CAIRO: The Education Administration in Giza, which falls under the Ministry of Education, has announced it is soon to conduct trials on a new examination aimed at assessing the professional abilities of school teachers in Egypt prior to the implementation of the new teachers' law. Once the new law is introduced, the examination will be used to assess how suitable teachers are for their prospective posts, as well as their eligibility for pay raises set out in the legislation. "If the examination provides the right standard by which to measure the teachers' performance, then it would be applied by the rest of the education administrations in Egypt, Azza Essmat, chairman of the Education Administration in Giza, told Daily News Egypt. According to Essmat, the tests were set by the national center for examinations and will be conducted on a random sample of teachers from different governorates. Last January, Youssry Al-Gamal, minister of education, announced that the new teachers' law should be implemented in all schools, both public and private. The hype surrounding the law, which was approved by the People's Assembly (PA), was mainly due to the salary increase it would provide to underpaid teachers working for public schools, while putting limitations on private tutoring. However, the inclusion of non-teaching staff working in the education sector and the teachers working for educational institutions not directly affiliated to the Ministry of Education has stirred problems over the past year. Last summer, the PA approved a law offering a special raise to all workers in the education sector who will not benefit from the new teachers' law. The amount offered is similar to the raise given to teachers, MP Farid Ismail told Daily News Egypt. Al-Azhar teachers also protested their exclusion from the new law. A presidential decree made the teachers' law, with all its privileges, applicable to Al-Azhar teachers. The PA originally recommended that the law be applicable to teachers in public, private and Al-Azhar schools. However, since the law falls under the authority of the Ministry of Education, it cannot be applied to institutions outside its jurisdiction. Magdy Rady, cabinet spokesperson had told the press that the Ministry of Finance's estimated budget for the implementation of the law for Al-Azhar teachers would be around LE 272 million for the first phase and LE 274.3 million for the second phase. The law was expected to be implemented last July, benefiting a total of 151,549 Al-Azhar teachers. By the end of this year, there will be about 60,000 teachers working under the authority of the Ministry of Education.
