Cairo University has signed a partnership deal with the Sorbonne in Paris, allowing the French university to establish branches for its law school and political science department in 6th of October City. The Egyptian government will provide the necessary land for this new project, which will also be used for the construction other facilities, such as a new building for the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and condominiums for the university's teaching staff. The Sorbonne buildings will be neighbored by other foreign university branches: an engineering faculty affiliated with Nottingham University (UK), faculties of nursing and administrative sciences affiliated with the University of Georgia (US), a hotel management college affiliated with Heilbronn University (Germany), and the Confucius Institute for teaching Chinese and Arabic languages (Beijing). Hossam Kamel, Cairo University president, said the foreign branches are not a profit-making operation, but rather they aim to provide new educational programs through cooperation with advanced universities around the world. A quarter of the spots in these colleges will be reserved for high-achieving students, he noted. Regarding funding, Kamel said that agreements will be signed with strategic partners, including sectors that seek to employ graduates from these foreign branches--such as tourism, insurance, aviation, petroleum, and medicine. He explained that while Cairo University will gain little by way of funding or revenue, it will benefit from the improvement of education, collaboration with foreign universities, scholarships the project will provide, and the return of expatriate skills. Kamel added that graduates of these branches will obtain a certificate accredited by Cairo University and the partnering insitution, enabling them to work in the home countries of these universities. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
