May 30, 2019

PRESS RELEASE

Signing Ceremony to Enhance the Project Management Unit of the Egyptian Japanese Schools, “A model of educational cooperation in Africa and the Middle East,” according to Ambassador Noke

On May 30th of 2019, a signing ceremony was held for using the counterpart fund of Non-Project Grant signed in FY2011 to support and enhance the Project Management Unit (PMU) of the Egyptian Japanese Schools (EJS) with a value of 7.5 million Egyptian pounds. The Note Verbales were signed by Mr. Masaki Noke, the Ambassador of Japan to Egypt, and Dr. Sahar Nasr, Minister of Investment and International Cooperation, with Dr. Tarek Shawki, Minister of Education and Technical Education witnessing the ceremony.
This signing was an occasion for the Japanese and Egyptian Governments to reaffirm their commitment to the successful implementation of the EJS project. This new program contributes to accelerating the on-going reform in primary and secondary education in Egypt. The PMU plays a pivotal role in operating all EJS, and the utilization of the counterpart fund will strengthen human and material capacity of the PMU and promote Japanese-style education all over Egypt.
Japan has been supporting the reform in primary and secondary education as one of the top priority development agenda. Since 2016, Japanese government has been supporting the reform of Primary and Secondary education system of Egypt under the frame work of “Egypt-Japan Education Partnership (EJEP)”. Last September, 35 new EJS were inaugurated in addition to the 12 pioneer schools of Japanese-style education. In these 47 schools, character building is emphasized. School children develop not only academic abilities but also non-cognitive skills, such as cooperativeness, planning ability, consideration for others and sense of responsibility, by engaging in daily leader activities and class meetings which highlight positive values of behaviors and life skills, through the so-called “Tokkatsu (Special Activities)”. Japanese education experts are also implementing technical assistance for the school teachers to build up their capacities. In addition, Japan extended its support for EJS with the agreement of the soft loan of 170 million USD in February 2018.
Ambassador Noke stressed that the year 2019,“the year of education in Egypt” is an important year for both Japan and Egypt as Egypt assumes the presidency of the African Union while Japan will host two important Summit meetings – G20 Summit meeting in June and TICAD 7 (7th Tokyo International Conference on African Development) in August. He also emphasized that Japan’s unparalleled assistance in education sector in Egypt can be showcased as a leading model in the Middle East and African region, where education and human resource development is the top priority agenda.

(Note 1) Counterpart fund is the fund accumulated by the Government of Egypt for socio-economic development purposes. The fund was originally provided by the Government of Japan as grant aid in 2011 and 2012. Pursuant to the E/N signed by the both governments, the Government of Egypt requests approval from the Government of Japan to use the counterpart fund for national development policies.

(Note 2) The Project Management Unit (PMU) of the Egyptian Japanese Schools (EJS) functions as a strategy planning body and implementation control centre of EJS project of the Ministry of Education and Technical Education.