By: Mai Shaheen and Menna Seleim
CAIRO, Jan. 30 (SEE)- The African student affairs coordinator at Cairo University Sayed Rashad conducted an interview with SEE to explain what his office provides to African students, and how they treated.
Here is the excerpts of the interview.
Q: What is the story
behind the transformation of the institute to a college?
A: In 1947, the institute was built under the name Sudanese studies center, later it turned to the faculty of Arts. In 1954, the institute took over the college during the reign of the late president Gamal Abd El-Nasser under the name the Sudanese research and studies institute.
Two departments, History and Geographic were included in 1970 a presidential decree issued to develop the institute. This was followed by addition of 4 new departments: Politics and Economy, African Languages, Anthropology and Natural Resources.
During this period, the Egyptian culture "Institute" was did not the level of "College", since the Western mentality reversed that, as they thought "Institute" is higher than "College" in specialization.
Right now, we hope in the next level the college enters the coordination of universities in order to have a generation of students specialized on the African affairs in the bachelor's degree, and then postgraduate studies if they wish to accomplish studying.
Q: What is the recent
statistics for the Arab and African students who joined the college?
A: This year we have 1613 students, about 320 students come from Africa, as we started to receive new students since 9th January 2019. We expect that the number to increase to more than 2000 students, a very big number in comparison with other colleges, as we are in a continuous development.
This statistics included registered students or students who already in doing different programs, as in every phase "Diploma, Masters and Ph.D." there is a school year and registration of dissertation. So this is statistics for all students.
Q: What about student
accommodation?
A: The student accommodation is provided to those who have a scholarship, as the college system is similar to the university system, and those who studying there will have no place in the student accommodation.
Q: How many scholarships are provided to African countries?
A: We were providing 1007 scholarships, currently, the number will be increased to 2000 including scholarship. This is according to the higher education ministry decision: every country has limited numbers of scholarships.
Q: Why are African
countries depicted as poor states?
A: Africa, like any other community, has all classes of rich, medium, and poor people. It is only the media that spread this negative idea, but Africa is making considerable progress. A good example is Kenya.
Q: What about the
national days that the college celebrates?
A: The most highlighted national days is Africa day in May; every year we celebrate it by wearing traditional clothes of countries, sharing the folklore heritage, countries dances, and traditional food and drinks. We also participate in world health conference in 29th March at Al-Mnara hall.
Q: Is there any
cooperation with other universities?
A: We already have cooperation with other universities, as we welcome all Africans from other universities. We started to make a data base in all colleges to communicate easily with African students in Egypt, and those who want to communicate with African welfare office a Cairo University.
This helped in increasing the interaction and communication with the office. About 300 to 500 African expatriates inside or outside Cairo University take part in each event. In the past less than 50 person participated in private events.
Q: How did this
happen?
A: This happened when the current generation feels like Egypt is looking after, caring and providing to them the suitable services. The youth treat them very well, when they sit together and participate in various activities, a positive interaction occurs.
The African student affairs office at Cairo University is different from any other side, we are not searching for profits or enforcing policies, but we want from the African students to feel that they belong to Cairo University and Egypt.
Our target is to communicate and interact between our Egyptian and African students, as we have a team of youth consisting about 30 or 50 volunteers to participate with the African student in forums inside and outside Cairo University.
We had African ambassador students to Egypt in their countries, and continuous communications take place even after the end of the school year.
Q: What about
changing the stereotyping picture between the two sides to activate the
communication?
A: Through communicating with the stakeholders and participating in the events, all of these things encouraged African students to acclimatize with the college and Egyptian students.
The University president Mohamed El-Khosht, the dean Mohamed Nwfil gave us the freedom to deal with African files.
Q: Could you please
tell us about "Let's draw Africa Future" initiative?
A: The first phase was completed and right now we are working on the second phase. The initiative announced names of the 10 winners among those who submitted researches and project that could develop first phase near in an official event. The will be 1:1, which means one African against one Egyptian.
The initiative gives room to students to make scientific research that could be helpful to the African continent. If students fail in the first phase, there would be a second opportunity in other phases to show them what went wrong.
Q: What is the
"1000 leader" initiative?
A: It's the first time Cairo University is implementing the "1000 leader" initiative. It involves implementation of high command instructions, and the required number conforms to the Egyptian policy requirements decreed by president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to educate and train 1000 Africans.
In the first place, we released this project in order to serve the country, but before that we have to build the African and Egyptian mind to prepare them in conducting researches.
Q: What is the
college role in African Nations Cup as Egypt prepares to host the event?
A: About the college's role, we can provide all cooperation, as we are more capable of dealing with African people. We have centres specializing in African languages, hence we can sent translators to translate their languages, and also know about their costumes and traditions through our filed study.
Q: Are you in touch
with the organizers of the tournament?
A: We are in touch, we are just waiting for the approval of what we can provide; time is an important factor according to the working agenda.
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