Minister of Education and Technical Education, Tarek Shawki, launched on Monday an electronic platform supporting online teacher-student communications. The platform, called Edmodo, allows teachers and students to communication through virtual classes, due to the ongoing suspension of schools. Shawki said the ministry has also decided to limit this semester's curriculum to those areas taught until 15 March, when schools were suspended. He added that students at the primary and preparatory levels have, in lieu of taking exams, been asked to undertake research projects to pass the academic year. Shawki said that the ministry's digital library includes many references and digital resources to help students prepare the research projects. He pointed out that the ministry has also provided a separate platform for virtual classes to be directly broadcast. He added that the ministry is collaborating with Microsoft to provide office programmes for free to nearly 20 million students via the Edmodo platform to support home learning. Over 5 million students have registered on the new platform, Shawki said, urging students to focus on preparing their research projects. He explained that the ministry has worked to provide solutions that do not rely on internet connections. This ensures that students can still refer to their textbooks whilst also providing examples of research projects for students to follow. Shawki noted that the ministry will announce how students can hand over the research projects on 1 May. Edmodo is a free educational platform that helps teachers to communicate safely with their students, whilst supporting cooperation within the virtual classroom.
