But statistics from the World Bank indicate that Egypt’s economic growth has slowed down to about 2% in 2011 and 2012 (World Bank, 2013), similar to the rate of population growth and therefore implying no growth in per capita GDP. The Egypt Human Development Report 2010, by the UN Development Programme, indicates that the major challenges are a weak labour market (especially for the young and women), gender discrimination and sanitation (AfDB, 2012). The students entering technical colleges are mainly general secondary track students who failed to gain admission to university while students of the technical and vocational education and training sub-system face a dead-end in terms of their prospects for further learning (OECD, 2010b:29).