crossing over to the future

By Ahmed El-Gohary

This can be realised by any observer of the fast pace of development on the higher education scene;  construction of new universities with world class standards to cope with the fourth generation, designing and implementing different frameworks, and preparing the public opinion for new models of higher education as well as reorganising the industry as a whole.          

No doubt this functions as the locomotive for developing the society, through universities contribution in the implementation of the grand national projects to build the future. 

Higher education has never received such attention by the political leadership as it did over the past seven years; President Abdel Fattah El Sisi’s has given directives not to build any new university unless through twinning with one of the best 50 ones on the world levels. This has contributed to promoting the higher education system, as well as the classification of the Egyptian universities on the world level. 

In addition, building technological universities has led to a leap in the quality of education, and producing new generation of graduates who are capable of using the latest technologies to compete on the local and the international levels. 

The various pivots of higher education are availability, quality, diversity – geographical distribution and being global. In this way, higher education will be able to play due role in development.

Part of this is education tourism which has a significant role for marketing the learning opportunities in the new universities, to help attract students from various countries. This will help enhance Egypt’s role on the Arab, African and Middle East scenes, as well as in southern Mediterranean, as part of the soft power of education. 

It has to be considered that higher education is an integrated industry with obvious economic basis that secures it continuity and development. It also plays a role in supporting the national economy. 

The world countries are competing to attract as many as possible of over 30 million international students. These include the US, the UK, Australia, Malaysia, the UAE, India, China and New Zealand. In some countries, the higher education industry is the second major source of national income. 

It is worth mentioning that up to 60 per cent of the researchers in the US universities and research centres are non-American but have been attracted to the country.  

Competing on the world education scene through opening branches for reputable world universities here is of paramount importance to attract as many as possible of local and foreign students.

As for the fears that the teaching staff will abandon public universities to private ones, they are baseless. Large numbers of professors have gone to teach abroad, in Arab and foreign universities, and others travel annually to complete postgraduate studies overseas, and this has not affected public universities. In addition, new graduates will be able to bridge the gap of teaching  staff in the scientific sections of these universities.

Let’s be optimistic about the future.

Professor Ahmed El-Gohary     

President of the Japanese Egyptian University of Science and Technology (E-JUST)