CAIRO: The Ministry of Education will stop giving licenses to new international schools in Egypt and will review the existing ones, Minister Ahmed Zaki Badr said. The aim of this decision is to put back these schools — whose number is estimated to be in hundreds — under the supervision of the ministry, according to state-run paper Al-Ahram Al-Masaay. “No country in the entire world has this amount of international schools and certificates,” the paper quoted the minister as saying. The minister also added that this type of education would be limited to two types of foreign students in Egypt, particularly children of diplomats or of Egyptians working abroad. The press office at the Ministry of Education confirmed Badr's statements, noting that official procedures are underway without giving further details. According to Badr's latest decision, students attending those international schools would be required to study Arabic and religion. They would follow their counterparts in Egyptian schools in observing the tradition of saluting the flag and singing the national anthem in the morning. International schools in Egypt have forever been criticized for making students lose touch with their country and their language. "You can see now that there are a lot of young people in Egypt nowadays who receive a foreign education, they can barely speak Arabic and barely know anything about their country, meanwhile their parents are happy, so by default they grow up having this loyalty to that country, said Saeed Sadek, professor of sociology at the American University in Cairo. International schools offer alternatives to the Egyptian education system and high school certificate, the thanawiya amma. They are known for offering quality education and for their expensive fees. The increase in the number of schools offering international certificates is mainly credited to a 1997 decree by the ministry of education that set a number of requirements for licensing such schools. In a previous interview with Daily News Egypt, Wagdy Afifi, deputy minister for high school education and the head of the central administration for private education, said, “First of all is the approval of the Authority for Educational Buildings, as there are requirements for the measurements of the classrooms, playgrounds, courts, ventilation, lightening and other factors which all have to meet the international standards.” “Second is an approval of an international accreditation agency. “Third is an evaluation by experts and consultants at the ministry of the textbooks and syllabi to be taught at the school as their content has to be equivalent to thanawiya Amma. “If they are approved, we go on to the fourth step which is an examination of the school from a body of administrators, accountants, technicians, lawyers and an engineer from the Authority for Educational Buildings. “Afterwards the Committee for International Schools Affairs meets and evaluates and examines the school's file and accordingly grants it the license or rejects its request,” he explained.
