30 June 2008 The Association of Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE) states its rejection to the Prof. Minister of Higher Education’s disregard of most of the recommendations stated by the General Conference of Cairo University Members of the Teaching Staff Board and the General Conference of the Clubs of the Egyptian Universities Teaching Staff Board held on 5th May 2008 in Benha University. AFTE confirms that through the Minister’s announcement of the project relating quality and increase of income in its final forms, he could prove to everybody that his policy in taking decision on his own; all his claims on consulting the members of the teaching staff board and responding to their suggestions were only an unsuccessful attempt to beautify the image of the Ministry of Higher Education. He did not even exert an effort to make it convincing; he even did not consider the decisions that came out from the clubs of the teaching staff board and the council divisions of the faculties and the General Conference for the teaching staff board while they represent the least of the demands taken by and agreed upon by the crowd of professors. In spite of the Association’s stand, which was declared before <http://www.afteegypt.org/afteegyptreport.htm>, in which it refuses the rationale of the project itself, it considers that the majority of responses did not address the essence of the project; they addressed the details of quality specified by the Minister without ensuring the basic demands related to the increase of wages, regardless of the achievement of quality. This was stated in the decisions of the 4th conference for the members of the teaching staff board in November 2007 which demanded the immediate increase of basic wages so that the main salary doubles for the members of the teaching staff board and their assistants with not less than a 100%. Despite the fact that this minimum was in response to the details of the project, the Minister did not pay any attention to it. – The assisting body (Readers and assistant professors) are excluded from the project. – Differentiation between professors, through contracting with some and excluding others is still exists. – The disregard of the Minister to all the fuss about not providing the facilities that allow the achievement of the quality standards that he demanded in Universities. The persistence of the Ministry in its issued media release is most astonishing: “the drafting that the Higher Council of Universities reached in its final meeting was in light of the overall decisions that they agreed upon in the academic community represented in the board division of colleges and universities, clubs of the members teaching staff board and representatives of the members of the teaching staff board”. We wonder who are the teaching staff board that the Minister consulted, unless he meant that he collected these opinions about the project just for mere knowledge and not to amend the content of the project. What is ensured is that this position is part and parcel of the general policy that the Ministry, and on top of it the Minister of Higher Education, reminds us of what happened during the adoption of the new Statute and the vision of the Ministry of Higher Education in addressing a new draft bill for universities whose announcement scenarios were like those that took place with the members of the teaching board. The Minister always surveys opinions just for mere knowledge.
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