Business | General
Egypt's education reforms win praise
US first lady Laura Bush joined forces with her Egyptian counterpart, Suzanne Mubarak, at the World Economic Forum to celebrate the Egyptian Education Initiative (EEI).
- Staff Report
- Published: 00:16 May 19, 2008
- Image Credit: AP
- Suzanne Mubarak, the Egyptian prime minister's wife (left), with US First Lady Laura Bush at a function to celebrate the success of the Egyptian Education Initiative.
Sharm Al Shaikh: US first lady Laura Bush joined forces with her Egyptian counterpart, Suzanne Mubarak, at the World Economic Forum to celebrate the Egyptian Education Initiative (EEI).
The project, which was launched at the meeting two years ago, is now set to go international. Under the umbrella of the Global Education Initiative (GEI), the EEI will extend its support on educational reform to developing countries such as Rwanda, which has shown interest in the Egyptian model.
"The EEI's third year will be dedicated to impact assessment and exploring means of making the program sustainable." said Hoda Baraka, director, EEI and first deputy to the minister of communications and information technology of Egypt.
Over the past 24 months, more than $80 million has been invested in professional development and training of students, developing curricula, certification, content digitisation, infrastructure deployment, and hardware and software as part of the EEI programme's activities.
The EEI was able to accelerate the rhythm of implementation and complete most activities. In schools and universities nationwide, 40,000 PCs have been deployed, more than 185,000 trainings have been delivered, and 2,000 schools, 17 universities and 400 centres were impacted by the EEI.
The initiative with its massive scale has proven that multi-stakeholder partnerships can be effective where mutual concern is shared by all parties.
"Through impressive sponsors and a powerful approach to public and private partnership, the EEI has already impacted almost 185,000 stakeholders across Egypt's education community; a truly wonderful accomplishment in such a short period," said Jean-Philippe Courtois, president, Microsoft France.
"The EEI has accomplished a critical milestone toward equipping students with the 21st century skills that will enable them to participate in this global economy," said Tae Yoo, senior vice-president, Cisco corporate affairs.
"Making quality education available to more students around the world has inspired Intel's commitment to education for 40 years. Intel gets directly involved in policy, training teachers, offering free curricula, providing children a place to explore technology and encouraging young inventors," said William A. Swope, vice-president and general manager, corporate affairs group, Intel.
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