Egypt’s Minister of Culture Ines Abdel-Dayem and president of the Academy of Arts Ashraf Zaki have inaugurated the first phase of the Higher Institute of Child Arts, which Abdel-Dayem described as “the first of its kind in Egypt and the Middle East, which represents an important step in the path of developing specialised arts.”

Minister Abdel-Dayem met with students from the first class of the institute, which started its first year with only postgraduate studies.

Institute president Zaki explained that the Higher Institute of Child Arts consists of three buildings for writers, directors, and toys and puppets.

Minister Abdel-Dayem said that the institute is the culmination of a 29-year-old dream, which is when the decision to establish it was first conceived.

She explained that the curriculum aims to create specialists capable of preparing a new generation that “carries a message of enlightenment and development to society.”

She also called for opening branches of the institute in other governorates.

Abdel-Dayem and Zaki also opened the first phase of the Language and Translation Centre building, and the building of the School of Arts, which includes elementary, preparatory and secondary stages and aims to teach different types of arts like ballet, oriental and Western music, cinema, theatre, and others, in order to prepare talented students for joining the institutes of the academy.