EGYPT: Universities vs academics on e-education

Egypt's public universities have unveiled a plan to computerise their curricula and ways of instruction - but the online move has met with criticism from professors and students. The Ministry of Higher Education said months ago it would make lectures and syllabuses available on the internet as part of a scheme to develop education, and now e-education facilities have been set up in state institutions.

"The first stage of the plan is already underway through electronic centres in government universities at a cost of LE7 million (around US$1.4 million)," Mohamed Abdel Hamid, Chair of the National Committee for Information Technology Systems at the Ministry of Higher Education, told University World News.

Hamid explained that during this phase, due to be finalised in December, electronic centres in public universities were digitalising syllabuses and making them available to students. "The aim is to spread information technology in the academic community and give students the chance to check books in their discipline authored by several professors."

Hamid believes the move will cut the high cost of textbooks in public universities. Authors of digitalised books will get royalties estimated at LE10,000 (around US$1,700) per course. He said this could be one way to improve the financial status of university academics.

But academics beg to disagree: "Though no-one can underestimate the importance of making use of advanced techniques in developing education, attention should be given first to the availability of favourable conditions to ensure the success of any plan for e-education," said Abdel Rauf al-Daab, a professor of sociology at the provincial University of Sohag in southern Egypt.

In al-Daab's view, there are major obstacles to promoting e-education in Egypt's 18 state universities. Colleges teaching theoretical courses are "bursting at the seams" with students, he argued, making it extremely hard for academics to keep in touch with students through the internet.

"This requires that more public universities should be set up so as to admit more students and meet the international standard of having at least one university per million people." Egypt, which has a population of 80 million people, has 18 public and 16 private higher education institutions. State universities are under-funded compared with private ones.

"Another impediment to e-education in government universities is the computer illiteracy from which many students and academics suffer," said al-Daab. "Before thinking of e-education plans we should ensure that students and their instructors can really go online."

Yussri Afifi, a former professor at the College of Education of Ain Shams University - Egypt's second biggest university - is also not upbeat. "All previous attempts to introduce learning by distance in Egypt have proved useless," Afifi told University World News.

"For example, open education courses continue to run along the lines of traditional education. In addition, I think education should be based on face-to-face interaction between the teacher and his students. A large part of university syllabuses cannot be handled through the internet; e-education does not have the key to solving problems of education in Egypt."

Students also have reservations: "The idea of studying through the internet and communicating with the teacher in this way may sound appealing to some students but not to me," said Fawzy Mabrouk, a student of Arabic language at Cairo University, Egypt's largest institution.

"Many students like me do not own a personal computer. Moreover, I cannot imagine myself for long hours glued to my seat in front of the computer to check my courses. This is exhausting and tedious."

Officials in state universities promise that students who do not have a computer will be able to browse the internet in computer laboratories at their colleges. Financed by a grant from the European Union, the government has established e-education facilities in public universities.

One student who is excited is Hend Mahmoud, 21, who is studying medicine: "I think this system will revolutionise university education in Egypt," Mahmoud said. "Traditional textbooks are a matter of the past in many universities around the world. Introducing e-education on a larger scale in Egyptian universities will most likely raise the academic standards of students and encourage them to check the latest research in the branches of knowledge in which they major."