In 1990, a legislation was passed to provide greater autonomy to the universities. But still the education infrastructure, equipment and human resources are not in place to cater to the rising higher education students. Gross enrollment in tertiary education increased from 27 percent in 2003 to 31 percent in 2005. But there has not been a similar increase in spending on improving the higher education system in terms of introduction of new programs and technologies. Both at national level (inspection systems, examinations) and at local level (school level student assessments) measures of the success of education strategies and the performance of the system are weak. The inspectorate system does not provide either solid technical support to school staff, nor an effective monitoring mechanism for failing schools. The examination system at the end of preparatory and secondary levels—Thanaweyya Amma, does not measure higher-order thinking skills, but concentrates rather on rote memorization. Scores can thus be raised significantly by exam specific tutoring, therefore, students with more resources can afford private tutoring which helps them to score higher on the national standardized exams and hence are accepted in top universities in Egypt. Hence, this competitive process of selection restricts students' degree options and results, hence making students opt for programs and careers which are of little interest to them.