The meeting of the parliamentary committee of plans and budgets witnessed a debate on Monday between the Minister of Education, Tarek Shawky, and the ministry of finance over the budget dedicated for the education reform project.
The meeting, which was held at parliament headquarters, came to discuss the 2019/20 budget of the ministry of education.
During the meeting Shawky criticised the ministry of finance, saying that his ministry is usually struggling to get approval on any of their financial requests.
Shawky expressed his annoyance for not receiving the full amount which he had requested for the new budget.
We received only EGP 99bn, despite requesting EGP 138 bn, said Shawky, adding that “there is a EGP 39bn difference and I still need at least EGP 110bn which will not include increasing the salaries of teachers.”
The minister added that if the ministry did not receive desired budget the education reform budget will stop, stressing the necessity of dialogue with the ministry of finance.
Shawky revealed that the extra EGP 39bn is needed to increase salaries, renovate educational buildings, the creation of networks and tablets, books, and for meeting requests of directorates and the ministry and schools.
The new education system was implemented last September, and includes new curricula and books, teacher training, the opening of Japanese schools, the cost of networking, and the purchase of tablets.
As Egypt is looking forward to making critical changes in its public educational system based on its 2030 Vision, it signed an agreement in April 2018 with the World Bank for a five-year loan worth $500m to improve education in Egyptian public schools. One of these changes is to provide students with free tablets, to allow them to access their curricula, and to solve their exams through the tablets.
