A representative from The Population Council, Nahla Abdel Tawab, revealed that the technical education in Egypt introduces 450,000 graduates annually under the age of 30, most of them outside the labour force, especially females with commercial education, stressing that most of those who received job opportunities as graduates of technical education, work in the informal sector, and in inappropriate working conditions.
During the Technical Education Development Conference held under the title ‘Towards Better Employment Opportunities for Technical and Vocational Education Graduates in Egypt’, on Tuesday, The Population Council prepared an in-depth study on the employment outcomes among graduates of technical secondary education in Egypt, entitled ‘A Study of Employment Outcomes Among Technical And Vocational Secondary Education Graduates In Egypt’, which concluded that the institutional and legal framework governing the employment of graduates of technical education leads to the inundation of the informal sector, which has become a major source of employment for an increasing number of young people in rural and urban areas, reaching 75% in 2012.
As for Amr El-Demerdash, head of the Research and Development Unit in The Technical Education Sector at the Ministry of Education, he said that the ministry is currently implementing a production training programme called ‘Capital Project,’ which annually produces products worth EGP 250m.
El-Demerdash revealed a new experience called ‘school within the factory’, where the programme includes 55 schools operating in applications within factories, according to the protocols between the technical education and factories, provided by trainers and engineers at the professional level.
As for the state’s steps to support and develop technical education, he said that within four years new specialisations have been initiated in line with state projects, in cooperation with development partners, adding that curriculum modernisation is being developed by linking curricula to the labour market.
Alia Al-Mahdi, president of the Egyptian Centre for Public Policy, demanded from the government to reconsider the curriculum of technical education, especially specialisations that were dismissed by time and to add new specialisations related to computer science technology which correspond to the fourth industrial revolution.
