Egyptian police forcibly dispersed on Wednesday tens of graduating high school students protesting assignments to public universities and colleges outside Egypt's Ministry of Higher Education in central Cairo against 

Protesters were calling for a review of the process of assigning students to public universities, saying the results announced recently are unfair.

To be enrolled in public universities in Egypt, high school graduates send choices and preferences of public faculties and universities to the ministry’s assignments office, which in turn allocates applicants according to grades and space in colleges. Students with high grade point averages (GPAs) are likely to join the faculty of their choice.

According to Egyptian law, high school graduates who wish to apply for public universities are limited to schools within their immediate geographical zone.

Faculties from one university to another require different GPAs, which means a student with a lower GPA might be enrolled in a faculty that another with a higher GPA wouldn’t because of zoning.

According to a protest law passed in 2013, protests must be authorised in advance by the police.

Those who take part in or organise unauthorised demonstrations could be penalised with up to three years in jail.