CAIRO - Newly appointed Education Minister Ahmed Gamal Eddin Moussa pledged yesterday to abide by a court ruling ordering campus police to stay outside Egypt's public universities. "There will be no more policemen or plainclothes detectives on campuses anymore. This will be applied soon," Moussa said, citing a court ruling issued last October that ordered university presidents to replace Interior Ministry personnel with civilian security guards. "Campus police, which had a negative impact on student life since 1981, will be replaced with civilian guards shortly," Moussa, who doubles as Minister of Higher Education, said during an inspection tour of schools in the Delta Governorate of Daqahliya. The Supreme Administrative Court ordered that security forces from the Ministry of Interior should evacuate the Cairo University campus. Moussa said the ruling affirmed constitutional guarantees to full independence of universities and research centres that "contribute to promoting knowledge and offering sciences that support society and pave the way for a better future for the country". Meanwhile, the Supreme Council for Universities, which oversees higher education in Egypt, has disbanded student unions at all Egyptian universities and ordered elections should be held within 60 days as of the start of the second term due on Saturday. "The new elections will be fair allowing all students to take part in them with no restrictions," said Minister Moussa, also the head of the council. Student union elections held on October 2010 were marred with violations, according to academic observers. Students, mostly affiliated to the banned Muslim Brotherhood, were disqualified from the list of candidates allowing students from the ruling party, hand-picked by security bodies, to win the polls uncontested.University administrators had justified their actions saying that disqualified students had not met nomination requirements, according to the student charter, of a "good reputation". Moussa added that the council was discussing a proposal to make deans of the faculties inside universities elected by the staff not appointed as before. Moussa, once a minister of education for less than one year, also declared that he would enforce a court ruling that allowed female students wearing the niqab, or a full face veil, to attend university examinations, or entering university hostels. "All court rulings will be implemented by the universities. This is a final decision," said Moussa. Most Islamic scholars say they believe wearing a headscarf is a must, while few consider the niqab obligatory, with Egypt's top religious authorities saying in December that the face veil had no basis in Islam.
