AL MAL INTERVIEWS SKILL-LINK.COM
What Egyptian graduates know about the capital market ?

The weekly Egyptian business newspaper "Al Mal" interviewed skill-link.com about Egyptian university graduates (specially commerce and economics) knowledge of the capital market and the stock exchange. This was part of a special issue celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Cairo & Alexandria Stock Exchange.

Sherif Samy, skill-link.com's Chairman was quoted in the September 14th issue commenting on the limited knowledge business students acquire with regards to the financial markets. According to him, the subject has several dimensions, legal, organizational, financial etc... Egyptian Commerce students are just exposed to some basic terminology (what is a share, a bond etc…) and an introduction to financial analysis. They know nothing about the roles of the various players (the Capital Market Authority, the Stock Exchange itself, the Clearing & Settlement Company, Fund Managers etc…), they are also kept in the dark with regards to disclosure requirements, insider trading etc.. which are key concepts of value not only to those working in the Capital Market sector, but to those in the finance functions of publicly listed companies and those serving them (eg. external auditors, business reporters etc…).

The Faculty of Economics & Political Sciences does a better job at this, with its organization of the "Model Stock Exchange", however the number of students in this faculty is minimal compared to those enrolled in the faculties of Commerce.

Sherif Samy also blamed the faculties for not highlighting early on to the students the importance of acquiring capital market related skills, most are left under the false impressing, that accounting is the sacred subject to excel at.