Distinguished professors and scholars,
Brothers and sisters,

I talk to you on the inauguration of an important national conference that addresses issues related to the present and future of the nation, as well as real challenges that face our society and leads us new steps towards the development of education policies.

For years we have been pursuing these efforts, with the conviction that the development of education is a basic pillar for reform and development, a vital component in the awakening of the nation and an important dimension of Egypt's national security.

You might recall that in 2000 I called for a national conference on the enhancement of higher education and in 2005 for a similar conference on scientific research. Both conferences generated a national strategy based on a combination of both concepts of availability and the enhancement of the quality of education. This strategy is being pursued with several achievements made in this respect.

Reforming the system of education in all its stages is an indivisible whole. Like all other reform tracks and themes, it is an ongoing process. The national conference we are inaugurating today comes to complement the achievements made as a result of both conferences and to address an important and critical chain of this system.

I have instructed the government to convene this conference on the enhancement of pre-university education in its close relationship with the development of higher education, inviting it to put forward to the conference the issue of the general secondary school certificate, with the pressures it poses to Egyptian families and in its relationship with the enhancement of the current university admission system.

In calling for this conference, I am convinced of the pressing need for an advanced educational system that can meet the needs of economic growth and development achieved and aspired for; one that, at its various stages, generates graduates qualified who meet new labour market needs and possess skill required to address competition challenges at home and abroad.

I asked the government to take all this into consideration and make good preparations for this conference to be successful. I have followed up coordination in its preparatory process between the Ministries of Education, Higher Education, Manpower and Trade and Industry, representatives of the private sector and industry and businessmen's associations. I have also followed up related listening session discussions in Cairo, Alexandria and Assuit and elsewhere and the conclusions reached and put forward to this important conference.

Brothers and sisters,

This conference has to diagnose the current situation with its imbalances. It has to work out enhancement steps required to set right such imbalances. The issues put forward to this conference raise several questions that in outline sum up these imbalances and the reform and enhancement steps they impose.

The current system for the general secondary school certificate and university admission system has persisted for long years. Can it further meet the current needs of our society? Can it be still compatible with new facts of Egyptian reality with its needs, challenges and aspirations?

Do we have a flexible system that integrates general secondary, technical and university education and links graduates, in terms of numbers and specialties, with labour market?

Does this system allow holders of the general secondary school certificate to resume higher education years after obtaining such certificate? Will the general point average remain the only criterion for admission to higher education? Does this criterion reflect the capacities, skills and propensities of our sons and daughters?

From among holders of preparatory school certificate, only 37 percent join general secondary education, of whom 70 per cent go for literary studies and only 30 per cent for science and mathematics studies. Is that what the society needs? Does the general secondary school certificate qualify its graduates to join the labour market? From among holders of preparatory school certificate, only 63 percent join technical, commercial, industrial and agricultural education. Are they better off or more compatible with labour market requirements?

Are not we in need of a necessary restructuring that can advance the general secondary school certificate system in terms of curricula, teaching methods and assessment, examination and university admission policies, that can qualify graduates to join the labour market and channel those who pursue university education to specializations required for the labour market?

Are not we in need of a similar enhancement of technical education that links it to various production and services sectors, that upgrades vocational training, provides required skills and allows interested graduates to pursue their university education? Do not we need to enhance society culture and view of technical education and its graduates?

It is now time for seriously addressing the existing gap between the pre- and post-university education system on the one hand and the labour market and its new needs and requirements. We have growing needs for graduates who are qualified to engage in the tourism, industry, construction and building sectors and the related specialities and feeder industries.

We have a surplus in graduate physicians and pharmacists on the local level and a corresponding deficit in nursing staff. We have increasing numbers in graduates of commerce, law and arts faculties, with a corresponding regression in needed graduates of agriculture faculties.

Addressing the current gap poses a main challenge to us sustained reform of education system in general and secondary and university education in particular is our means to this end; which is the most significant issue to be handled by this conference.

Brothers and sisters,

Our goals remain to enhance the quality of education and to achieve decentralization of the educational process. In so doing, we start not from scratch and we have to follow others' example and learn from successful experiments of education systems in advanced world countries.

The number of students enrolled in pre-university education last year showed about 17 million, of whom 3 million in the secondary stage alone, while those in higher education rose to more than 2.8 million students, accounting for 30 per cent of our youth in the 18-23 years age group. This figure is expected to redouble within the coming twenty years. In order to cope with population increase and to provide more higher education opportunities for our youth, we have initiated ambitious projects to create, in cooperation with certain high-technology faculties in the world, a number of technological complexes, to be financed from the Education Enhancement Fund. Each complex will comprise a faculty for industrial education and another for technology in addition to a technical secondary schools and a vocational training centre.

