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During the third week of
January (1/18/2016), several Egyptian newspapers reported that the minister of
‘al awqaf’ is supporting the building of 10 new mosques in 10 governorates.
Is this a priority and a
pressing national need? Top government officials are still not aware what are
the real needs of the country.
I would like to stress that
there are already ten of thousands mosques all over Egypt, hence efforts should
be directed to the real pressing need in Egypt, SHORTAGE OF SCHOOLS, especially
in rural Egypt. This is, of course, reflected in the high level of illiteracy.
Aren’t those officials, who
advocate the building of more mosques, aware of the famous Quaranic imperative
verb “iqra’”?
The Quran advocates learning
and the pursuit of knowledge. How can this be achieved with the lack of
education in many parts of Egypt? Actually, the pursuit of learning is the best
method that can be used to fight false interpretations of Islam, as well as to fight
terrorism. Hence, education and the advancement of learning should be the first
priority of the Egyptian government.
The following statistics was
recently published by the Egyptian Census Department.
1: there are 4655 villages in
Egypt.
2: there are elementary
schools in 95.3% of Egyptian villages, but there no secondary schools (high
schools) in82% of those villages. Hence, 60% of the villages need the
construction of more schools. It was also reported that some schools operate on
two shifts basis. Furthermore, the census data reveals that only 3.8% of
Egyptian villages have public libraries.
There are more than 47,000
schools in Egypt. More than 40% of those schools are quite old and not fit for
the advancement of learning.
The Egyptian educational
system, especially at the lower level, is definitely not meeting the challenges
of the 21-century.
The lack of resources, and of
qualified teachers is mentioned as being the major reasons for the lack of a
good educational system.
However, there are different
ways of rectifying the educational system and ensure its future success. The simplest
one is to divert the subsidies of oil to education.
During the early 1960s the
educational system of Egypt was more advanced than that of South Korea. But,
there was an awakening in South Korea and the government started to allocate
20% of its budget to education and research.
The result of such measure
placed South Korea among the most advanced nations.
Let us hope Egyptian
officials use this example to further the development of the educational system
in Egypt.
