The Egyptian government announced, on Wednesday, the suspension of in-class education along with putting the winter term exams in schools and universities off until after the midyear vacation. This means that the return to in-class sessions or exams will not be resumed before next February.
The announcement of the decision came during the meeting of the cabinet as the ministries of education and high education demanded the suspension with the rising fears of the rapid widespread of COVID19 infection.
In the same vein, the cabinet emphasized on lowering the number of employees who should attend daily in the governmental institutions. In addition, PM Moustafa Madbouly warned that the fines and punishments will be imposed restrictively on whoever violates the precautionary measures. The decisions of the cabinet were received by a mixture of welcome and exasperation as it came after more than a month of sharp increase in the number of cases of COVID19 and the deaths.
“The government has dealt with indolence and randomly while witnessing the infection spreading like wildfire,” said Aliaa Hamza, teacher of community medicine in the faculty of medicine who talked to Egypt Watch. Moreover, doubts are hovering around the seriousness in implementing those measures as the experience of the first wave tells that a lot of governmental managers refused to give their subordinates sick leaves or carry out division of labor to decrease traffic.
