CAIRO: The British (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) IGCSE certificate, available in the final three years of high school in Egypt, will be expanded to include potential training and certificates beginning from the elementary level. The Egyptian Ministry of Education has approved the new pre-IGCSE program offered by the University of Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) designed to help prepare students for IGCSE. Minister of Education Yosri El Gamal will make the official announcement tomorrow. During a press conference at the Four Seasons hotel, Magda Mohy El Din, CIE Senior Business Development Manager for the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region, explained that instead of the 16+ and 18+ exams, there will now be certification for primary, middle, higher-secondary, and pre-university years. She calls the new certifications a "turning point, which parents had long been asking for. IGCSE is an international version of the British GCSE certification, which relies heavily on practical application and includes exams which are worth 100 percent of a student's mark. Christine Daw, the CIE Mena regional manager says the system promotes both "learning, and how to apply learning. The new pre-IGCSE certification will demand that students complete national requirements in Arabic, Religion, and Social Studies, while the Sciences, Maths, and English as a Second Language testing will follow the IGCSE system. Mohy El Din says keeping the former three subjects national was important to maintaining the "Egyptian character. Under this system, equivalent to the edadaya (prep school) years, students may then continue with either IGCSE or the national Thanaweya Amma. The expanded version of the program comes after Year 6 was reintroduced into the primary stage of the Egyptian education system. Approximately nine schools have included or shown interest in including the Pre-IGCSE in their curricula. Mohy El Din says that schools other than British ones can participate and expects Experimental schools especially to show interest. The IGCSE is the only certification established between the Egyptian and British governments, with the original protocol established in 1990. There are currently about 4,000 IGCSE students across 70 schools in Egypt. Internationally, there are 150 countries which participate in CIE examinations, including all the Middle Eastern countries. CIE will be celebrating its 150th anniversary next year.