We are building new vocational training centres in our industrial communities in Al-Ameeriyya, Hilwan, 10th of Ramadhan, Borg El-Arab and elsewhere. We are also staging programmes for rehabilitating 250,000 young graduates for training them in specific specializations, in which they will be employed once they complete their training.

The law instituting the National Authority for Education Quality Assurance and Accreditation and its executive regulations were issued and the authority started functioning. Necessary appropriations have been allocated for qualifying educational institutions to meet quality assurance and accreditation standards. We also started the application of the special teachers' salary scale. This comes in recognition and appreciation of their role and mission and in order to develop teaching from merely an occupation into a profession, based on specific professional standards. Actions have been also taken to ameliorate the physical and moral conditions of university teaching staff.

A professional academy for teachers is under way with the object of improving the standard of their educational and pedagogical performance. A number of universally acknowledged centres have been created in Egyptian universities to upgrade capacities and skills of teaching staff members.

Yes, indeed. I say we start not from scratch; we have done much to develop the educational system and enhance the quality of education services. So, this conference comes to take the achievements already made fresh steps forward.

Brothers and sisters,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Participants in this conference are an elite choice of the best professors, scholars and experts of education and I invite them to develop an executive framework to enhance secondary education as well as higher education admission policies.

I look forward to practicable proposals that elaborate features of this framework and enhancement, taking into consideration a number of constraints:

I. The aspired enhancement must be based on a broad consensus as to its goals, implementation mechanism, policies and programmes proposed and application time schedule, while abiding by transparency in result assessment and feasibility evaluation.

II. Such enhancement must provide an added value in service of the national economy and development efforts that would reflect on both individual and institutions of the society.

III. Adequate safeguards must be provided to ensure equal opportunities, to alleviate psychological and material burdens to Egyptian families and to re-assure student guardians as to the prospects of their sons and daughters.

IV. School must be so empowered as to regain its educational and pedagogical role so must be teachers as to enhance their capacities and curricula must be so upgraded as to be compatible with the requirements of our aspired goals.

V. Attention must be given to science, mathematics, foreign languages, and computer science and information technology. Room must be given to extracurricular activities; social, educational and cultural.

VI. Flexibility and integration between general secondary, technical and Azharite education must be provided for; students must be allowed to move from and to various tracks of education. Those already engaged in the labour market must be given an opportunity to pursue their education, making it easy to have access into and out of the labour market and various stages of education.

VII. Quality of technical education at all stages must be enhanced, society culture and view of this type of education and its graduates must be changed. In this context, the government is required to consider associating this type of education to professional practice permits to be granted in various technical specializations, to improve the employment structure and financial remunerations for its graduates so that it can be attractive to male and female students.

VIII. The secondary stage of education must be developed so as to free it of psychological and material burdens to Egyptian families resulting from the existing conventional examination systems based on memorization and inculcation. Development must ensure justice and objectivity, provide care for excellence and protect people with special needs.

IX. Additional standards for assessing level of applicants to higher education so that the general point average in the general secondary school certificate would not be the only criterion for admission. Additional mechanisms must be introduced to measure skills and capacities of our sons and daughters, ensuring transparency, justice and equal opportunity.

X. The starting-point for enhancing the higher education admission system must be linked to the likings and capacities of students and labour market requirements and must be accompanied by the provision of further opportunities of advanced higher education for our young men and women.

XI. There is need to address financing as a basic issue in the aspired-for reform, enhancement and the public-private- civil-society partnership in handling this issue.

Brothers and sisters,
While putting forward the problematic issues of the current situation to this national conference and to the people, I look forward to tangible results generated by your deliberations, setting right existing imbalances and indeed putting education on the right track.

Whatsoever the conclusions you will be reaching, it would be indispensable to disseminate awareness of their necessity among Egyptian families and our educational institutions. This will be also a real guarantee for successful application.

Sustained enhancement of pre-university and higher education represents a major challenge, the dimensions and necessities of which we all have to recognize.
We have successfully achieved high rates of investment, economic development and employment that we seek to maintain and sustain. We have now new and increasing labour market needs and our society and economy are undergoing several transformations and varying realities.

I call upon our young men and women to take all this into consideration, when opting for their course of study and identifying landmarks of their careers.
I tell you and your guardians that Egypt is changing because the world around us is. And I say that the new transformations, realities and challenges we witness and the hopes and aspiration we look forward to require a reconsideration of many aspects of society culture as well as a reprioritization, in the minds of our youth and new generations, of study and career choices.

May Allah guide us all to the welfare of Egypt and its people?
May the Peace, Mercy and Blessings of Allah be upon you?