The higher ed sector is pushing deeper into the tech field: Egypt's higher education sector is deepening and diversifying its offering of tech-related disciplines as it looks to graduate students capable of meeting demands of the job market. This push aligns with Egypt's Vision 2030, which anticipates a job market driven by fields like AI, big data, and automation, but concerns exist about potential job market saturation. This Blackboard explores this educational shift and the balance between equipping graduates with in-demand skills, while ensuring long-term employability.

The government’s strategy: With an eye on the evolving job market, Egypt’s higher education strategy for 2030 focuses on developing new programs that include cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. According to the strategy, the fields likely to dominate the job market by 2040 include AI, big data, automation, internet of things, self-driving transport, digital economy, space sciences, and nuclear energy.

Remember: The government aims to boost the tech sector's contribution to the GDP from 3.4%currently to 7% over the next six years and nearly triple outsourcing exports to USD 13 bn

The current job market: Software development roles — full-stack developers, software testers,cloud engineers — are the most in demand, accounting for over 58% of the 3.2k job openings offered by IT companies in Egypt, according to a statement(pdf) released by the Information Technology Industry Development Agency last week. These are followed by jobs in IT management (9%), data science and AI (9%), and IT infrastructure (8%).

Meanwhile, on the language front: English is demanded in 49% of jobs offered by call center and service outsourcing centers, followed by German (23%), French (14%), and Italian (13%).

The K-12 sector is catering to these requirements, too: While English is the most widely studied and used foreign language in Egypt, 70% of students in private and international schools take up German as a second foreign language and 30% study French.

ENTER TECH UNIVERSITIES-

The tech trend is unfolding across the board: Artificial intelligence and IT programs are surging inpopularity across all Egyptian universities, particularly technological universities, said Ahmed El Hewy, secretary general of the cabinet’s Education Development Fund. AI programs have been opening up across all public, national, and private universities since 2019, according to several private university heads Enterprise spoke with previously.

There are currently 10 state-run technological universities in the country, including:

To help reel in students: It costs just EGP 15k a year to enroll in one of these universities.The universities have so far spent EGP 1 bn to keep their tuition fees low, El Hewy said.

More to come: The government has plans to set up a university near every industrial area, with each university offering tech programs and languages that cater specifically to the industry around it in order to optimally equip students for the job market, El Hewy said.

And the private sector is jumping on the bandwagon: The state's interest in technological sciences has prompted the private sector to set up its own technological universities, El Hewy said. ElSewedy University of Technology has already opened its doors to students in the academic year 2023-2024 and Saxony Egypt University for Applied Sciences & Technology is set to commence operations in September.

A union for the grads: A Tech Union is currently being set up after the House greenlit thedecision earlier this year.

To maintain an equilibrium between supply and demand: The government should work to ensure that tech university enrollment rates do not outpace job creation so that the job market is not over saturated, Nahda University President in Beni Suef Hossam El Mallahi told us. The number of graduates should remain lower than job vacancies to keep salaries attractive and prevent creating an oversupply of labor similar to that present in the fields of commerce and humanities, where unemployment is rife, he added.

Tech universities are working to ensure employment for their grads: New technologicaluniversities are seeking partnerships with German and Korean institutions to boost job prospects for graduates and forge international partnerships in this sector, El Hewy said.

The demand is there: A survey conducted by global talent marketplace Andela found that 88%of enterprise companies across the US, UK, and Germany are looking for tech talent in other countries.

Your top education stories for the week:

  • Higher Ed Ministry to collab with Germany: Egypt and Germany are set tocollaborate on academic and research programs in a number of fields including math, computer science, natural sciences, technology, arts, music, humanities, tourism, and engineering under a letter of intent inked by Egypt’s Higher Education Ministry and the German Saxony State Ministry for Science, Culture, and Tourism. (Statement)
  • Education is getting a boost in next year’s draft budget: The government allocated EGP 858 bn to the education sector in next fiscal year’s draft budget, up 45% y-o-y. Funding directed towards scientific research will also increase 40% y-o-y to just under EGP 140 bn.
Tags: