The education ministry is pushing ahead with plans to do away with the public education system currently in place by 2026, minister Tarek Shawki said at AmCham’s annual general meeting and iftar yesterday, according to Youm7. The ministry will push ahead with its plans for a major overhaul of primary and middle school education despite public resistance to the new system, which will be implemented gradually as of the 2018-19 academic year. Shawki also said the ministry is planning on installing high-speed WiFi in all schools across the country by August, Al Mal reports.

Teachers’ salaries are the biggest drain on the Education Ministry’s budget, says Shawki: Paying teachers’ salaries and covering the costs of printing textbooks and providing school meals leave the Education Ministry with virtually no money to finance the improvement of the education system, Al Masry Al Youm reports the minister as having said. According to Shawki, salaries and bonuses handed out to teachers alone account for EGP 68 bn of the ministry’s total EGP 80 bn budget, while the remaining EGP 12 bn are split among other annual expenses such as school meals and building new schools. Shawki said he does not expect the Finance Ministry to loosen its purse strings for education spending. Parliament’s Education Committee has recommended earmarking an additional EGP 60 bn to spending on education in the FY2018-19 state budget, as we noted last week.

Separately, Shawki announced that the government’s new Japanese-style schools will begin accepting applications for the 2018-19 school year in mid-June, according to Al Shorouk.