{"id":11750,"date":"2018-08-16T19:25:29","date_gmt":"2018-08-16T19:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=11750"},"modified":"2018-08-16T19:25:29","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T19:25:29","slug":"egyptians-hope-foreign-university-campuses-will-boost-higher-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=11750","title":{"rendered":"Egyptians hope foreign university campuses will boost higher education"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nCAIRO: A new law approved by the Egyptian president that allows foreign universities to establish campuses in Egypt, aims to boost the development of higher education and scientific research in the country.<\/p>\n

\nThe architects of the new law also hope it will build links with other countries to provide more and better educational opportunities, and preserving the national identity of Egyptian students.<\/p>\n

\nApplications from foreign universities will be examined by a committee formed and headed by the minister of higher education, which will include representatives from other ministries and relevant authorities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nThe minister will have the right to close the campus of a foreign university if it violates Egyptian laws or decisions by the authorities, and to prevent the university from accepting new students.<\/p>\n

\nThe law was approved by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi this month after passing through parliament in July.<\/p>\n

\nExperts and university professors have differing opinions on the likely effects of foreign universities setting up in Egypt. While many suggest that Egyptian universities will develop and improve to compete, some fear the opposite will happen.<\/p>\n

\nYoussef Rashid, acting secretary of the Supreme Council of Universities, said he believes the new law is good and will increase competition among universities, as a result improving the quality of education everywhere.<\/p>\n

\nAbdullah Sorour, founder of the Union of Egyptian scientists, said: \u201cA partnership between foreign universities and Egyptian universities is the best way forward.\u201d He added that existing foreign education institutes in Egypt do not have a clear identity.<\/p>\n

\nThe proposal was first raised more than a year ago but gained traction in June 2018 after Dr. Khalid Abdul Ghaffar, the current minister of higher education, signed a cooperation agreement with the University of Liverpool in England. He described the agreement as \u201ca sign of confidence in the Egyptian education system\u201d and \u201cevidence of the stability of the country.\u201d He added that the British university will \u201csoon\u201d establish a campus in Egypt, and that there are further plans for cooperation with universities in the United States and Canada.<\/p>\n

\nThe new law stipulates that foreign universities in Egypt will be free to set their own tuition fees, but that Egyptian students must be allowed to pay in Egyptian pounds. The fees cannot be increased after enrollment. Some people expressed a hope that the increased competition would drive down the cost of tuition fees.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe want these universities to be cheaper that their Egyptian counterparts,\u201d said Ahmad Al-Lundi, who works at a bank. He said he pays 50,000 Egyptian pounds a year in tuition fees for his son, who is studying in the Faculty of Pharmacy at Al-Ahram Canadian University, and EGP 41,500 for his daughter, who attends Future University.<\/p>\n

\nThe cost of tuition at private universities in Egypt varies wildly. The annual\u00a0fees at the Egyptian Russian University \u2014 which has only three faculties: oral medicine, engineering and pharmacy \u2014 range from EGP 33,000 to EGP 58,000, while the British University charges about EGP 80,000 for its dentistry faculty, EGP 60,000 for business administration, economics and political science, and EGP 75,000 EGP for engineering and pharmacy. The October University of Modern Sciences and Literature (MSA), which has nine faculties, charges a tuition fee of EGP 87,500\u00a0a year\u00a0for dentistry and EGP 63,500 for pharmacy, in addition to the cost of a British certificate, which is 325 euros.<\/p>\n

\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CAIRO: A new law approved by the Egyptian president that allows foreign universities to establish campuses in Egypt, aims to boost the development of higher education and scientific research in the country. The architects of the new law also hope it will build links with other countries to provide more and better educational opportunities, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":11751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}