Recent decades have witnessed some strange educational decisions, while there is still no single strategy for developing education. The worst decision was when Dr Fathi Sorour, former minister of education, cancelled the sixth grade of the primary stage in the 1990s. Several years later, the sixth grade came back. Since the January 25 revolution, little has changed. The People's Assembly now wants to change the Thanawia Amma (General Certificate for Secondary Education) from two years to one year, without any proper preparation. We are still suffering from a lack of schools, classrooms and professionals teachers, while the curriculum hasn't changed to suit the new system. On April 23, Parliament's Islamists passed a new draft law for changing the Thanawia Amma, in order to decrease the financial and emotional burden on parents and pupils alike. According to Article 28 of the new law, the Thanawia Amma will be reduced from a two-year to a one-year course. The new law will be enforced in the coming academic year, 2012-13, in the first secondary, or tenth grade. “The curriculum won't exchange, except for advanced scientific courses,” Mohamed Nada, general manager at the Ministry of Education's General Administration of Examinations, says. “According to Article 28, pupils who fail one or two subjects will be allowed to re-sit them, but will only receive a maximum of 50 per cent,” he adds. According to the Article, those who will fail the exam once will be allowed to take it again without going to school, in return for paying LE200 for each subject. Pupils will be allowed to re-sit the exam only once, he explains. “A former minister of education changed the Thanawia Amma from one year to two years to help the families and pupils,” Mohamed Hassan, who has two girls at the Thanawia Amma stage, told The Egyptian Gazette. “I had to pay for private lessons for my girls for two years instead of one; I think the new system of one year will be better for the parents,” he added. “The Thanawia Amma is a terrible burden on families,” Um Mohamed, who has a boy in first secondary, told the same newspaper. “Tuition swallows up all our family income. I cannot buy any new things for us because we have a boy in Thanawia Amma. “In the new system, like the old one, we will have to pay for private lessons for our children, because they can only get into university if they get good marks in final exam” Um Mohamed said. Mr Hossam Ali, a teacher at the Saqr Qureish Experimental School in New Maadi, says: “I think that reducing the Thanawia Amma nightmare from two years to one will mess up the curriculum.” The old curriculum will remain the same. Instead of dividing it into two years, pupils will now study two years of courses in one year, as was the case before Minister of Education Kamel Behaa Eddin, says an official source at the Ministry of Education. “The Ministry spends LE115 million every year on printing new textbooks. We cannot afford to print different curricula. Later on, the Ministry can consider this issue.” “I am lucky because the new system will apply to me,” Amr el-Rouby, a 10th grade schoolboy, told this newspaper. “I will study hard for one year instead of two years. It will be a lot cheaper, as I will only need private lessons in the third year of the secondary stage,” he explained. “I am an orphan and my family are on a limited income. The two-year Thanawia Amma course would be too expensive for my family to let me do,” says Hesham Khafagi, in ninth grade. “Now it's been changed to one year, I'll be able to do it.”
