Egypt's Higher Education Ministry Has Been Ready to Deal with COVID-19

On Wednesday, the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Khaled Abdel Ghaffar said that his ministry has been ready to confront the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) since it followed up the situation in all countries where the virus spread.

The minister made the remarks during a meeting of the parliament’s committee of education and scientific research, which was held to discuss the higher education ministry’s mechanisms to manage the second term of the current academic year in light of the coronavirus outbreak.

The world before COVID-19 was totally different from how it has become after the pandemic's outbreak, Abdel Ghaffar said, noting that the higher education ministry has taken precautionary measures to protect the university community that includes students, academic staff and technicians.

An agreement has been reached by all state bodies concerned to remove all obstacles for students, the minister said, adding that meetings have been held with the Supreme Council of Universities to probe dealing with the crisis.

He also noted that the higher education ministry has taken part in a video conference meeting with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), especially that the current crisis facing university students in Egypt is similarly experienced by more than 850 million students across the world.

In this regard, Abdel Ghaffar highlighted the ministry’s decision to cancel oral and written exams for the second term and replacing them with research articles.

It is noteworthy that the Supreme Council of Universities of Egypt (SCU) has recently cancelled all written and oral exams scheduled for the second semester of the academic year 2019/2020.Because the grades for these tests for all academic years will no longer be used to qualify for the cumulative overall score, the curricula must then be completed by many alternatives to the existing educational framework.The first of the alternatives according to the SCU is that each student prepares a research thesis based on courses taught during the semester. To assess these essays, each university must define its own expectations, controls, conditions and laws.