This year, many people have criticized the Faculty Grading System (FGS), especially after the leak of exam questions, but education experts advise to amend, rather than revoke it.
“Try to cancel the FGS even for one year and allow students to enter the faculties they like. And next year observe success rates. Then, Chao Ming would have no role because its idea would expire. That is how crises should be resolved.”
This year, many people have criticized the Faculty Grading System (FGS), especially after the leak of exam questions, but education experts advise to amend, rather than revoke it.
“Try to cancel the FGS even for one year and allow students to enter the faculties they like. And next year observe success rates. Then, Chao Ming would have no role because its idea would expire. That is how crises should be resolved.”
This is part of a statement posted on the Facebook page ‘Chao Ming Cheats in High School Exams,’ a contested site that has been leaking high school exams for four consecutive years and concerned authorities have not been able to shut it down. At the end of the statement, the administrator stresses that if the government positively responded to his demand to abolish FGS and education development, the page would vanish.
Accused Chao Ming
The FGS determines the faculty in which students will study according to their high school grade point average (GPA). Besides Chao Ming, there are many calls for FGS abolition. Head of Anti-Discrimination Foundation Abeer Suleiman supports the abolition.
“I believe that revoking the FGS is a lasting solution to the high school problem, which strains students and their parents, especially since the FGS deprives students of joining the faculties that best suit them,” she says. “It is a solution that ensures equal opportunities which have been wasted due to the exam leak. The entrance exam, if adopted, can be developed by each faculty, which would then introduce a mechanism for selecting the most suitable and worthy students. It is absolutely the most proper system since it puts the right student at the right place in line with his or her capabilities and potential.”
Dr. Gamal Hnedy, a pedagogy teacher at Suez University (SU) concurs with Suleiman. Pedagogy, he says, mainly depends on guiding individuals towards the development of their tendencies and skills following a number of relevant tests.
Different situation
“Unfortunately, although I support FGS abolition, it is not possible in Egypt in the absence of conscience, oversight and accountability,” says Hnedy. “When ad hoc exam committees are formed for the children of senior officials and the rich so that they can easily cheat, how can we make sure that entrance tests in faculties are fair and transparent, especially with the rampant corruption in most Egyptian universities, to which I myself am a witness.”
Hnedy was born in a poor family and had it not been for the FGS, he would not have joined the faculty he wanted. “The FGS is the last hope that ensures the rights of the poor and vulnerable in a country where rich and able people seize all opportunities,” he concedes.
SU chancellor full professor Maher Missbah agrees with Hnedy and underscores that the FGS is a traditional system non-existent in developed countries. He told Correspondents that there was a need to introduce a system linking the labor market to education and allowing students to study their dream disciplines to excel and succeed.
Yes to the FGS
Former Dean of the Faculty of Education at South Valley University professor Mustafa Ragab opposes FGS abolition. “How can we repeal the FGS while it is the only remaining gain of the July 1952 Revolution where the successive ruling regimes have wasted all its gains,” he says. “Pro-FGS abolition supporters are evil voices within the Ministry of Higher Education – MoHE – and they seek to remove social justice in education.”
“The government now is a businessmen government. If the FGS were abolished, government universities would be rubbish and only foreign education would prosper. Consequently, only the rich would be educated, while the poor would only become tuk-tuk drivers. It is necessary to have a political will and the president should assert that he is the guardian of the Constitution and would never accept FGS abolition because this would waste justice guaranteed by the Constitution.”
Amended FGS
“How could anyone think of FGS abolition?” Wonders Dr. Kamal Mogheeth, an expert and a researcher at the National Center for Educational Research and Development.
He argues that taking such a step in response to pressure only causes more problems. All efforts exerted for education reform and development and for caring for teachers and schools would be in vain.
Mogheeth says the FGS should be maintained but amended. For example, he says, the high school written exams could account for eighty percent, rather than the current one hundred percent, since some students may experience extraordinary circumstances at the time of exam. The other twenty percent should be equally distributed to the test of high-level subjects, which tests specific disciplines and a student’s educational history. Thus, students could make up the exam should they fail at any of the stages. And the FGS could be kept as a mechanism to allow those who get a high GPA to join the faculty they want.
Education scholar Mustafa Ismail concurs with Mogheeth. “The FGS better protects our children’s right to free education,” he says. “The majority even see the FGS as the only fair law in Egypt, despite its shortcomings and effects – favoritism and nepotism would have increased in favor of the children of influential people and tertiary education would have become confined to the rich.”
Absent idea
“Repealing the FGS now is out of question lest we create social chaos,” says Sayed Ata, MoHE FGS General Supervisor. “It is all up to the Supreme Council of Universities – SCU.”
SCU member and chancellor of Helwan University full professor Yasser Saqr says the SCU has not received any plan or proposal for FGS abolition. He says that it is difficult to revoke the FGS, especially in the absence of a suitable substitute.
Alternatives
Head of MoHE Education Department and former FGS General Supervisor Ahmad Farhat says he has prepared an alternative with two options. Adopted in Saudi Arabia, the first option, which is closer to the Egyptian society, is the establishment of an independent National Commission for Capacity Measurement to provide a question bank through specialized members of various discipline committees. Electronic exams are held to measure the ability of Egyptian and foreign students to enroll in the discipline they want. This method accepts all possible modifications, including setting a minimum GPA as a precondition for the sitting of the entrance exam of some disciplines that need special intellectual requirements, such as medicine and engineering.
The second, says Farhat, would set a minimum degree for acceptance in each discipline (e.g. 80 percent for medicine and engineering and 50 percent for others), allowing a large number of students to join the discipline they want. Then, each faculty holds an electronic exam after determining the number of students to be admitted to the faculty through its respective university or the SCU. The entrance exam varies from one university to another depending on turnout. Each faculty provides a question bank for the electronic exam and these questions are reviewed by specialized committees.
