Egyptian students, parents and educators gathered at the British University in Egypt (BUE) on Saturday to celebrate the Egyptian winners of the Outstanding Cambridge Learner Awards from Cairo and Alexandria. The award ceremony, held jointly by the British Council and Cambridge International Qualifications, recognized the achievemnts of Egyptian students in the 2017 Cambridge IGCSE and International AS and A-Level exams. A total of 116 secondary school Learner Awards were handed out, including 75 from Cairo and 41 from Alexandria. Among them were 14 top-of-the-world awards for IGCSEs in Mathematics (without coursework), Physics, Accounting, First Language Arabic, Mathematics, Computer Science, Sociology and Biology, from both the June and November exam sessions. Dr Tarek Shawky, Egypt's minister of education, was on hand to offer his congratulations to the winners. Also present were Jeff Streeter, the British Council's country director for Egypt, and Janet Morris, director of the international network at Cambridge International. Streeter said, “Once again, I'd like to congratulate the many Egyptian students who have done outstandingly well in their examinations. Cambridge's exams represent an international benchmark of quality and the results we are seeing are world class. "As the British Council celebrates 80 years in Egypt, we are proud to have been working with partners like Cambridge and the excellent schools in our network to have developed the wonderful talent of young Egyptians. As we see, young people in Egypt can compete with the best anywhere,” he said. Waseem Al-Hanbali, the MENA-region director for Cambridge International Examinations, joined Streeter in praising students for their outstanding accomplishments. "I would like to congratulate our students in Egypt for the hard work that went into their exams this year. We are pleased to see the growing recognition of the quality of our programme in the education sector in Egypt and are fortunate to be working with the best schools in the region for nearly four decades. "These results were based on the hard work and dedication of learners, teachers, and parents,” he said. Also present on Saturday was Professor Ahmed Hamad, president of the BUE, which hosted the event. The BUE uses the British Council's APTIS system for testing the English-language skills of those seeking admission. The university is one of the largest APTIS clients in the MENA region, with more than 6,000 tests per year.
