Judicial moves in Egypt to prevent the admission of migrant and refugee students - Sarmad
The Administrative Judiciary Court of Egypt’s State Council has referred the lawsuit seeking to suspend and cancel the registration and admission of foreign, migrant, and refugee students to the State Council’s Legal Commissioners’ Office.
This was done to prepare a legal opinion report, with the case scheduled for hearing on November 8.
The details trace back to the urgent aspect of the lawsuit filed by lawyer Hani Samih against the Prime Minister, the Minister of Higher Education, the Chairman of the Supreme Council of Universities, and the Presidents of Cairo University and Ain Shams University. The plaintiff sought to restrict access to seats and capacity in public universities to Egyptian students only, with a very limited exception for non-Egyptians who demonstrate international scientific excellence and exceptional achievements.
During the hearing, documentary evidence was submitted, including nomination lists for foreign students of various nationalities admitted to the Faculty of Medicine at Cairo University (Al-Qasr Al-Aini), as well as electronic extracts from the government platform “Study in Egypt” outlining the minimum admission thresholds for all announced majors for high school graduates from certain countries for the 2026 academic year.
According to the submitted documents, admission to some public human medicine faculties for foreign students begins at a total score of 70%, while dentistry and pharmacy require 65%, engineering, computing, and physiotherapy require 60%, and science and nursing require 50%. Additionally, Sudanese high school graduates were admitted to the Faculty of Engineering at Ain Shams University with a minimum score of 65%, alongside tuition fee discounts of up to 70% for certain nationalities.
The lawsuit directly challenged Prime Minister’s Decision No. 82 of 2015, which abolished the previous maximum cap on the admission and transfer of non-Egyptian students, a cap that had been set at no more than 10% of the total number of admitted Egyptian students in each faculty.
It also demanded the suspension of the implementation of the admission decisions for the 2026/2027 academic year, specifically those provisions allowing the registration of foreign students without a controlled maximum limit and without regard to the actual capacity of the universities.
The lawsuit’s statement of claim emphasized that the dispute centers on the management of a “limited Egyptian public resource,” noting that it is impermissible to deprive an Egyptian student of a university seat on the grounds of overcrowded lecture halls and full enrollment numbers, while laboratories, university hospitals, and training opportunities are allocated to non-Egyptians outside the strict government coordination system to which citizens are subject.
The lawsuit also demanded that the Ministry of Higher Education and the Supreme Council of Universities be ordered to resubmit all data and technical studies related to faculty capacities, student-to-faculty ratios, decisions granting discounts to foreign students, and details of the fees collected from them and how those funds are spent.
