Amira El-Noshokaty reports on the downside of school education Last week a workshop titled "I would love school" was held, as part of the Family Empowerment Programme, implemented by five non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Cairo aiming to highlight major problems children face at school. The workshop included a short play and a model Junior Parliament, to which 17 students were elected to discuss and debate their most dreaded problems at school. Though met with major discomfort and denial by most representatives of the education sector, the event revealed violence as one of the most negative aspects of public schooling in Egypt. School violence made headlines this month as two primary school children's horror stories came to light. One young boy in fourth grade was beaten by his mathematics teacher and died shortly afterwards, while another young girl so greatly feared her teacher would beat her that she panicked and tragically died instantly. Though the two cases are currently being prosecuted, the fact remains that there are thousands of other students being beaten every day regardless of the ministerial decree that prohibits violence, verbal or physical, in Egyptian schools. According to Abdel-Latif Zahran, head of Local Community Development of Mounira and Imbaba District NGO, a recent study conducted by all five NGO partners in August 2007 on some 800 public school students living in the underprivileged districts of Imbaba, Shubra, Berak Al-Hakim, Al-Zawya Al-Hamra and Manshiet Nasser, revealed that 90 per cent of students have been subjected to violence in schools. "We wanted to show that there is a serious problem coming our way, one that explains why so many children dread school to the extent that they begin to flee education altogether," Zahran told Al-Ahram Weekly. Since NGOs have no right to work on school premises, the survey and training were conducted at students' homes, through talking to their parents in person. Of the 800 students who were included in the study and were part of the family empowerment project that first started in January 2008, the Weekly reveals first hand testimonies of the young learners. A scar on Abdallah Ali's hand, a third preparatory student reflects the common case of violence that he and his 62 classmates are subjected to. "I am hit a lot at school," Ali told the Weekly. "I remember, it was the last day of the final exams, and there was a supervisor from outside the school monitoring the exams. Everybody was cheating, but he picked me to swear at, and then insult. When I asked him why he was insulting me, he pushed me and a piece of iron fell on my hand causing me this scar. When my mother came to school the next day to complain, the school had no information on the supervisor," explained Ali. He also said that his parents beat him at home, when he does something wrong. However, the parents' beating does not exceed a slap on the face. Unlike the popular belief that domestic violence prevails in lower middle class communities, this illiterate mother of two resents violence in and outside her home. According to Aw'ad Abdel-Samie, teachers are very cooperative with the girls and others are very violent, which is the major problem. When she complained that her daughter at the first preparatory grade is being beaten, the schoolteacher's reaction was to ban that girl from attending any of her classes. "I don't believe beating is a means of punishment. I either ground or ban my daughters' allowance but I never beat them," Abdel-Samie said. "I hope that schoolteachers know how to treat our children and learn from what happened to the children who died. Our children are very dear to us and we are doing the best we can in order to provide them with good education. I hope things change," she added. On a parallel note, seventh-grader Dahab Salah remembers her first encounter with school violence. "In first grade, I was talking with my friend, so my teacher hit me with a stick that had a protruding nail from it, one that bruised my forehead. When she saw what she did, she gave me 50 piastres and told me not to tell my parents. I took the money and told my mother anyway," she said. However, when Salah's mother complained to the school, the result was discrimination. "The teacher picked on me for four school years until I moved home and changed school. She used to beat me and tell me that if I told my mother she would fail me," Salah recalls. Despite the violence, Amr Reda, a first preparatory student still wants to be in school. "I love school. I love studying but I was hit at school yesterday, because one teacher thought I fled school, while I got a permission to leave early because I was sick. My teacher punished me and some others by asking us to pick up all the waste papers inside the class. He made me hold my hands up high while carrying my school bag for two school periods. When I cried from the pain, he hit me on my fingers. I hate being beaten and insulted," Reda told the Weekly. But has joining the play held during last week's workshop helped at all? "I loved the play because it helped me show what's inside me. It gave me a voice. But unfortunately when I showed my professor the newspaper clip with my photo on it, he wrote an insult. My mother is going in tomorrow to complain," Reda added. Since the beginning of 2008, the family empowerment programme has focussed on the awareness of schoolchildren and their parents. The programme trained students on how to express themselves and attain their rights regardless of the circumstances. "I have learned from participating in the Junior Parliament how to have a conversation with anyone, even if I disagree, and how to attain my legal rights without any violence," Hadir Hanafi told the Weekly. When she went to school the following morning, she took the board, which is the outcome of the workshop, with her and explained in detail what they learned in parliament. "The result was that many of my schoolmates now want to join the programme," Hanafi boasted. On another level, government schools have many other problems. Starting from the crammed classes with students' occupation that ranges from 50 to 70 students per class, to the payment of fees which are nominal to some but very high to others. Withholding school books from students who were delayed in paying school fees is also a problem, as well as the lack of effective supervision that would ensure discipline to both students and teachers. Also problematic is the poor quality of education, which leads those who can to take private lessons and to discrimination against those who can't. Shaimaa Shawqi, a senior high school student, stated that taking private lessons gave her many advantages. For instance during the monthly exams, the teacher hands her and those who take private lessons the answers -- though Shawqi chooses to remain honest instead. Hanafi on the other hand remembers that when she was in preparatory school, out of her 59 classmates, only nine knew how to read and write, so these nine students along with the teacher, divided the rest into groups and taught them how to read and write during lunch. Unfortunately Hanafi, now a senior high school student, suffers from the verbal violence from her English teacher "who walks in and insults us, and tells us that we are indecent donkeys." So in a bid to regain their self-respect, last Monday all 71 girls in the class signed a complaint Hanafi wrote against the English teacher. When it reached the principal, the treatment changed completely. "Unfortunately, everything changed back the moment the principal left the class room," Hanafi lamented. Meanwhile, Wafaa Sayed, a sixth grader, explained that there is no discrimination at school between students who have private lessons and those who don't. Yet she shyly confessed that one of her teachers orders her to leave her class, and leave school to buy bread for her. Sadly she is not alone. Among other issues still is the fact that there is no health insurance applied in the schools, a fact that was confirmed by most interviewed students. "The education authorities were surprised to see that the students themselves are there to discuss such problems," explained Zahran. "I was accused of orchestrating the whole thing, and was attacked during the event but I defended the children." However, later when Zahran met with Amin Abu Bakr, first secretary of the Ministry of Education, things changed. "He was very generous to us. In the end, he promised to meet us and read all the recommendations and help implement them in schools," Zahran added, explaining that the recommendations include the training of teachers, raising awareness among parents and children, issuing a code of honour in every school between students and teachers, as well as setting up complaint boxes in every school. Most important is the demand to ensure the implementation of ministerial decree number 515 that prohibits any beating at school. "No matter how wrong one is, I believe that the punishment should not be beating. I want to be treated at school as a human being," said high school student Shawqi.
