Minister of Education and Technical Education participates in the general session during the "Digital Learning Week 2024

Mr. Mohamed Abdel Latif, Minister of Education and Technical Education, participated in the general session under the title "Technology and Artificial Intelligence in Education: Ensuring a Sustainable, Human-Centered Approach", during the "Digital Learning Week 2024" conference in France, organized by UNESCO, during the period from September 2 to 5, 2024.

The session was moderated by Martin Benavides, Director of the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), with the participation of Kyriakos Pierrakakis, Minister of Education of Greece, Fadhelina Siddiq, Minister of Education of Malaysia, Mustafa Mamba, Minister of National Education of Senegal, and Pasi Hellmann, Under-Secretary of State for International Development, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland.

At the beginning of his speech, Minister Mohamed Abdel Latif expressed his happiness and appreciation to UNESCO for holding this important conference, which coincides with a critical stage as it relates to the increasing importance of artificial intelligence in the field of education, which we all know is in line with UNESCO's directives on artificial intelligence applied in education and research and the need to follow a human-centered approach.

The Minister reviewed the Egyptian vision regarding digital learning and artificial intelligence, where the Minister said that it focuses on the need to protect human dignity and cultural diversity in defining general knowledge, noting that he is participating today in this conference proudly representing a nation with a population of more than one hundred and ten million people, and its rich heritage extends over seven thousand years, and until now its dignity remains the central force in the pulse of its people.

The Minister added that humanity has gone through several stages, namely the agricultural revolution, followed by the industrial revolution, which are milestones in the history of human development, and we are now living in the midst of the digital age, so ignoring the integration of artificial intelligence with education is tantamount to turning a blind eye to the greatest tools that have appeared in the education toolbox.

The Minister of Education stressed that adopting artificial intelligence in classrooms and adapting it to change formative assessment methods in classrooms is a fundamental pillar of Egypt's educational plan, and our long-term plans include teaching students how to benefit from artificial intelligence as a means to an end, not as an end in itself.

The Minister of Education explained that previously, the definition of education was the ability to read and write, then this definition changed to become the ability to use information and communications technology, then it was redefined again to become the ability to program, and today with the emergence of artificial intelligence, there are many systems that can play the role of programming for us, but what we really need is to develop future generations to become experts in identifying existing problems so that artificial intelligence can develop the necessary codes to solve them, which is what we seek to achieve in the future.

The Minister continued that in order to pave the way for Egypt’s long-term plan to integrate AI into formative assessments, we must first succeed in completing our short-term plans, in line with UNESCO’s approach that focuses on people first, noting that to protect the capabilities of our students and all stakeholders in the education system, we are working hard to ensure that quality education is available to all by addressing pressing issues such as infrastructure, inclusiveness for all stakeholders regardless of their socio-economic background, reducing classroom densities and embracing lifelong learning.

The Minister also stressed that focusing on providing our schools with digital technology is the most important goal for us at the moment in order to achieve our sustainable environmental, economic, cultural and social goals, noting that currently every student and teacher in secondary school receives a digital tablet through which they can use all their textbooks and do the required assignments from the theoretical side. This seems ideal and imaginary, but we are now in the process of reviewing our current policy and strategy, because the best way these devices serve students is to use them to bridge educational gaps, not just to transfer information.

The Minister added that, in order to achieve the full success of this approach, there is a lot of work to be done in training and developing both staff and students. In addition, we must sustainably develop curricula so that individual subjects are linked to real life, while emphasizing the importance of environmental, economic, cultural and social objectives. He pointed out that in light of the serious and ongoing debate about the pros and cons of artificial intelligence, Egypt strongly believes that it is not an enemy of education and does not represent a threat to it, and that it is the greatest tool of our time, and that it will help broaden their horizons, hone their skills in the twenty-first century, and improve their self-esteem by giving them the opportunity to be certain of their abilities.

At the end of his speech, the Minister thanked the organizers of this conference, wishing the conference fruitful results.

In response to a question about the strategies and policies implemented by Egypt in view of integrating technology and artificial intelligence into education, the Minister said: "The Egyptian Ministry of Education attaches great importance to arming students with skills that qualify them for future jobs and the coming era, which I believe is an era of creativity and innovation more than a digital era," noting that our plan for the next stage is to integrate technology and artificial intelligence into education, by teaching programming to secondary school students, and eliminating illiteracy in programming to ensure that every graduate is familiar with it, as work is currently underway to prepare curricula for digital content for artificial intelligence, and to integrate students into formative assessment, as well as to strongly integrate artificial intelligence into digital platforms in a manner consistent with the digital era, by designing the Ministry's platforms related to artificial intelligence, in addition to working on a radical change to meet the future needs of students related to programming and computer science specializations.

In response to another question about Egypt’s integration of technology and artificial intelligence into education, the minister said: “The Egyptian education system includes more than 25 million students, and we face a number of challenges, the most difficult of which are the density of classes, the shortage of teachers, and the capacity of the Internet network, as the ministry seeks to enable every student to access the Internet, which is a major challenge.” He added that the ministry is also working to prepare teachers to teach using artificial intelligence and technology, noting that the education system in Egypt includes distinguished teachers and we are working hard to develop their professionalism.