“SCHOOL teachers and administrators are worried about the surprise visits paid by Minister of Education Ahmed Zaki Badr. Meanwhile, there are many things that need to be fixed and this won't just happen overnight,” says Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education Mohamed Hassib. For the past three weeks, all of Egypt's schools have been in a state of suspense, in the wake of the surprise visit paid by Minister Badr to Kholafaa el-Rashidin School in Helwan Governorate, southern of Cairo. Badr was shocked to discover that there were no pupils in the classrooms, which were filthy, while many of the teachers were absent and the headmaster turned up an hour late. It's a similar story at most Egyptian schools. “I told the Minister that we need ministerial decrees to restore discipline in schools,“ says Hassib, adding that Badr won't allow any pupil, who turns up late for the morning assembly in the playground to enter the school that day. Another problem is that children at many governmental schools were given their textbooks before they'd paid for them. The result was that only 30 per cent of these books were paid for, according to Hassib. He has stopped the practice and now 95 per cent of the books have been paid for. When Minister Badr visited a preparatory school, an inspector told him that, many years ago, they had been told by educational officials to allow a lot of pupils to pass their final exams, even if they didn't deserve to. This has resulted in a generation of pupils, who cannot read or write fluently. The inspector added that they'd been told to be very lenient in their exam marking, as well as not to expel any pupil, even if he or she failed their end-of-year exams time and time again. “When I was sent to Assiut Governorate to work as the Undersecretary to the Ministry of Education there, I inspected every school and suspended any pupil who turned up late in the morning. They soon started turning up on time,” Hassib recalls. One of the problems is that children like to skive off school and spend the day in Internet cafés. This means school needs to be made more attractive, with more sporting and artistic activities. “The Minister must urge all educational officials to be honest about the problems in our schools, which in turn need to be transparent about the end-of-year exam results, even if it means that every child fails,” stresses Hassib.
