Minister of Education meets with UK Minister of Education
Mr. Mohamed Abdel Latif, Minister of Education and Technical Education, met with Ms. Catherine McKinnell, UK Minister of Education, to discuss ways of cooperation in the field of developing pre-university education within the framework of the Global Partnership for Education "GPE".
This came in the presence of Mark Howard, Director of the British Council in Egypt, Dr. Hanem Ahmed, Advisor to the Minister of Education for International Relations, and Hala Ahmed, Head of the English Language Programs and Pre-University Education Department at the British Council.
At the beginning of the meeting, Minister Mohamed Abdel Latif, Minister of Education, praised the various areas of cooperation with the United Kingdom, based on strong foundations of understanding and trust, and the support it provides to develop and advance the educational process in Egypt, especially with regard to the needs necessary for teaching the English language, capacity building activities to develop teachers' language skills, and ensuring the quality of transferring training to others.
Minister Mohamed Abdel Latif also reviewed the mechanisms that have been implemented over the past months to overcome chronic challenges represented by student densities and teacher shortages.
The Minister also reviewed the details of the Egyptian Baccalaureate Certificate proposal that was put forward for community dialogue in Egypt as an alternative to the General Secondary Education System, which includes many aspects of similarity with the British education system due to the multiple opportunities it provides in tests instead of the one-chance system that decides the fate of his future, in addition to the paths that the student chooses from according to his abilities and inclinations.
The Minister stressed the efforts of the Egyptian state in developing education, which aim to improve the educational experiences of our students in a positive way through an educational system characterized by skills, knowledge and activities, in cooperation with a number of partners, by providing curricula and developing both teaching tools and educational means.
For her part, Ms. Catherine McNeill praised the strong tangible steps taken by the Egyptian state in the field of developing pre-university education, praising in this context the efforts of Minister Mohamed Abdel Latif over the past months to overcome the challenges of student densities and teacher shortages, stressing that it represents a strong step towards enhancing ways to advance the education system, pointing out the British side's keenness to continue strengthening cooperation frameworks to develop the education system in Egypt within the framework of the Global Partnership for Education "GpE"
The meeting witnessed a discussion of ways to enhance cooperation mechanisms in educational services provided to develop curricula to improve students' abilities to speak and acquire English in a practical way that enables them to use it, and develop students' critical thinking skills.
The meeting also included a discussion of enhancing aspects of cooperation in continuing professional development (CPD) programs for teachers in England, which aim to enhance teachers' abilities to face current challenges in education, develop teaching skills and improve their performance in classrooms, and focus on the latest teaching methods, classroom strategies, and educational technologies.