CAIRO: A school bus tour around Egypt's governorates is UNESCO Egypt's mobile, innovative way to raise awareness about the global movement Education for All (EFA). As part of the EFA week, the campaign aims at educating people about the movement's six main goals and is carried out in cooperation with UNICEF Egypt and under the auspices of the Ministry of Education. “Every year UNESCO [on a global level] organizes an Education for All week to raise awareness about the importance of education and about reaching the six EFA goals,” said Ghada Gholam, program specialist in education at UNESCO Egypt. “On the local level we usually organize events, this year we chose an innovative idea. We got a bus to use this week to roam around governorates to raise awareness among all members of the community about the importance of education,” she explained. “It has a vision; education can take place anywhere, it can happen in schools and it can happen outside schools as well,” Gholam added. The EFA bus will be touring around six governorates in Egypt from April 26 and until May 5 starting with Cairo to Menufiya, Alexandria, Minya, Sohag and Assiut. The six EFA goals it will be advocating are: early childhood care and education; universal primary education; learning life skills; adult literacy; gender equality in education and enhancing the quality of education. The campaign is targeting all stakeholders in education; these include the government, civil society, educators, parents and children. “We want to make sure that every member [of the community] receives good quality education,” noted Gholam. The EFA bus took off from the premises of the Ministry of Education Monday morning, with representatives from the different partners present. The bus is carrying two young volunteers, who will be responsible for reaching out to the community in the respective governorate through various activities and games. “We are planning to use all the different ways possible to bring people back to education,” said Minister of Education Ahmed Zaki Badr, referring to those who dropped out of school or are illiterate. “We are going to support innovative means in order to make up for past time,” he added. “This is not a project it's a vision that the ministry has for children in Egypt,” said UNICEF Egypt representative, Erma Manoncourt. “Education is the foundation…it's the basis for the future of Egypt,” she added. Badr also outlined plans to increase the number of classes in schools as well as build new schools all in an effort to reduce the number of students in each class. “When the minister talks about education for all it really [sheds light on] education for all children in Egypt,” said Manoncourt. “He kept on emphasizing the kinds of things they want to do to either improve the schools, to expand the schools, to expose the children to other aspects, so it's really getting to the fundamental basis of development which is education,” she added, “Education of children especially because those are the leaders of tomorrow so if you make the investment today, you get a double dividend, you get a multiplier.” The global EFA initiative aims to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults by 2015. “I call on all UNESCO's partners in Egypt, government, parliamentarians, international agencies, non-governmental organizations, communities, teachers and students to support the Global Action Week on Education for All and advocate for the right to education for all in order to meet the six EFA goals by the set target of 2015,” said Tarek Shawki from UNESCO Egypt. The bus will make one-day stops in each governorate. Gholam noted that while educating a person in one day is not possible, advocating for the importance of education is. “You can convince them that it is important to send their girls as well as their boys to school, convince them that early childhood education is important because then the child is prepared for basic education, convince those who are illiterate and didn't get a chance to go to school that there are other ways as community learning centers where they can get educated,” she said. “So it is not that one day is enough to educate people but one day is enough to raise awareness of the importance of education in that governorate,” said Gholam.
