Among the worldwide problems with education, inaccessibility is the most important with 56% of the world’s children not attending school. In Egypt, 35% of all existing public schools have exceeded their student capacity, 24.5% of countryside villages don’t even have educational services, and the distance between some students and the nearest schools can go up to 4 KM.
Naturally, all these problems combine to ensure a high dropout rate, especially when it comes to girls, who are faced with even more cultural barriers and danger. Thankfully, though, community organization Misr El-Kheir is here to help in the education reform, in corporation with many CSR partners from both the public and the private sectors, who are all adequately invested in improving education for those who couldn’t receive it.
Misr El-Kheir’s Goals
Educational inaccessibility within the Egyptian education system is among the most important issues because a large number of children from remote and marginalized areas get little to no education at all.
Now, this may lead back to social and economic factors like low income or the scarcity of schools in some areas, but that doesn’t mean the problem is without a solution. Through Misr El-Kheir’s help, the Department of Community Education is currently working on building, upgrading, and operating community schools in Egypt to target the kids currently out of the system.
It’s important to note that community schooling is a suitable education system for children without access to basic education and the children who dropped out of school. It teaches children in many nontraditional ways, covering many basic skills, as a means to develop their creative and self-learning abilities. Community schooling is perfect, especially considering the fact that it has a flexible system to accommodate all student conditions.
This campaign’s focus is offering basic education to Upper Egypt’s neglected children aged 6 to 14, the age-frame for mandatory education.
So far, other than offering educational opportunities for children, the campaign’s long-term goals are building schools that can take the greatest possible amount of kids without education, improving the quality of available education through offering skill development programs, and increasing the community’s role in education through collaborating with local organizations in nearby areas.
Among its objectives, the campaign has managed to establish 150 new public schools to educate 4500 students, develop 238 schools for 7140 students, provide equipment for 388 schools for 11640 students, and push for the continued operation of 1008 schools for more than 30,000 students.
The rewards are already paying off too, which is clearly shown in how three Misr El-Kheir students from Luxor ranked high in an Arabic Reading Competition hosted by the UAE!
Of course, we can’t forget to mention that Misr El-Kheir’s project for community education received the UNESCO Prize for Girls’ and Women’s Education.
Misr El-Kheir has achieved all it has and is planning to achieve more through the help of its donors and CSR partners: Credit Agricole Bank, Export Development Bank of Egypt, Rotary Club of Cairo, Dr. Amr Barakat, Orange Egypt, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Misr Mikassa Company, Bahrain Trust Foundation, Takatof Egypt, Koton and Waqf El-Ahd El-Khaled.
