Al-Ahram Weekly | Egypt | Campus pressure

An appeal has been launched to help Cairo University acquire a 30,000 square metre piece of land next to its Giza campus that will otherwise be sold to investors seeking to develop a residential and commercial complex, reports Reem Leila

As soon as the Holding Company for Tourism, Hotels and Cinemas (HCTHC) announced in a series of newspaper advertisements that it was seeking tenders for the land alarm bells sounded within the university. The already overcrowded campus, say administrators, must be extended if it is to absorb an annual intake that has exceeded more than 40,000.

Though the HCTHC agreed to postpone the sale of the land, originally scheduled for 23 March, to give time for an appeal, the plot is valued at more than LE300 million, an unprecedented sum for any public subscription in Egypt.

"It is very ambitious," says Ali Abdel-Rahman, president of Cairo University, "not least because there is no real tradition of this kind of appeal in the region. But I believe it can succeed, and must if we are to accomplish our ambitious future plans."

Extending the existing campus, he says, will not only alleviate the pressure on already overcrowded classrooms and lecture halls but allow room for sports and physical education facilities. "I think there is a great deal of nostalgia for our current setting," says Abdel-Rahman, "and there are always dislocations from any move." The problem the university faces, though, is that given land values it simply cannot afford to expand in its current locale, without the generous help of the public.

A press and TV campaign has already been planned to encourage people to donate whatever they can afford, starting at a minimum sum of LE10.

Gynaecologist Mohamed Abul-Ghar, a founder of 9 March Movement, has started a fund-raising campaign within the Faculty of Medicine to secure the land for the university. While such appeals are common abroad, in Egypt such campaigns have been limited to charitable foundations, the most notable, in recent years, being the National Cancer Hospital for Children. "This will be the first time a fundraising campaign has been launched to build a university though Egyptians are used to being asked for funds for projects such as orphanages and shelters for the homeless," says Abul-Ghar.

The Cairo University was officially inaugurated on 21 December 1908. Its largest benefactor was Princess Fatima Ismail, a sister of King Fouad, who donated 600 feddans of land and sold her magnificent collection of jewellery to help fund the project.

As yet the largest sum received is the LE1 million donated by Saudi prince Talal Bin Abdul-Aziz, chairman of the Arab Council for Childhood and Development. The organisers of the appeal hope that Egypt's own super rich will dip their hands in their pockets. And ordinary Egyptians will soon be able to contribute: the appeal, says Abdel-Rahman, will soon open an account at one of Egypt's national banks to enable people to make deposits.

"Should the appeal fail to raise the required sum in time all donations will be returned," says Abdel-Rahman.

While Ali Abdel-Aziz, the chairman of HCTHC, agreed to postpone the tender at the request of Minister of Investment Mahmoud Mohieddin, he does not think the postponement can last much beyond two months given the rate at which steel and cement prices are increasing. "The location is strategic and the plot potentially a very profitable one. It is not an opportunity we can pass on forever," he argues.