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| Higher
education system in Egypt |
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Education in Egypt
Education in Egypt can be divided into two stages: Pre-higher
education (School education) and Higher education. Main authorities
concerned with education are Ministry of Education (MoE) responsible
for school education and Ministry
of higher education is resposible for higher education.
School education system.
School education in Egypt is divided into 3 main stages
Kindergarten
(2 years) Kindergarten is not required and egyptian student can start
his or her education journy from next stage (Basic education)
Basic Education (9 compulsory years)
Secondary Education (3 or 5 years)
Basic educations consists of Primary school fro 6 years and then
Preparatory school for 3 years.

School
year is divided into 2 semesters, at end of each semester students are
being tested on content they took in the semester. In school period
grades are number of points (the total amount of points changes from
shool year to the others - typically rangs from 200 to 380). Students
are considered passed and able to advance to next school year if he or
she was able to get 50% or more of total points.
Afterwards
depending on students grades in last year in preparatory school. They
can apply to Secondary school. Usually students having higher grades
are allowed to apply to "General" Secondary school. Lower grade
students can join vocational or higher techncal schools. Vocational and
technical schools in Egypt are one of three types: Industrial,
Commercial or agricultural.
Schools in Egypt can be categorized into two main categories
*
Governmental schools
1-
Arabic
schools: This type of schools is almost free.
2-
Expermental language schools:
in these schools Science and mathematics are
tought in English and second
forign language is tought starting from Preparatory school (instead of
secondary school compared to Arabic schools). Also they teach advanced
english subject. This type of schools required higher fees and usually
students in this type of schools are one year older than their
colleagues in Arabic schools.
*Private
schools
1- Ordinary
schools:
same as Arabic governmental school but managed by private management.
This type of schools required fees and usually provide better
educations standards and less number of students in one class compared
to Arabic governmental schools. Also private school administration can
choose to teach advanced English subject
2- Language
schools: This schools teach science and mathematics in
English
3- Religious
schools: are religiously oriented schools as Azhar Islamic
schools and Catholic schools
4-
International schools: Usually teach another country's
curriculum, like British, American, German or French system.
In
all cases ministery of education controls almost every thing regarding
school education (except international schools which can implement
their own system - but still must be approved by Egyptian ministry of
education).
Higher education system.
After General secondary school (and
top students from vocational and technical schools) go students
normally to universities or instituations.
*
Universities in Egypt
There are 19 public
(state-funded) universities
in Egypt. They are 18 universities and Al Azhar university. Egyptians
pays only registration fees while non-Egyptians pays full tuition fees
which might reach 1500GBP. In addition to public universities there are
20
private universities where
students pays tuition fees. Those private universities are not funded
by the state but adminstered and funded private organizations.
Generally private universities are having less reputation than public
universities but still some of them like American
university in Cairo (AUC), German
University in Cairo (GUC), Nile
University and Arab
academy for science technology
have high reputation. Private universities have to fullfil some
criteria in order that their certification can be
authenticated
by Minestry of higher education.
In addition to universities there are about 51 public and
109
private non-university institutions
in Egypt. Open universities also available for older people.
Now the 1999 chimestry Nobel prize winner Ahmed Zewail
has initiated and supports idea of a city of science and technology.
The project of Zewail
city of sciecne and technology is now under construction and
will be named after the idea owner.
For list of Universities in Egypt please click here
*
Admission
Applying
to Egyptian universities is centeralized. All students have to apply on
a central office called Coordication office for admission to
uninversities and higher and intermediate instituation (Arabic: مكتب
تنسيق الإلتحاق بالجامعات والمعاهد العليا والمتوسطة) by filling
an
application contain their 48 arranged preferences for faculties or
institutions he or she wants to join. Afterwards Coordiation office
start assigning student how got higher grade in general
secondary
stage to the faculty or institution match their first choice as long as
the faculty or instutution have still free place - according to number
of free places announced yearly- if all free places are
already
occupied they will try assigning the student in faculty or institution
maching his or her 2nd choice and so on untill they find a free place
for the student. In case all choices are not applicable they have to
call the student to choose another one. Also i have to add that student
can not apply to faculty outside his or her geographic location unless
there's no such faculty in the geogtaphic location or it has been
already filled with students having higher grade than him or her.
