Public concern and government acknowledgment of the educational crisis gripping the country is forcing everyone to look for credible answers, writes Gamal Nkrumah President Hosni Mubarak summoned cabinet ministers for an emergency meeting to arrest Egypt's declining educational standards. In the wake of the leaking to students of secondary school final exam papers and widespread public concern over the country's increasingly dysfunctional educational system, Mubarak called for "ongoing discourse" to improve educational standards in the country. Attending the meeting were Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, Minister of Interior Habib El-Adli, as well as the Minister of Education Yosri El-Gamal. Also in attendance were Moufid Shehab, minister of state for legal and parliamentary affairs, and Ahmed Darwish, minister of state for administrative development. The meeting lasted for more than three hours, a measure of the seriousness with which the sorry state of educational affairs is viewed in the highest quarters. According to the official daily Al-Ahram President Mubarak urged caution and warned against the sudden introduction of changes in the syllabus and exam procedures. Even though it was acknowledged that problems exist that necessitate radical solutions, the cabinet consensus at the meeting summoned by Mubarak was that decision-makers should tread carefully as far as education is concerned. Rash decisions on education must be avoided before all aspects of the troubled sector's problems are thoroughly discussed and options for change and alternative educational systems reviewed. Faced with a crisis, the classic government response in most countries is to set up a review. Often such reports are shelved indefinitely, the original intention forgotten. Not so with Hani Hilal, minister of higher education and scientific research, who cited the future of agricultural studies, the focus of a specialised conference held in Cairo on Saturday, as an example. Agricultural studies, Hilal stressed, must emphasise food production and food security in general. He disclosed that the cabinet meeting was intended as a "brain-storming session" in which the goal was to help gear education to the demands of the job market so that graduates would have better employment prospects. While official papers were upbeat about the seriousness with which the cabinet meeting tackled educational concerns, opposition and independent papers took it all with a pinch of salt. While the government was busy trying to resolve wider educational concerns, Prosecutor-General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud disclosed some of the results of preliminary investigations into the leaking of exam papers, vowing that the culprits would be brought to book and that no one is above the law. Suspects were detained for a fortnight. The din of hysterical students and parents fretting over the results of the most dreaded examination in Egypt, the thanawiya aama, or national secondary school certificate, has not subsided. If anything it reached a crescendo this week. The government is treating the matter with utmost gravity. "We are carrying out thorough investigations and we are determined to bring the culprits to book," Governor of Minya General Ahmed Diaaeddin told Al-Ahram Weekly. Investigations are currently underway and General Diaaeddin has taken a keen personal interest in the matter. However, official investigations are not restricted to Minya, and nationwide investigations concerning the exam scam have reportedly already yielded results. Meanwhile, a spate of suicides and attempted suicides among students sitting the thanawiya aama exams have sounded the alarm bells and further aroused public concern. Two stugh+-*dents committed suicide: on Monday Mirhan Salem, 18, flung herself from her sixth floor apartment in Port Said in despair, while on the same day Hassan Yosri, 16, strangled himself in his bedroom at home in Giza after suffering depression because of his poor performance in the thanawiya aama. The press has inundated readers with images of distraught students, splashed across the front pages of independent and opposition party papers. There have been charges that the exam papers themselves contained mistakes, rendering the questions unanswerable or unintelligible, particularly in French, mathematics and mechanics. According to independent dailies such as Al-Dostour, Al-Masry Al-Yom and Nahdet Masr, some students threatened to boycott the exams altogether. In Helwan thousands of students stayed on after the time allocated for the mathematics exam had long expired. They complained bitterly that the exam was far too difficult and that some of the questions were wrong and had no correct answer. "This is a nerve-racking waste of time," one student was quoted as saying. Some teachers have conceded that the exams were flawed, and few would argue with Al-Dostour which contended that even though special, ad hoc thanawiya aama committees had been created to scrutinise the exam results and academic performance of the children of senior officials sitting the exam in Minya and other governorates, this was no answer to the deep-rooted problems afflicting education in Egypt. Given the general state of corruption in the country such problems cannot be eradicated overnight. Journalists covering the exam scandal in particular, and the educational concerns in general, have come under fire from those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Haggag El-Husseini, Al-Ahram 's correspondent in Minya, received death threats from the parents of students who bought leaked exam papers, many of them thought to be members of the security forces. The first correspondent to investigate the story, El-Husseini has escaped unscathed but journalists covering education are taking the threats seriously.
