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ELITE ISSUE 16, FEBRUARY 2020 PAGE 2

(WE) CHAIRMAN PROF.DR. MAGUED OSMAN TO ELITE
EQUAL ACCESS TO EDUCATION AND

INFRASTRUCTURE ARE THE FIRST STEPS TO

REAL SOCIAL JUSTICE

Cairo : Ramy Magdy, Carolin Sherief, Rana Doss, Ner mine Tawfik

and Sherry Asaad
• How did your relationship with the Faculty of Eco nomic and
Political Science begin and why did you choose to s tudy in it?

- During my high school, I was in the science secti on and wanted to
join the faculty of Engineering, however, my dad's friend advised me
to join the department of Statistics in the faculty of Economics and
Political Science because it is a new and unique ma jor, so it had a
bright future. When the results came out, I got a v ery high score that
qualified me for the top faculties like Medicine an d Engineering but I
preferred to join Faculty of Economics and Politica l Science to enroll
in the department of Statistics because I really lo ved Mathematics.

• Few people major in Statistics, and even fewer of the graduates of
this major are interested in pursuing a career in p ublic service, tell
us what did studying Statistics add to your charact er and how does
it affect any person?
- Upon my graduation, I wasn't hired as a teaching assistant right away,
I first worked in the Arab League of States, in the Statistics I see that it is better for these centers to be independent from the
management of the organization, and because I am fl uent in French I government and it is important that the information gathered should
be disseminated as the monopoly of these information is an obstacle
was transferred to work in the Arabic-European dial ogue department in
to development.
the Arab League, in which I kept working for 5 year s, during this

period I got my Master's degree and was hired as a teaching assistant in
• Lately, your name has been linked to Baseera (The Egyptian
the faculty, in addition to that, I was the head of the demographic
Public Opinion Research Center)talk to us more about Baseera
center for a year. I think that the years I spent i n the Arab League,
and what you aim to achieve through this institution?
broadened my horizons and ignited my interest in th e public affairs not

just being a Statistician.
The idea behind Baseera has been on my mind since my time in -
The turning point for me, was when I started workin g in the
the Information Center, I thought that upon my retirement, I would
information center for the Council of Ministers, th at is when I became
establish an independent survey center, and so, I followed up with
very interested in the public affairs and how to co nnect Statistics with
many survey centers in the West before I started up Baseera with 11
the decision making process, where the decisions sh ould be supported
of my colleagues from the Academia and other businessmen. We
with data, this is clear in the name of the unit it self which is the "The
established the center as a corporate and not as an organization, in
Council Of Minister's Information and Decision Supp ort Centre,"
April 2012, and the time of the first presidential elections after the
where I found that many decisions weren't supported by the required
revolution, and so we started conducting surveys through the
data either because of the lack of the data itself or from the lack of
telephone about the presidential candidates, at the time, Ahram
analysts for these data, and that is what I opted t o achieve, because I
Newspaper was our only competitor in conducting surveys to the
believe that without depending on data, the decisio ns will never be
people, but then Al-Masry Al-Youm Newspaper asked for the
accurate, so during my time in the center, I establ ished a unit for
results exclusively and so they posted the results in the paper where
conducting surveys through the telephone.
Ahmed Shafik got 20% of the favor of the population, after him
I worked as a Minister for a while, then returned t o teaching and used
AbdelMoneimAboelFotoh with 19%, HamdeinSabahy got 15% of
my experience to connect between Statistics and the real world.
the favor of the population, and the remaining 33% answered that
The importance of Statistical indicators stems from how their display
they didn ’ t settle on which candidate to vote for, and so Al-Masry
of Public Opinion specially when they're conducted professionally and
Al-Youm announced that Ahmed Shafik was the most favored
neutrally, which is admittedly a very big obstacle ahead of Survey
candidate to win the presidential election, not taking into
centers in the Arab World that are under the auspic es of governments,
consideration the majority of the population who haven't decided
in which negative results are not welcomed, and as a result,
2 ﺔﺤﻔﺻ ََِِ ﺮﻳاﺮﺒﻓ ،ُٔ دﺪﻌﻟا ﺔﺒﺨﻨﻟا
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