Egyptian Prime Minister, Mostafa Madbouly, held a meeting on Tuesday with the ministers of education and communication, Tarek Shawky and Amr Talaat, respectively, to follow up on the preparations of the electronic exams of the first secondary stage this May. During the meeting, Shawki said that school managers will be trained on the new system of electronic exams as well as solving anticipated problems, noting that only a few schools will hold traditional exams, as well as students in hospitals and prisons. For Talaat, he asserted that there is full coordination between the two ministries as well as other entities. He also affirmed that technical teams will be ready to solve any problems. Meanwhile, Madbouly stressed the need for phone lines to facilitate communication if any problems occur. The students of the first secondary stage are set to take their exams from 19 to 30 May. Most schools will apply the new electronic system, but few will not. Earlier in May, the education ministry halted an online trial exam after students from across the country complained about the lagging server as they could not use their electronic tablets to answer the questions. The ministry is supposed to provide free internet cards to the students as part of the its plan to develop the educational process. Shawki has recently complained of the budget of the education ministry. In a meeting of the parliamentary committee of plans and budgets on Monday, Shawki said that his ministry typically struggles to get approvals on any of their financial requests from the ministry of finance. Furthermore, Shawki revealed that the ministry only received EGP 99bn, despite requesting EGP 138 bn. He added: "there is EGP 39bn difference and I still need at least EGP 110bn which will not include increasing the salaries of teachers." Egypt is taking serious steps toward making critical changes in its public education system as part of its 2030 Vision. The government signed an agreement in April with the World Bank for a five-year loan worth $500m to improve education at Egyptian public schools.