Applications from Geneal secondary school graduates are more than
400,000 application in year 2011 for academic year 2011/2012 execluding
technical secondary school graduates and graduates from international
secondary schools. Starting from 2007 Coordination office accepts
online applications.
Almost all students who pass general
secondary school and top technical secondary school students can be
given a place in a public faculty or institution, but not always what
student wish to join. Some of them apply to private universities to
join the faculty he or she wants to join. As private universities has
less constraints and less complicated admission conditions but In all
cases it's not always possible to join any faculty. There are still
conditions can not be avoided even for private universities.
* Study
regulations
a.
Ordinary System
Egyptian
universities adopts academic year divided into 2 terms (Semesters).
Exams are at end of each term. Although system based on academic year,
but each term is independent. Some courses are being tought for whole
academic years but each term exam concerned only in content tough in
that term only. But the state of pass or fail determined by sum of
results of both terms.
If student fail on a certain course he or she
have to repeat the course - and for whole year courses students should
repeat only the term they fail . In case student fail in more than two
subjects he or she is not allowed to progress to next year. He or she
have to repeat the courses they fail without being allowed to
take any more courses.
In some faculties if student fail twice in
the same year he or she will be fired and not allowed to contunie their
study in this faculty.
Grade
system
|
Grade
|
Grade
in English
|
Percentage
|
|
ممتاز |
Excellent/Distinct |
85%
- |
|
جيد
جدا
|
Very
good
|
75%
- 84.99%
|
| جيد |
Good
|
65%
- 74.99% |
|
مقبول
|
Acceptable/Pass
|
50%
- 64.99% |
|
ضعيف |
Weak
(Fail)
|
30%
- 49.99%
|
|
ضعيف جدا |
Very
weak (Fail)
|
0% - 29.99%
|
Students are not allowed to take grade more than maximum percentage of
"Pass" in case they passed the course by repeatation.
b.
Credit hours system
Credit
hours system started to be implemented in some faculties as a way to
comply with world standards. It's similar to American grading system.
Students of this track are paying higher fees compared to ordinary
track students.
New programs are offered by this track which is not
available to oridanary track. at the same time programs of ordinary
track are not offered by credit hours track.
Grade system
|
Ordinary
grade
|
Grade
|
Points
|
Percentage
|
|
ممتاز (Excellent/ Distinct)
|
A+ |
4.00
|
97%
-
|
|
A
|
4.00
|
93%
- 96.99%
|
|
A-
|
3.70
|
89%
- 92.99%
|
|
جيد
جدا
(Very
good)
|
B+
|
3.30
|
84%
- 88.99%
|
|
B
|
3.00
|
80%
-
83.99%
|
|
B-
|
2.70
|
76%
- 79.99%
|
|
جيد
(Good)
|
C+
|
2.30
|
73%
- 75.99%
|
|
C
|
2.00
|
70%
- 72.99%
|
|
C-
|
1.70
|
67%
- 69.99%
|
مقبول
(Acceptable/ Pass)
|
D+
|
1.30
|
64%
- 66.99%
|
|
D
|
1.00
|
60%
- 63.99%
|
|
راسب
(Fail)
|
F
|
0.00
|
Less
than 60%
|
Approximate
academic year calender
Academic year in Egypt starts at second or third week of September.
The first term lasts for 15 weeks ends at Mid-January.
Then comes the mid-year vacation for about a month.
Sencond term starts usually at mid February and lasts also 15 weeks and
ends at mid June .
It's now the summer vacation for 3 months.
Academic
stuff and teaching assistants
In public
universities academic stuff are part of the state stuff. So all
professors, teaching assistans and adminstration stuff are considered a
government employee. Teaching assistants usually hired from new
graduates based on their accumlative total grade in the university
according to number of free places. for example if certain department
decided to hire 3 new TAs, so that mean that the first 3 student in
class grade ranking will be given offer to work as a TA and the 4th
student can only get the job if one of those threee student decided to
not work as a TA. Usually TAs and stuff are not allowed to have any
work outside the university but this restriction
is
ignored in most cases.
For private
universities hiring teaching assistants is like any company. Interested
persons apply on vacancies and then applicant is invited for
an
interview. Based on interview result, CV, certifiactes and other
aspects the decision to hire him or her is taken. |

Ahmed Elsherbiny Hasan |
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