Academic Integrity: A Perspective from Egypt

Abstract

This section provides an overview of the status of academic integrity in Egypt as one of the central and most populated countries in the Middle East and Africa. Education in Egypt is a key activity that involves 11 % of Egyptians, with more than two million employed in the area and about another 20 million students enrolled at various stages (Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS (2014). Fact book of Egypt year 2013. CAPMAS.). Academic integrity is a major concern in Egypt with more or less similar patterns of violations to other countries. The most distinct observation is the higher frequency of integrity violations when compared to western countries for instance (Abou-Zeid (2003–2008). Surveys conducted at the American University in Cairo (AUC), Egypt, Unpublished. AUC’s Council for Academic Integrity). The dominating patterns are ones related to cheating in the schooling system and plagiarism and multiple submissions in higher education. The severity of the problem is partly due to ineffective awareness and insufficient cooperation amongst various stakeholders in order to foster academic integrity concepts, attitudes, and practices and combat all forms of malpractice. For decades, remedial actions have focused on tightening the punitive measures, yet evidence shows that more needs to be done to effectively address promotion and prevention measures as well. In addition, there needs to be an aggressive campaign in the form of a national project which tackles the root cause, which is the low quality of education. On a more global level, education deliverables need to be continuously assessed and monitored to better match and serve the job market needs.