Egypt Ministry of Education has announced the launch of a National Reading Program (NRP), in a move to get children and youth to participate more in reading.
The Egyptian Minister announced Education Tarek Shawki at the “High-Level Conference on Accelerating Learning in the Middle East and Africa” in Cairo.
The Minister of education explained that the National Reading Program competitions was necessitated by the need to imbibe reading culture in children and will begin mid-February.
He added that the program aims at enhancing the student’s nationwide ability to read and improve their knowledge skills, which is in tune with Egypt’s Agenda of 2030 Vision.
Tarek explained that the National reading program comes within Egypt’s Agenda of 2030 Vision, in cooperation with the United Arab Emirates. Under the supervision of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in collaboration with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) of the United Kingdom and the World Bank.
National Reading Program categories
The education minister also noted the National Reading program (NRP) annual competition has four categories. He added that LE 5 million were allocated for each category.
The first category titled “Knowledge-based Competitiveness,” which will be held among the students in primary, preparatory, and secondary schools, besides the educational, religious institutions of Al-Azhar.
The second category, titled “the Diamond Blog” for the academic students and the first winner all over the state’s universities, will be awarded LE1 million each from all over the country.
The third category titled “the Intellectual Teacher,” which is the applicants are teachers and must have to reach and sum up 30 Arabic-language books, including five books on the education and 25 others on the general culture and knowledge.
The fourth category, titled “Enlightening Institution,” as the social organizations have to offer their projects that participate in enhancing and boosting the program’s goals. The winner will also be awarded LE1 million.
Notably, participants are required to read in any field they want, but the areas should not be less than five sciences. Additionally, the names of the winners will be announced in June 2020 as the first winners of each category will be awarded LE1 million each.
Egypt encouraging reading culture
Egypt has recently been encouraging reading culture among its students through various initiatives recently set up related to the National Reading program.
Most notable of them is the Reading for All campaign launched by Suzan Mubarak, wife of former President Hosni Mubarak. The initiative seeks to encourage reading among children to decrease illiteracy.
Egypt also hosts millions of visitors at the International Book Fair in Cairo, which is organized annually since its establishment in 1969.
Notably, this structure was put in place after the ministry of education revealed in a report in November 2019 that the reading and writing skills among the students are at a low level, promising to eradicate the illiteracy among the people of the nation.
Keiko Miwa World Bank’s Regional Director for Human Development, affirmed the strong partnership between Egypt and the World Bank, emphasizing the Higher Education Ministry would do everything possible to enhance the quality of education in the country.
