Qalaa Holdings organised a roundtable on Tuesday to discuss the progress of Mostakbaly (My Future) scholarship programme, one of its educational projects with its partners: Egyptian Refining Company (ERC) and American University in Cairo (AUC).
The roundtable was chaired by the head of marketing communication at Qalaa Holding, Ghada Hammouda, at the AUC headquarters in Tahrir Square.
Speakers of the roundtable included Hani Ismail, CSR deputy manager at ERC; Heba El-Daghady, dean of Faculty of Education at AUC; and representative of the Ministry of Education.
Mostakbaly programme, which started three years ago, was created to develop skills of local public-school teachers to upgrade educational system and achieve sustainable development.
Hammouda said Qalaa believes in the necessity of such initiatives’ sustainability and the transfer of knowledge and experience among the largest number of teachers, through the application of an effective approach, which is “train the trainer”, in order to benefit teachers as well as students.
Ismail said that the programme was launched to provide training grants to school teachers at AUC, noting they are currently training 30 teachers from areas of Mosotord, Mataraya, Khosous, and East Shubra in Cairo.
During the roundtable, three trainees from the programme; English teachers Ihab from East Shubra and Hannah from Al-Khasous, and Arabic teacher Zeina from Mataraya, shared their experiences and success stories, and talked about how the programme developed their work.
Zeina said, “I realised an improvement among my students, when my skills were developed after finishing the scholarship. My class this year registered 100% success in exams. I also managed to return joy of education to my students and recovered the passion of educational work.”
“However, we are in summer vacation now, but I really miss my students and they also usually call me and tell me they cannot wait until the school resumes,” she added.
The programme’s beneficiaries reached 96 teachers since the launch of the initiative in 2017. The programme offered 51 scholarships at the AUC, the Nile University, and the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, as well as three scholarships abroad at Sheffield, Imperial, and Manchester universities in England, according to the speakers.
The programme also provided support to education activities, including supplying 5,662 medical glasses for students, providing assistance to 5,092 students, training 939 teachers, developing 45 schools, supporting 18 talented students, and launching 12 awareness campaigns on rational use of electricity and water.
