UA-R-GC-1914-01-01-1976-02-16_Page-025

-4- ASSISTANCE TO THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION In February George Bickford and Bayly Winder asked for information on what AUC was doing to serve Egypt. Though a special section on "Aue in Egyptian Education" was in the last President's Report, it is a most im­portant subject. In the sections that follow, I shall give you some infor­mation beyond that contained in the annual report. AUC has tried to help the Egyptian Ministry of Education in teaching English as a foreign language since the 1960's. Our Diploma program has graduated lOS Egyptian secondary school teachers and our special Certificate program has graduated ninety-one junior high school teachers since 1969. More recently we have offered to help the Ministry directly in testing, teaching, and curriculum matters. Heretofore the service and the offers have had little recognition or response from the ministry's bureaucracy. A meeting was held on February 26 with the Minister, Dr. Mustafa Kamal Helmy, his two undersecretaries and an AUC delegation composed of Dr. Allam, Dr. Fawzy, Dean Lamont and Carl Schieren. The purpose of the meeting was to explain that in the absence of a general support grant from the Ford Foundation to the English Language Institute, AUC could no longer cover the full costs of the Certificate program. The Minister said that although the cost was very high he would try to cover the costs from his own budget. He agreed to have AUC assist him in obtaining an outside grant to cover the cost and we are pursuing this with AID. However, what emerged from the meeting was the basis for much closer cooperation in the future. The Minis­ter said that while he had always felt that AUC was for the children of rich families, he was surprised and pleased to know of an AUC program providing help to Egyptians who come from the masses and who are essential in training the coming generation. He not only promised his cooperation but actively I I