Egyptian institution of higher learning founded in 1942.
Originally named Farouk University after the country's ruling monarch, Alexandria University is Egypt's second oldest state university, after Cairo University, which was founded in 1925. It was renamed following the 1952 revolution that toppled the monarchy.
The university depicts itself as heir to ancient Greco-Roman Alexandria's tradition of learning centered in its famous library and museum. In the fall of 1942, only weeks after Britain's defeat of invading Axis forces a few miles outside the city, King Farouk opened the new university. At its opening the university had colleges of arts and law (founded as branches of the Egyptian - now Cairo - University in 1938) as well as colleges of commerce, science, medicine, agriculture, and engineering. Colleges of dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, education, and tourism were added later. The language of instruction is Arabic although English is used in classes in dentistry, medicine, science, and some branches of engineering. As of 2002, the university enrolled over 130,000 students and had a teaching staff of 5,550 in sixteen faculties and six institutes. As at other Egyptian institutions of higher education, Alexandria University faces difficulties in maintaining quality in the face of overcrowding, insufficient funding, and a hard-pressed teaching staff.
Bibliography
Alexandria University web site. Available from http://www.alex.edu.eg/.
Cochran, Judith. Education in Egypt. London: Croom Helm, 1986.
Reid, Donald Malcolm. Cairo University and the Making of Modern Egypt. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
— DONALD MALCOLM REID
