Is the Education Ministry looking to cap tuition increases at int’l schools? The Education Ministry is considering ways of prompting international and private language schools to lower their tuition fees, Minister Tarek Shawki said at a conference, Al Borsa reports, raising the prospect of tuition caps and other forms of direct interference in pricing. International schools had been hoping to convince the new minister (a former dean at the American University in Cairo) to soften the hard line taken by his predecessor, but yesterday’s statement took it further: Former minister El Hilali El Sherbini said earlier this month that schools must not raise tuition fees without prior approval from the ministry, but had never spoken of caps; that rhetoric had prompted some schools to argue that as private businesses, they should be regulated by the Investment and International Cooperation Ministry. Shawki also said yesterday that he is committed to the principle of universal free access to education and that the ministry isn’t backing away from building public-private partnership schools. Relations between the ministry and private schools have been tense since Shawki’s predecessor placed the International School of Choueifat and the American International School of Cairo under administrative and financial supervision last year.

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