained that the distribution of the legal quota is done in a way that ensures justice among teachers, so that the quota ranges between (16 and 24) classes according to the teacher's cadre, and as for senior teachers, they are required to have 16 classes, which is equivalent to three classes per day, knowing that the school day includes seven classes, and teachers who exceed their legal quota receive an immediate financial allowance estimated at 50 pounds for each additional class, and this represents one of the ways to increase teachers' income.

Minister Mohamed Abdel Latif revealed that an evaluation of the performance of the directors of educational directorates will be conducted during the current month.

During the meeting, the Minister also provided an introductory explanation of the reasons behind proposing the proposal for the “Egyptian Baccalaureate” certificate system, explaining that in light of the challenges facing the educational system in Egypt, especially secondary education, where secondary schools lacked student attendance and 32 subjects, which is not found in any country in the world, which negatively affected the quality of education and the educational climate, adding that the large number of subjects caused great pressure on students, in addition to the fact that this amount of subjects also caused teachers to be unable to complete the curriculum on time, which prompted some students to resort to external sources, which represents a financial burden on parents, in addition to that, there was not enough time to teach students the necessary life skills, which affected the integration of the educational process. The Minister continued that, based on this, it was necessary to think about a quick and initial procedure for this problem, which came by reducing the number of subjects prescribed for the secondary stage, then presenting a complete vision for this new proposal and presenting it for community dialogue in preparation for presenting it to the House of Representatives, stressing that this proposal ultimately aims to improve the quality of education and reduce the burden on students, noting that the proposal was put forward after developing well-studied plans for educational systems around the world by experts and members of the National Council for Educational Research and professors of colleges of education, in addition to holding intensive sessions to study this proposal in cooperation with the Supreme Council of Universities, to ensure that the new system is compatible with academic standards and meets the needs of students, as well as keeping pace with international education systems in order to improve the outcomes of that stage in line with the needs of the labor market. Minister Mohamed Abdel Latif added that from this standpoint, the idea of ​​a good educational system was born that gives the student the opportunity and ability to decide his fate, choose and determine his path, and identify his abilities and skills and work on developing them in order to achieve his goal, and his success in it depends on his skills, merits and capabilities, and this represents a main goal for which the new system was introduced, while the second goal is to distribute the burden of studying during this stage over two academic years and not one academic year, adding that the ministry also relied on the results of previous experiments and studies to develop the secondary school.

The minister revealed that the new Egyptian baccalaureate system consists of 7 subjects over two academic years, and the student has the right to take the exam in the subject twice during the academic year, and it also gives him the right to determine and modify his path in accordance with his capabilities, and the settlement on setting 100 equal degrees for all subjects came to ensure that the basic subjects are equal in importance, in addition to reducing the burden on parents and removing the psychological pressure that affects many of them every year due to the secondary school system.

Regarding the religious education subject and its addition to the total, the minister explained that the Islamic religion curriculum is developed by Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, while the Christian religion curriculum is developed by the church, and both curricula carry all the values, ethics and lofty principles according to the general framework set by the ministry, and are presented to the central administration for curriculum development at the ministry to measure the relative weight of the two curricula, adding that the main goal of adding religious education to the total is to preserve religion, values ​​and ethics among students and face challenges in light of openness to the world.

Minister Mohamed Abdel Latif also revealed that the ministry intends to amend the law to include religion in the total as a basic subject for all stages starting from the next academic year.

Minister Mohamed Abdel Latif added that the new baccalaureate system links the content of the curriculum to the vision of developing the educational system, indicating that it is necessary for the curricula to be subject to development every period in line with the developments presented in the labor market, which is witnessing the creation of new jobs and requires qualified individuals with superior abilities and competencies, and this is what we are trying to provide through the vision presented for this important educational stage.

During the meeting, the Minister of Education responded to the inquiries of the editors of the education file about the executive mechanisms of the decisions taken by the ministry during the past months. He was also keen to clarify all questions about the Egyptian Baccalaureate proposal and listened to their opinions and suggestions about the proposal. For their part, the editors of the education file appreciated the keenness of Minister Mohamed Abdel Latif to present the Egyptian Baccalaureate proposal for community dialogue and clarify all decisions, mechanisms and details related to the Egyptian Baccalaureate proposal, which contributes to clarifying its details to public opinion in a professional and constructive framework.