In a bid to bring higher education into the 21st century, the Egyptian government, in partnership with Japan, set up the Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST) in New Borg el-Arab City.
In 2020, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi inaugurated E-JUST, which will offer undergraduates and post-graduates a range of the most beneficial and fulfilling academic and research experience.
The Egyptian Mail visited E-JUST to interview its president Dr Ahmed el-Gohari, who expounded on the mission of the university.
“The university seeks to keep abreast of the major achievements during the era of President Sisi to serve national goals and support the sustainable development strategy for Egypt Vision 2030,” el-Gohari said.
“E-JUST is essentially a research university, ranking second in Egypt and 11th out of 135 universities in 14 countries Arab world, according to the British Times daily newspaper,” el-Gohari added.
“Cutting-edge world class technology is at the disposal of the university’s laboratories with the key aim to support applied research serving society and industry.
“The university has set up the first 5G laboratory in Egypt to make components for the satellite ‘CubeSat’ in co-operation with Egyptian space agency.”
He went on to say that the university gives top priority to help graduates meet the requirements of the local and international labour market.
E-JUST is developing 60 programmes to ensure high standards of tuition coupled with highly competent graduates.
“We aim to make education something profitable, not a burden on the state. We want to make sure that everyone benefits from education as we seek to address all problems that Egyptian higher education looks into,” he said.
E-JUST is working on new programmes in space engineering and sciences, nanotechnology and applied chemistry, el-Gohari said.
“The inauguration of the university by the Egyptian presidents is considered the real start of E-JUST. The university’s strategy embodies the new concept of the new republic as this university is a government-sponsored institution,” he said.
Meanwhile, E-JUST is tangible proof of fruitful partnership between the two countries due to the great support it receives from both governments.
The university enjoys government support for its infrastructure and Japanese government backing for equipping laboratories and supplying Japanese teaching staff, el-Gohari said.
Applying Japanese methodologies and academic concepts based on practical experience is essential, the university president said.
“We are in partnership with 15 Japanese universities and 38 members of our staff went to Japan for training,” he added.
The university recently organised the E-JUST Dragons Summit to discuss the technological challenges facing Egyptian industry, Industry 4.0 technologies, ideas and solutions to beat the competition using the likes of Amazon, Apple, Tesla and Ant Group.
The summit also discussed the interaction the Fourth Industrial Revolution and sustainable development goals (SDGs).
“The most important outcome of this summit was networking as there were participants of different ages and backgrounds. We need to work together to promote industry,” he said.
El-Gohari mentioned that he recently received a delegation from Lyon 2 University in France to discuss further co-operation between the two universities in scientific research.
The university prioritises the support and development of scientific research and the maintenance and formation of partnerships with major universities to exchange expertise and conduct joint research, el-Gohari said.
The French delegation lauded E-JUST’s engineering and heritage science programmes and expressed their admiration for TICAD-7 scholarships for African students, el-Gohari added.
E-JUST offers African students 150 postgraduate science scholarships in the hope they will contribute to development in Africa, he said.
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