Students from different governorates now have the chance to go to Cairo University
The Supreme Council for Universities (SCU) agreed on 27 March to annul the rules concerning regional distribution for university acceptance, starting in the 2023-24 academic year, reports Reem Leila.
The decision includes students who finish Thanaweya Amma (12th grade) as well as equivalent certificates. Prior to the decision, students finishing high school could only apply to universities nearest to their place of residence. For example, a student living in Aswan would not have been accepted into Cairo University, not because of his grade, but because of his address.
However, the decision does not include all faculties. Instead, it will only apply to students wishing to enter the faculties of mass communication, nursing, information technology, education, specific education, health technical institutes, and technical nursing institutes.
According to Al-Sayed Atta, head of the education sector at the Ministry of Higher Education and supervisor of the office of admissions to public universities (tanseeq), the decision aimed at safeguarding the rights of students by providing them with equal opportunities and full entitlement to join the faculties they desire. “The faculties indicated do not require passing aptitude tests to join them, therefore, the decision will be applied to students who want to join them starting next year,” Atta said.
“The top 10 students will also be exempted from the rule. They will be allowed to join any faculty they want without any geographical constraints,” Atta added.
Cancelling the rules of regional distribution is considered an important decision that should have been taken earlier to correct situations related to students’ admission to certain faculties on the basis of their place of residence, without taking into account their total score, Tamer Shawki, education expert and professor of psychology at Ain Shams University, noted. “This decision complies with the principle of providing equal opportunities for all students, which is also stipulated in the Egyptian constitution. It is unfair for any student who received a needed grade to join a certain faculty to be deprived from being enrolled just because it is not within the student’s residential boundaries,” Shawki said.
He said admission and acceptance to faculties should depend only on a student obtaining the minimum grades for admission. “Many students were prevented from joining the faculties of their dreams just because of their location,” Shawki said.
Amal Shams, a professor of sociology at the Faculty of Education in Ain Shams University, pointed out that the government along with the Ministry of Higher Education had enlarged dorms to take in a larger number of expatriate students. Moreover, she said, domestic transportation networks were expanded, thus facilitating transport for students between governorates.
Shams noted that the new decision will end the occurrence of some students changing their place of residence in their personal identification card (ID), especially those living in remote governorates, so that they can join the faculty they want.
Meanwhile, students and parents believe that although many students will benefit from the new decision, most will not because the decision is limited to certain faculties.
“It would have been more useful if it were applied to all faculties,” said Rania Sabri, a businesswoman and mother of twins, one of whom is in Thanaweya Amma this year.
In 2014 the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that regional distribution rules stipulated in Article 1 of Decree 1937/2014 of the minister of higher education and scientific research regarding the rules for accepting students who obtained the Egyptian general secondary certificate and its equivalent, were unconstitutional.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 6 April, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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