Former Egyptian Minister of Education Youssry el-Gamal recently revealed the details of how the former First Lady was involved in his dismissal from his ministerial position a year and a half ago. El-Gamal said, “a former minister in Ahmed Nazif's cabinet called me directly after my dismissal and told me that Suzanne Mubarak thought I was not paying sufficient attention to the ‘100 schools' project,” which was adopted by an NGO she headed. El-Gamal refused to reveal the name of the minister who told him of Suzanne's involvement. El-Gamal said he was actually very supportive of the 100 schools project, as he was a proponent of increasing social involvement in the development of education. “I told this minister that Suzanne Mubarak's impression was incorrect, and that members of the organization would attest to how supportive I was of it,” he said. He does not know if his response reached her. El-Gamal told Youm7 that the former first lady never contacted him regarding the project and he was surprised to learn that his sudden removal was connected to the project. Regarding his relationship with Mubarak, the former minister said, “When I first came to office in 2006, he called me a few times to inquire about news published in the media regarding education. Otherwise, our contact was restricted to official ministerial meetings held at the presidential palace and our conversation was mostly about developing secondary education.” El-Gamal talked about how he followed the preparations made for the revolution by the youth and political organizations prior to the revolution's start on January 25. “I logged onto Facebook after the success of the Tunisian revolution on January 14 and was surprised to discover that youth were enthusiastically calling for a revolution on January 25. I realized that political change was afoot," he said. He added that he was a witness to the events on January 28, Egypt's “Friday of Anger.” He was in downtown Cairo at the time. He said he felt unashamed at formerly belonging to a cabinet under the old regime, but rather was “full of respect for your youth and happy that things were changing.” El-Gamal said education in Egypt must undergo a similar revolution as that of January 25, which “has made us realize that Egypt deserves better educational standards and that better education should be a priority." El-Gamal left his position suddenly on January 3, 2011. He refused to talk about his sudden exit from office and has only recently emerged to state that Suzanne Mubarak was behind his dismissal.
