Egypt’s Minister of Education and Technical Education Tarek Shawky said that the curriculums for some students in Egypt’s public schools will be explained via television programmes and online channels.
During a televised interview on Saturday, Shawky also said that schools will only provide activity classes and subjects which are not added to the total grades.
The minister noted that these changes will be applied to those students from Grade 4 of primary schools to the third year of secondary school.
Shawky said that, for the new academic year, students will be evaluated using a mixture of examinations and writing research papers. He added that the curriculums for secondary schools will be added in the online platforms a week before the start of schools.
The move to ensure that learning is more accessible at home for students comes as part of the ongoing precautionary measures, put in place by the government to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).
Shawky said that his ministry will allow public school fees to be paid in two instalments, with one instalment in each semester.
He also said that the high school leaving exams (Thanaweyya Amma) will be digitised so that students can take them electronically. This will ensure that there are fewer grievances related to human interventions that can lead to errors, with the minister adding that the exams will be cheat-proof to avoid their being leaked.
The Ministry of Education has also cancelled the essay questions from the electronic version of the Thanaweyya Amma exams, with students also being given the opportunity to improve their grades.
The ministry has spent about EGP 500bn on enhancing education in the last six years, including significant investments to develop television education channels and establishing new online platforms, Shawky said.
Shawky said that access to the country’s television-based educational channels and online platforms is accessible for those students abroad. These overseas students will also be able to sit the Thanaweyya Amma exams using tablets in monitoring committees.
