Egypt to bolster educational ties with Kuwait

Egypt is looking forward to strengthening educational relations with Kuwait, especially with the official educational institutions and professional syndicates, represented by Kuwait Teachers' Association, said Egypt's Teachers Syndicate head Dr. Ahmad Al-Halawani. The meeting with Kuwait's Minister of Education and Minister of Higher Education, Dr. Nayef Al-Hajraf was constructive and fruitful, said Dr. Al-Halawani, who is currently visiting Kuwait in response to an official invitation received from the Teacher's Association. He was speaking at a news conference held on the sidelines of a seminar hosted by the Egyptian cultural office Tuesday evening on the development of the educational process in Egypt. Al-Hajraf expressed readiness to cooperate to overcome obstacles that Egyptian teachers may face in Kuwait, Dr. Al-Halawani noted, adding that he reviewed with the minister the Teacher's Association's possibility of establishing a league to follow up with the Egyptian teachers' concerns in order to be addressed, as well as the teachers' contracts. The Egyptian Teachers' Syndicate will discuss with Egypt's Minister of Education and Minister of Manpower and Emigration working on preparing a fixed form for a unified work contract for Egyptian teachers working abroad to ensure their rights as it will be presented for consultation to the national educational syndicates to fit the rules and local laws of each country, he added. On the seminar, he said that Egypt needs to be promoted by education initially according to the vision of a future strategy of clear goals, noting that since the inception of the syndicates in the mid-fifties, they will be contributing in the development of Egypt's new constitution for the first time. As a member of the Constituent Assembly of Egypt (CA) for the creation of a new Constitution, the Syndicate has made education materials such as establishing the National Council for Education and Research to set a strategy for various national levels of education as well as developing standards for a better quality of education and scientific research, he said. Al-Halawani noted that students with GPAs of 66 percent in Egypt head to technical education, as "they are the workforce that Egypt's prosperity depends on," and it is a percentage that puts the ministry in front of a big challenge in the development of clear standards that guarantee the quality of educational outputs as well as keeping up to date with the modern curricula.