The House of Representatives has given preliminary approval to controversial bill that proposes sweeping amendments to the country’s education law, just days before the current legislative session ends.
The draft law, approved by the Education and Scientific Research Committee of the House of Representatives on Saturday, seeks to introduce a new optional baccalaureate certificate system without abolishing the existing Thanaweya Amma structure.
The Thanaweya Amma system is Egypt’s traditional general secondary education track, culminating in high-stakes national exams that determine university placement. The proposed baccalaureate system would offer an alternative pathway, modeled on international curricula.
Unlike the Thanaweya Amma, the Baccalaureate system is expected to spread its academic workload over two stages: a preparatory year (10th grade) and a main stage encompassing the final two years (11th and 12th grade). Across these final two years, students will focus on a more streamlined selection of seven subjects.
The preparatory stage will lay a foundational groundwork with core subjects such as religious education, Arabic language, Egyptian history, mathematics, integrated sciences, philosophy, logic, and a first foreign language. Notably, certain subjects like a second foreign language, programming, and computer science will be taught in this initial year but will not contribute to the final grade, reflecting a more holistic approach to learning.
As students transition into the main stage (11th and 12th grade), they will continue with core subjects like Arabic language, Egyptian history, and their first foreign language, with religious education also becoming a graded core subject in the final year.
The key innovation here lies in the introduction of specialized academic tracks, offering students a broader range of choices beyond the traditional science and literature divisions. These tracks include Medicine and Life Sciences, Engineering and Computer Sciences, Business, and Arts and Humanities. Each track is designed with specific subject focuses; for instance, Medicine and Life Sciences will delve into advanced biology and chemistry in the final year, while Engineering and Computer Sciences will emphasize advanced mathematics and physics.
A crucial departure from the Thanaweya Amma is the examination and grading system. The new Baccalaureate will move towards continuous assessment over the two main years, replacing the singular, high-pressure final exams. Furthermore, it introduces the unprecedented flexibility for students to retake exams to improve their scores. While the initial attempt for each subject is typically free, subsequent attempts may incur a fee, with the highest grade achieved being recorded and counting towards the final score.
The overall grading will transition to a 700-point scale, offering a more granular representation of student performance compared to the previous 320-point system.
The bill follows recent reforms implemented by the education ministry in August 2024, which reduced the number of subjects in Thanaweya Amma exams to five per stream. The new structure came into effect in the 2024–2025 academic year.
The new reforms also emphasize vocational and technical education, revamping existing tracks and introducing new one- or two-year professional programs.
These changes include provisions for various fees, such as those for parallel academic tracks, retaking exams, or re-enrolling in failed academic years, which have drawn criticism from human rights groups over concerns about increasing educational inequality.
Cabinet first approved the amendments in January, backing Education Minister Mohamed Abdel Latif’s vision for diversified certification pathways.
However, The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) has voiced strong opposition to the draft law, citing a conspicuous absence of serious societal dialogue and insufficient study of its potential ramifications for millions of Egyptian families.
EIPR argued that the amendments, which encompass revisions to 17 articles and the introduction of new provisions, risk entrenching inequality and class discrimination while increasing financial burdens on households.
These concerns, the organization contended, undermine the core objectives and mission of education enshrined in the Egyptian Constitution, and even contradict the government's own National Education Strategy and National Human Rights Strategy.
EIPR cautioned that the introduction of additional registration fees and exam retake charges, particularly given the high poverty rates in Egypt—with over a third of Egyptians experiencing poverty or extreme poverty—risks limiting these programs to specific socio-economic strata.
This, they argued, exacerbates inequality and restricts fair competition among students, further burdening families already grappling with transportation costs, textbooks, and the prevalent phenomenon of private tutoring.
The organization further highlighted that in 2019-2020, the wealthiest decile of students spent over 22 times more on education than the poorest decile, suggesting that new fee-based educational programs without strict adherence to the constitutional guarantee of free education could worsen this disparity and intensify the privatization of the educational system.
EIPR also took issue with a provision raising the passing grade for the religion subject from 50% to 70%, calling it unconstitutional and warning it would intensify reliance on private tutoring. The group said the subject’s current teaching model promotes sectarian divisions, in violation of Article 19 of the constitution.
“Education is a constitutional right, guaranteed to all and funded by the state,” EIPR stated, citing constitutional requirements for free education and a minimum allocation of 4% of GDP to pre-university education and 2% to higher education.
