After months of protests by students and academics calling for a change in university leadership, Egypt’s interim government has issued a new law that entails the dismissal of all current university presidents and the establishment of a new selection process for their positions, reports the English-language Web site of the Egyptian daily newspaper Al Ahram.

Since President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster on February 11, student and faculty groups have been calling for the dismissal of current presidents and deans—who, they say, were appointed based on political loyalty to the regime, and after being vetted by the intelligence forces—and for their replacements to be elected.

A weeklong, nation-wide sit-in of professors started yesterday to emphasize these demands. “Professors also demanded free and fair elections to choose the new heads of universities and deans, the increase of the state’s education and scientific research budget to 3.5 percent of the national budget, and raising wages of assistant professors while setting a reasonable maximum wage for university presidents” reports Daily News Egypt.