Tele-education Projects in Egypt

Distant Education has proved to be an efficient form of education, and thus its use has increased through the last couple of years tremendously. As it is based on advancements in technology, its implementation was somewhat difficult in the developing countries of the Middle East. But due to Egypt's care about education and technology; it has implemented several tele-education projects in several universities in Egypt.

In December 1993 in New Delhi, India, a summit meeting was held between the leaders of nine of the high-population countries in the world concerning the implementation of distance education in each of these countries. These countries included Egypt, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, and Pakistan, which constituted about 72% of the world's illiterates, and more than 50% of the world's population. In the meeting, they agreed on a "Joint Initiative on Distance Education" to help promote distance education in certain criteria. For example, to enhance the training of teachers and other personnel, and to have better access to marginalized groups. This meeting was coordinated by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which volunteered to support, facilitate, and coordinate the project. This was one of the first projects that Egypt participated in. It showed interest in teacher training at a distance project, while most of the 9 countries created projects to support their initiative.

Concerning undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, Egypt has four Universities that offer this kind of education. They constitute Cairo University, Alexandria University, Assiut University, and Ain-Shams University, all of which started providing distant education after the 1989 approval of The Supreme Council of Egyptian Universities to provide open learning in universities interested in offering that kind of education. These Open Learning Centers provide a wide range of disciplines through distant education. These Universities are considered to be dual-mode universities; this means that they offer both, on-campus and off-campus programs.

On the other hand, a single-mode distant education University is one that only provides distant education with no alternative forms. An example of single-mode Universities is the Arab Open University (AOU), which has several branches around the Arab world, one of which lies in Egypt. Established in 1999, the AOU uses technological advancements in communication to make higher education and continuing education accessible to all Arab Citizens, willing to have an opportunity to learn. In order to have a high quality accredited education, the AOU has concluded agreements of cooperation and affiliation with the United Kingdom Open University (UKOU) that cover licensing of materials, consultancies, and accreditation and validation.

On assessing such universities, researchers have found fault with the planning and administration of programs offered by the AOU in Egypt. Although AOU was established under the umbrella of the Arab Gulf Program for United Nations Development Organizations (AGFUND), and uses materials, consultancies, and so on from UKOH, it leaves no option for home-developed materials to be developed. Another negative point is that AOU requires completed secondary education in order to accept students. This limits the number of people who can apply, and it also frustrates those who do not want a degree, but only professional enhancement opportunities. Regarding its aim to offer education for all Arabs who are willing to learn, AOU contradicts itself by requiring good knowledge of the English language for all the programs to be taught, which only a minority of Arabs have. Also a tuition of more that 1000 $US per semester is quite a lot for the average Arab citizen.To help fix these problems, regular monitoring of the system is required to update and improve on the system.

Most people enrolled in a distant education program or course face problems with using the technology, let that person be a student, teacher, or even administration. To overcome this problem, the Human and technology Development Foundation ( HDF ) was founded. It is the largest non-profit organization in the Middle East working in the field of Information Communication Technology (ICT). Its main aim is to promote, inform, and train in order to cultivate a better understanding of information technology in the Arab region. In October this year in Egypt, HDF will host the 2008 ICT-learn conference aiming at meeting the networking needs of international e-learning and distance learning providers.

Another very important recent project implemented in Egypt in 2007 is NEPAD e-schools project in El-Beheira governate. NEPAD stands for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, which aims at developing the African countries in several aspects, education included. Egypt is the first Arab country to implement this project, which aims at providing a learning mechanism based on the implantation of ICTs in schools. HP, Oracle, and GIMPEX have collaborated to support this project, with GIMPEX donating up to 120 SMART Board interactive whiteboards, and HP providing 3 computer labs in different Egyptian governate schools, with the latest technologies including desktop, laptops, computer servers, wireless network, smart boards, while providing internet at all times. The project also aims at training teachers to use the technology in order for them to efficiently teach the kids through an interactive learning environment.


Resources:
El Hadin. "Under the Auspices of Minister of Education …." 11 Feb. 2007. 14 July 2008 .

"Human and Technology Development Foundation." 2008. 14 July 2008


Mohamed, Amel A. "Distance Higher Education in the Arab Region: the Need for Quality Assurance Frameworks." Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration 8 (2005). 14 July 2008 .

Visser, Jan. "Learning Without Frontiers." 14 Apr. 1994. 14 July 2008.