Mohamed Abd El-Latif, the Egyptian Minister of Education and Technical Education, announced the ministry's plan for the new academic year 2024/2025, which will commence on September 21. The minister revealed on Wednesday that the scientific and knowledge content for high school students will be redesigned and distributed in a balanced manner to avoid causing an excessive knowledge burden on students.
According to the statement issued by the Ministry of Education today, first-year secondary students will study 6 subjects in the new academic year, compared to 10 subjects their counterparts studied last year. The curricula have been redesigned so that the second foreign language will be a passing or failing subject and will not count towards the total. The "Integrated Sciences" curriculum will be implemented for the first time instead of the separate chemistry and physics curricula. Geography will also be redesigned and excluded from study in the first year of secondary school, becoming a specialized subject for the literary branch in the following year. Thus, the subjects that first-year secondary students will study in the new year include Arabic language, first foreign language, history, mathematics, integrated sciences, and philosophy and logic, in addition to non-counting subjects (religious education and second foreign language) which are passing or failing subjects.
### Content Redesign
The minister stated that the content redesign process was based on scientific standards reviewed by specialized experts and involved community dialogue with experts, teachers, educational administration directors, school councils, parents, and teachers, as well as several media professors specialized in education, which received significant acceptance due to its impact on reducing the burden on Egyptian families without compromising the knowledge to be studied by students.
Abd El-Latif mentioned that limited adjustments would be made to the curricula of the second and third secondary grades, considering learning outcomes, ensuring no repetition in content, conducting precise scientific reviews, and updating what needs to be updated, as well as integrating what can be merged from knowledge or learning outcomes. This resulted in the second foreign language being assigned as a passing or failing subject outside the total score, thus benefiting from its study periods to strengthen and increase the periods for the first foreign language.
Mathematics will be redesigned to become a single subject, so that in the second year of secondary school, students will study 6 subjects instead of 8 as in the previous year. For the scientific branch, these subjects will be Arabic language, first foreign language, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics, effective for the 2024/2025 academic year, with history being added instead of biology in the following two academic years.
The minister also announced the subjects for second-year secondary literary branch students for the upcoming academic year 2024/2025: Arabic language, first foreign language, history, geography, psychology, and mathematics.
### Third Secondary Year
The minister disclosed that the content for the third secondary year will be redesigned starting from the next academic year 2024/2025, whereby the second foreign language and geology and environmental sciences will become subjects of pass and fail not counted in the total for the scientific sciences branch, and the second foreign language will be outside the total for the scientific mathematics branch, with mathematics being redesigned to become a single subject.
Consequently, students in the scientific sciences branch will study 5 subjects instead of 7: Arabic language, first foreign language, biology, chemistry, and physics. Students in the scientific mathematics branch will also study 5 subjects instead of 7: Arabic language, first foreign language, mathematics, chemistry, and physics.
For the literary branch, psychology and the second foreign language will become subjects of pass and fail not counted in the total, resulting in the total subjects studied by third secondary students in the literary branch over the next three years being 5 subjects instead of 7: Arabic language, first foreign language, history, geography, and statistics.
The minister emphasized the importance of cooperation among all parties in the educational system during the upcoming period, which faces significant challenges. The ministry's approach will involve community dialogue and constant communication with the educational system, reaffirming that the reformation and distribution of knowledge content in its new system aim to emphasize national identity through the authentic study of Egypt's history, including national topics in curricula, along with ensuring students acquire the necessary skills for the job market, while emphasizing the study of one essential foreign language and increasing the allotted hours for it to master it, and above all, restoring the educational role of the school.
