The Steering Committee of the Egypt-Japan Education Partnership (EJEP) held its sixth meeting, on Sunday, with government officials and representatives from both countries present.
From Egypt, the meeting was attended by: Tarek Shawky, Minister of Education and Technical Education who also moderated the discussions; Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research; Nevine El-Kabbaj, Minister of Social Solidarity; and Hany Helal, Secretary-General of the Committee and former Minister of Higher Education.
The Japanese side was represented by Japan’s Ambassador to Egypt Noke Masaki, who attended alongside: Matsunaga Hideki, Director General of the Middle East and Europe Department at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), who is currently visiting Egypt; and Omura Yoshifumi, Chief Representative of the JICA Egypt Office.
In the meeting, both sides reviewed the progress of the different ongoing projects under the partnership including: the Egypt-Japan Schools (EJS); the Human Resources Development and Scholarships Programs to Japan; the Egypt-Japan University for Science and Technology (E-JUST); the Technical Education; and the Early Childhood Development projects.
Both sides acknowledged the progress achieved and the strength of the partnership between Egypt and Japan in the education field. This includes many successful models of cooperation and are privileged with support of the highest political leadership.
Both sides agreed to exert more efforts towards achieving the targets of the mutual cooperation, despite the challenges presented by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The EJEP was launched by the leaders of both countries in 2016, and covers all the stages of education in Egypt, contributing to the continuous governmental reforms in this important area.
The Steering Committee as well as the two Executive Committees of the EJEP, the EC1 and EC2, were established by a Presidential Decree. They are convened periodically to execute the decisions, approvals, and review the joint cooperation between Egypt and Japan.
