.75 The Egyptian Higher Education System: Towards Better Quality in the Future

Transformations in the purpose and scope of higher education1 have taken place in recent decades. Many public officials throughout different countries, especially developed ones, have come to hold ambitious goals for higher education. It is now perceived as a means to foster econom-ic growth – through its capacity to create both a highly skilled workforce and research that under-pins a knowledge-based economy. Furthermore, it is recognized as a principal instrument for the fostering of social cohesion, widely dispersing the benefits of economic growth. Higher education has expanded in many countries from the number of enrollments point of view. And it has simultaneously become much more diverse in its providers, in its learners, in the range of skills and training it provides, and in connection to the commercial life of knowledge-based economies. * I thank Dr. Fabienne Gaux-Baudiment Head of the World Futures Studies Federation and Progective research center for her continuous support in making this paper a reality, through her constructive comments which have given this paper the depth which would have been impossible without. Thank you for your time and effort. The main aim of this article is to suggest futures-oriented solutions for the problem ofdecreasing quality of the higher education system in Egypt. To achieve this aim the article started with referring to the mega driv-ing forces in society and higher education in the 21st century, a background about the Egyptian education sys-tem, and the main challenges facing it. Possible, probable, and preferable futures are then defined. According to the preferable futures a set of short and long-term recommendations for improving the quality of the higher education system are presented in the last part of the article