850 participants from different learning stages from primary school to college took part in the final qualifications of the National Reading Project, which was held at Al-Masa hotel in the New Administrative Capital over four days.

The participants came from schools and colleges from all over Egypt to join the project sponsored by Egypt’s Ministry of Education, Ministry of Higher Education, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Social solidarity, and Ministry of Youth and Sports.

The winners of the National Reading contest will be announced by the end of May 2021.

The project is based on four main dimensions, namely: the knowledge competition in reading among school students; the Diamond Code in which university students compete in reading; the educated teacher, where teachers compete in reading; and the institution of enlightenment, in which societal institutions compete.

Tarek Shawki, minister of education, said that the project has achieved great success in its first year and that the results were great with more than 3.5 million participating, and 100 million books were read in one year by the participants of the project.

He explained that the National Reading Project is a competitive cultural project aimed at directing Egyptian children and youth to continue critical creative functional reading, which enables them to acquire knowledge, apply it, and produce new thoughts from it in order to reach a community that learns, thinks, and innovates, which is consistent with Egypt’s Vision 2030.

“Egyptian education now is witnessing a renaissance based on the Egyptian Knowledge Bank, which helps educated people from all ages to develop and update their knowledge and skills to keep up with the 21st century, ” Shawki added.

Shawki said that the project targeted 54,000 public and private schools, of which 18,901 took part in the project — i.e., 35 percent of all schools across the country.

9,302 Azhari institutions and schools participated in the project, which is roughly 78.8 percent of all educational institutions that follow Al-Azhar.

Of all of the 67 Egyptian Universities and 172 Higher Education institutions, 52 universities participated.

The activities of the project’s final qualifiers were attended by Said Siddiq, the head of the Central Administration for Planning and Quality; Mohamed Saad, the director of the Education Directorate in Alexandria; Hussam El-Mandawah, a member of the House of Representatives for the Education and Scientific Research Committee; Hisham El-Sanjari, who is responsible for the project; and Mohamed Abdullah, the secretary-general of the teachers club.