Egypt’s Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Khaled Abdel Ghaffar met, on Sunday, with Jean Noel Paleo, Regional Director of the Francophone University Agency (AUF) in Middle East, to discuss enhancing cooperation in culture, science, and education.
The two sides also discussed an agreement for granting scholarships to Egyptian Master’s and PhD students to allow them study abroad. This comes in addition to training and scientific qualification programmes for the labour market.
Abdel Ghaffar highlighted the need to establish a regional office for the agency in Cairo. He indicated that the new office will facilitate cooperation between Egyptian universities and the agency.
He confirmed his ministry’s readiness to provide all means of support and assistance so that the agency can achieve its objectives and help Egypt’s educational institutions in the fields of higher education and scientific research.
Egypt has 27 public universities and about 35 private and international universities.
For his part, Paleo asserted the agency’s keenness to establish a branch in Cairo during 2021, with the aim of opening up new cooperation opportunities between the agency and the Ministry of Higher Education.
The AUF is one of the largest institutions of higher education and research in the world. It collaborates with 944 universities, colleges, university networks, and scientific research centres worldwide. A total of 19 Egyptian universities have memberships with the agency, including Cairo, Ain Shams, Mansoura, and Alexandria Universities.
