The government is prepared to partner with civil society and the private sector to overhaul Egypt's decrepit education system, reports Nevine Khalil from Alexandria The Bibliotheca Alexandrina was the venue for a conference on reforming Egypt's education system, which was inaugurated by President Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday. Mubarak described the conference titled "Towards a knowledge society -- the future of education in Egypt" as "a new phase of national dialogue on all issues of importance and relevance for comprehensive development". Within that dynamic, education was especially important as "a part and parcel of development, the basis for a renaissance, and a cornerstone of building an enlightened and open society", Mubarak said. He said an independent monitoring body would be created to oversee the accreditation of educational institutions to ensure they meet acceptable standards. Draft legislation would be introduced at the next parliamentary session to that effect. Mubarak plans to preside over a series of meetings in the coming weeks with Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif's new cabinet to discuss much-needed service reforms. According to presidential spokesman Maged Abdel-Fattah, these would include discussions of health and unemployment, as well as the new cabinet's future projects and plans. On Tuesday, Mubarak told his audience of nearly 300 university professors, educators and students that the end product of Egypt's current education system leaves much to be desired; much reform was needed if that was to change. Curricula, teaching methods, and teacher skills must all be improved; educational administration must be decentralised (as long as general guidelines are maintained); a culture of scientific research must be supported; services for special needs students should improve; and the university system should be revamped, either by creating new facilities or restructuring the largest ones into smaller, more specialised campuses. Mubarak spoke of a knowledge-based society's need to increase young people's competitive ability, raise their sense of belonging and nationalism, and create a vigorous and interactive student life atmosphere. Bringing down unemployment levels by focussing on the real needs of the job market for skilled and technical talent was also essential. All of these reforms, he said, should be undertaken based on a partnership between the private sector and civil society, on the one hand, working alongside the government, on the other. "The government, education boards, civil society and the private sector must all work together to achieve our shared goal of raising the standard of education," Mubarak said. Prime Minister Nazif also spoke to the gathering, providing an overview of the progress that has been made thus far. He said government policies would be focussed on providing education where it is needed, and improving the quality of the education being dispensed. Mirroring Mubarak's comments, Nazif said the system as a whole needed to be overhauled, and that society as a whole should take responsibility for education. This would only occur via a decentralisation of the process, and the creation of the monitoring body ensuring quality within that new dynamic. Minister of Higher Education and State Minister for Scientific Research Amr Ezzat Salama -- the man who will be responsible for implementing most of these ideas -- told the conference that the educational reform being planned was based on a number of principles, including due consideration for limited income families, maintaining realistic goals, continuous follow-up on these goals, belief that education and scientific research are a bridge towards an information society, and producing graduates who are competitive on the world stage. Salama said future goals would also include producing and promoting knowledge, encouraging distinction and competitiveness, utilising higher education and scientific research as a vehicle for development, and encouraging innovation and creativity. Egypt's 12 public and six private universities currently provide higher education for 1.45 million graduates and undergraduates, who are taught by 65,000 professors and assistant professors. The state's public university education budget for 2003- 2004 was LE6 billion.
