CAIRO: President Hosni Mubarak announced Sunday afternoon the appointment of Alaa El Din Mohamed Fahmy, head of Egypt National Postal Authority, as the new Minister of Transport, and Ahmed Zaki Badr, President of Ain Shams University, as the Minister of Education.
Fahmy replaces former Minister Mohamed Lotfy Mansour who resigned last October in the wake of a fatal train accident in Al-Ayyat, which claimed 18 lives and injured 36 people.
Minister of Electricity, Hassan Younis, was assigned to temporarily oversee the Ministry of Transportation.
The appointment of a new Minister of Education to replace Yousri El Gamal came as a surprise while he was kick-starting the swine flu vaccine campaign at elementary schools around the country.
“The announcement was made by the Presidential office, no one knows anything yet. it was very sudden, said Farid Abdel Samei, head of the press office at the Ministry of Education.
Starting 2008, the public and the media has called on the replacement of El Gamal for two main reasons: the Thanweya Amma exams, the national secondary school certificate, which were leaked; and second, the tragic death of 11-year-old Islam Badr who was kicked to death by his teacher, leading to public outrage over corporal punishment in schools.
Following this incident in November 2008, renowned journalist and TV host, Mahmoud Saad, called on the Minister of Education Yousri El Gamal to step down.
“I demand the resignation of the Minister of Education. This is the only appropriate response to this tragedy, Saad said during his live interview with Amr Badr, the boy’s father on terrestrial Channel 2’s popular nightly talk show “El-Beit Beitak.
Saad said that this incident only adds to a string of problems marring the education ministry, citing the cheating scandal during the thanawiya amma exams and the overall deteriorating education system.
Numerous blog posts and videos online reacted to the appointment of Badr as the new minister, naming him “the worst university president in history, citing his lack of experience; he was appointed university president only six months after taking on the position of vice president. His father, Zaki Badr, was the Minister of Interior from 1986 to1990.
The announcement also came as a surprise to many MPs, including the head of the Education Committee at the People’s Assembly, Sherif Omar, who refused to comment on the issue.
“The news of a new Minister of Transportation, on the other hand, was expected. We can’t judge Alaa Fahmy at the moment, we have to wait and see what he does in this system which desperately needs change, said MP Abdel Aziz Khalaf.
The presidential announcement also included the appointment of five governors, Mohamed Abdel Fadeel Shousha for South Sinai, Mourad Mowafi for North Sinai, Qadr Bouhussein for Helwan, Ahmed Hussein Mostafa Ibrahim for Marsa Matruh and Samir El Azl for Beni Sweif.
