CAIRO - The Thanawiya Amma, the local equivalent of a high school leaving certificate, has earned special significance in the Egyptian society in its capacity as an 'automatic' gateway for university education. According to the Egyptian educational system, admission to university depends on the total score of the final exams of the Thanawiya Amma, which prompts a fervent race among students to win a seat in public universities where annual tuition fees do not exceed LE200 (US$33.3). The admission mechanism takes place through a Co-ordination Bureau, which is responsible for determining the minimum score that entitles students to enrol in a certain college. Accordingly, thousands expect that they will continue higher education, since a university degree is socially prestigious and only costs a few hundred pounds. The problem which secondary school graduates are currently facing today is the large numbers that have managed to score more than 90 per cent. The result is that the ostensibly 'outstanding' students outnumber the available seats, especially in medical schools, whose places are highly in demand. This situation has been arrived at as a result of a flawed system that focuses on schooling oriented towards examinations rather that the acquisition of knowledge, with the regrettable consequence that students' major concern is to pass exams with high marks. As long as school education focuses on rote learning and university education is almost free of charge we will continue in the same vicious circle. There will be thousands of substandard graduates, who know how to answer questions without being an asset to the labour market.
