The Minister of Education Discusses Education Strategy at the BA
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Alexandria—
Dr. Ismail Serageldin, Director of the Library of Alexandria and Dr. Yousry El-Gamal, Minister of Education, inaugurated on Friday, 22 February 2008, a workshop entitled “Education Strategy”, organized by the BA Center for Special Studies and Programs (CSSP), in cooperation with the Ministry of Education.
Dr. Serageldin started his address by referring to all efforts exerted to reform pre- university education in Egypt and to the BA’s involvement in this respect. He added that one of the successful projects to simplify and arabicize science was “La Main à la Pâte”, a fruit of the cooperation between the Ministry of Education and the BA.
Dr. Serageldin gave a presentation entitled “A Universal Vision on Education Strategy”, in which he spoke on international examples in education reform. He reviewed the US model of education, especially in universities and discussed the US education strategy, and how it focuses on sciences and mathematics. Dr. Serageldin emphasized the necessity of fighting centralization and monitoring quality, as part of the educational reform.
He also stressed the importance of values of tolerance and acceptance of the other, as main pillars of any successful education strategy. He maintained that children need to be encouraged to think, wonder, and create. Dr. Serageldin called upon the participants to support the education reform campaign in Egypt, since education is the cornerstone of any development process.
Dr. Yousry El-Gamal, Minister of Education, spoke on education strategy in Egypt in a presentation entitled “Through a Qualitative Change in Education 2008-2012”.
He stated that economic reform and development would not be achieved without sound education. He added that the Ministry established a unit for strategic planning to work on the new education strategy in March 2006.
Dr. El-Gamal presented the strategy, its programs, and challenges facing education reform including the need to change curricula and books and the absence of technology application in the educational curricula. He stressed on the importance of shifting from the traditional pattern to developed modern patterns, which requires reducing the number of books and increasing the amount of school activities.
He explained that the strategy supports values of Egyptian culture and history; prepares students to practice sound citizenship; provides equal opportunities to attain good quality of pre-university education; calls for a qualitative shift in the educational process; and improves the efficiency of education systems and programs.