BADRAWI: EXAMS LEAKAGE AND MASS CHEATING ARE A MAJOR DISASTER

Badrawi: Exams leakage and mass cheating are a major disaster. Secondary school system in its current form must be changed; keeping it the same is catastrophic.

Everyone asks about my opinion in the leakage of General Secondary Exams (GSE), which determine the academic future path of our children, based on each student’s result.

First, I would like to say that the GSE in its current form is not the best means to achieve equality of opportunities among students. It may be fair as everyone does the same exam, but it definitely does not measure a student’s efficiency or capabilities.

Measuring of efficiency and capabilities is done through multiple standards, which, over years, the Egyptian community accepted to give up and only maintained a mark of a standard exam at one same moment based on which a student’s future is determined. The reason was the community lack of trust in multiplicity of bodies that would determine the student’s efficiency and readiness, fearing of corruption and favoritism that would interfere in favor of those who could. Hence, a one-chance exam, in their view, is fair, disregarding measuring the capability and efficiency actually.

Then, the major disaster came through electronic and mass cheating and leakage of questions and answers, resulting in total lack of the standard of justice from the one-chance exam that does not even measure capabilities. Why do we keep it in its current form? This is the question the entire government, not only the Minister of Education, should answer.

I further say, repeating the words I said 10 years ago, the law that proved its validity throughout history is the law of supply and demand. As long as available places in higher education are less than the number of applicants for higher education students, the GS will remain a bottleneck that students, along with their parents, scramble and are pressed to get out of it. A medium-term solution is to increase the number of universities in Egypt, not only to accommodate the current number of students, but also to meet the higher education vision in the future.

For your information, only less than 28% of Egyptian youth, 18-23 years, get a place in higher education, compared to the international standard required for advancement, 50%, and to the countries that exceeded 60%, as Korea and Israel.

Can we change the form of the exam? Definitely yes..

Can we change the form of universities admission? Definitely yes.

Can we increase the number of universities? Definitely yes.

Each “yes” of these has clear ideas and tried application methods.

Egypt needs courage in taking the development path, as keeping it the same is a DISASTER that will destroy any development.

God is my best witness,

God witnesses that I have now delivered the message as I had done yesterday,

God witnesses that I have repeatedly offered solutions and application methods over 16 consecutive years.

However, no ears to listen and no eyes would like to see.