AGAINST all the odds, schools across the country have had to throw their gates wide open last Saturday to welcome millions of schoolchildren returning from the mid-year holiday. The large turnout is basically attributed to the decline in the threat of A/N1H1. But sources in the Ministry of Education maintain that the children were told by their parents to return to school, when the new Minister, Ahmed Zaki Badr, firmly warned that he will not tolerate truancy under any circumstances. Badr, who was appointed to the hot seat in the Ministry of Education about a month ago, threatened to expel children, who were kept away from school. Badr, the son of late Minister of Interior Gen. Zaki Badr, said that he would start disciplining teachers and schoolchildren after the education process plunged into chaos. Badr also warned headmasters and senior teachers that he will suspend them if they neglect the morning national flag-saluting ceremony. It was drummed home to parents and teachers that the new Minister means business, because children in a Cairo school discovered him standing among them during the flag-saluting ceremony one morning. After the ceremony, he was driven by his chauffeur to a neighbouring governorate to pay a surprise visit to a prep school. He left after demoting its headmaster and suspending his deputy for ignoring his instructions. The outbreak of the killer viral disease a few months ago led panic-stricken families to make their children stay at home. As a result, classrooms were almost empty in November and December. Idle teachers, notorious for being private tutors, cleverly exploited the situation by upping their visits to their pupils in their homes. About 300 people have died of the viral disease in Egypt since its outbreak late in September. Reports obtained from schools in the past few days have allegedly encouraged the grim-faced Minister to relax. It has been confirmed that no fewer than 95 per cent of the nation's 17 million schoolchildren are now turning up regularly for their classes. And the children have been telling their parents that they're enjoying it. “Our teachers have been enthusiastically explaining everything to us,” an exuberant girl called Faten told her astonished mother. “The school was given a lovely facelift during the mid-year holiday.” Dozens of other girls had similar good news for their mothers, who were waiting for them at the gates of a prep school in downtown Cairo. The director of el-Sayyeda Zeinab Secondary School for Girls in Cairo told the press his students were impressed by the improved discipline and hygiene. “We've done our best to improve things for them,” he said, praising the co-operation he's been receiving from his teachers. “They are doing their best to restore the fruitful communication with their pupils,” the director stressed. “Gone are the days when the classrooms were empty and teachers went absent for no good reason.” The director of a downtown secondary school, notorious for its dire attendance record, says that, remarkably, the absence rate has fallen to only three per cent. “This is unprecedented and we're confident that it's going to get better.”
