The NRP, which is affiliated with the Emirates Research Science Institute, aims to encourage more school and university students, as well as teachers, to embrace reading.

The NRP has four main pillars: the reading competition for school students titled the Intellectual Student, the competition for university students titled the Diamond Reader, the competition for teachers titled the Intellectual Teacher, and a special competition between community institutions titled the Enlightenment Institution.

The competition involves reading 30 books in any of a number fields and summarising them. For the Intellectual Student participants, the summary must be posted on two blogs, while the Diamond Reader and Intellectual Teacher participants must post their output on the programme’s website.

The award is EGP 50,000 to EGP 1 million for the Intellectual Student segment and EGP 100,000 to EGP 1 million for each of the Intellectual Teacher and Diamond Reader segments.

Moreover, cultural trips have been organised for the top three winners in each of the first three segments.

Institutions competing in the Enlightenment Institution segment that achieve top ranks in the competition will receive support including books for their libraries and cultural infrastructure development, in addition to certificates of appreciation.

The awards will be distributed during the closing ceremony of the second season, which will take place in December and will be attended by ministers and leading educational, cultural, and public figures.

The NRP aims to encourage Egyptian youth to embrace critical, creative, and functional reading, enabling them to acquire, apply and produce new knowledge to build a community that learns, thinks and innovates.

The NRP is sponsored by the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Higher Education, the Ministry of Culture, Egyptian Knowledge Bank and Al-Azhar foundation.