(Photo by Hassan Ibrahim\File)
Nile University will officially take ownership of two buildings Tuesday that have been the centre of a three-year dispute with Zewail City, the school’s student union announced Monday.
Interim Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb will attend a ceremony marking the occasion at 7.30pm, according to a student union statement.
Mehleb enforced a court verdict granting the land to Nile University 4 May, following an order from Interim President Adly Mansour on 6 April.
Nancy Mustafa, a member of the Nile University Student Union, said the university will host Zewail City students “until their educational building is built on a nearby campus in Sheikh Zayed City,” according to the agreement between the government, Nile University and Zewail City.
The conflict between Zewail City of Science and Technology and Nile University started in 2011 after former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq ordered that Nile University land be granted to Egyptian Nobel Laureate Ahmed Zewail to create a university under his name – a project that was initially supposed to take place in the early 2000s.
The Supreme Administrative Court denied Zewail City’s appeal on 22 March, upholding a court verdict issued in April 2013 that ordered the return of the disputed land to Nile University, and declared the school a civil university.
The university was recognised under the designation after a law was issued in 2009 governing civil universities. [es1]
Since the Supreme Administrative Court’s 2013 decision, Nile University students have not been granted access to the disputed buildings. Nile University students currently attend their classes at the Smart Village; which they describe as inadequate, lacking laboratories and workshops. Zewail City accepted 300 students into the contested buildings at the beginning of its first academic year last September.
Members of the Student Union have previously lamented that executive power did not implement the court decisions.
Additional reporting by Rana Muhammad Taha