Fifteen-year-old Menna Hashem is so happy that she is going to get engaged in a few weeks' time. Menna, one of six siblings born to a casual day-to-day worker that earns around LE 400 a month, is a seventh-grade student at a governmental school. She has already sat for the mid-year exams, but she intends to drop out of school in the second term. “I want to be entirely devoted to my new life", Menna told The Egyptian Mail. Although Menna has attended school for seven years, she admits that she can hardly read or write, the reason why she is not so much keen on sustaining her education. “I meant to get a preparatory school certificate in order to find a job later on. But It does not matter any more; I'm getting married", she bragged. Menna is just one of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, that drop out of school for many reasons, such as poverty, early marriage and child labour to mention only a few. According to the informal statistics of some NGOs, there are 2.5 million children across the country that dropped out before finishing primary school, which consists of six grades under the current local educational system. One study says that 80 per cent of Upper Egyptian females have not attended school in the first place. Considering a 30 per cent illiteracy rate, a school drop-out percentage of 6.5 per cent, as underlined by the Minister of Education Ibrahim Ghoniem, does not facilitate the application of literacy programmes, experts admit. The Minister has recently said that his ministry is committed to offering education to each and every child of school age. But, parents on low incomes say that despite free education in government-run schools, the substandard quality offered obliges them to seek private tuition or after-school groups for which they have to pay a regular monthly fee, usually beyond their means. Article 62 of the recently endorsed Constitution states that illiteracy has to be overcome in a decade. This is a challenge that needs the combined efforts of all agencies, not just the Education Ministry, as Mohamed Khashaba head of the Education Committee of the Shura Council (Upper House of Parliament) has pointed out He has asserted that a national project is to be hammered out very soon to curb the occurrence of dropping out of school. However, attempts in this direction have been made by bodies concerned, such as the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood. It has already administered a programme in Assiut, Sohag and Fayoum the three governorates suffering the highest high dropout percentage. The aim is to extend financial and moral support to 3,000 children liable to drop out at theprimary stage. Hassan Shehata, a professor of educational programmes at Ain Shams University warns of the detrimental effect of dropping out of education on the future of society. “It has a direct impact on increasing unemployment, ignorance and weakening economic infrastructure and productive abilities and gives rise to serious societal issues, such as child labour and early marriage", he told Akher Sa'a weekly magazine. Relevant studies have showed that the problem of dropping out of school is related to the pedagogical process itself to social adversities, such as poverty, family disintegration, high rates of divorce and child labour.
