CAIRO: Shamshad Akhtar, the World Bank's Vice President for the Middle East and North Africa, praised the initiative of Egyptian First Lady Suzanne Mubarak for the development of schools in Luxor. Akhtar said on a tour in the Upper Egyptian city of Luxor, while visiting the new Luxor school, whose development comes in the framework of the first phase of the initiative of Mubarak to develop the schools, that it was an “important step for Egypt.” The development of schools in Luxor, which has a total of 110 schools, at a cost of 200 million Egyptian pounds ($35 million), after the development of a number of schools in the governorates of Cairo and Giza, is a project, which is being implemented by the Heliopolis Association chaired by the first lady, where Luxor was chosen as the first governorate in Upper Egypt to implement the initiative and the development of schools “in order to provide the educational, environmental and health welfare for all the citizens of Luxor.” The renovation of the schools has been completed and renovation of all buildings and new laboratories, and toilets and fully equipped room for doctors, along with the language lab and computer lab, scientific lab and libraries have been built. The Governor of Luxor Samir Farag and Minister of Education Ahmed Zaki Badr accompanied Akhtar on the tour. The World Bank VP said she was pleased with the progress in the level of infrastructure of the school and school activities carried out by different girls. In comments to reporters, she said “there is remarkable development in the level of educational tools that are used as well as interest in the activities, leading to building a new generation in the future, capable of being creative.” Badr confirmed the importance of participation of civil society and NGOs in the development of schools and that the initiative has “now spread to include more than 300 schools” across the country. BM
