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Al-Ahram Weekly 13 - 19 January 2000 Issue No. 464 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 13 - 19 January 2000 Issue No. 464
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Heritage Special Books Profile Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Plain Talk
By Mursi Saad El-Din
With the arrival of the third millennium, nothing is more apt than to write about the children and youth of today. After all, according to a recent UNICEF report, Egypt at present has the largest imaginable number of youths, more than 13 million of whom are between the ages of 10 and 19. The UNICEF report was presented by Dr Ibrahim D Fall, UNICEF's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa. It was entitled "State of the World's Children 2000". What, indeed, is the state of those future producers and consumers of culture? UNICEF, for its part, is calling for new-century preparations with a global agenda for children and a renewed commitment to making a difference for children belonging to one generation. The agenda focuses on three crucial points: ensuring that children make a good start on their careers; equal access to quality education that provides for child participation and critical thinking, infused with the values of human dignity and peace; and some kind of campaign to address the rights and needs of adolescents, giving them the opportunity to participate in decision-making on issues that affect them and raising the level of girls' school enrollment as well as tackling the issue of child labour.
To ensure that this agenda will be effective, the report calls for a "grand global coalition" that extends beyond traditional sectors and government bodies to everyone concerned with human progress -- people's movements, community-based organisations, youth movements, women's groups, professional networks, artists and intellectuals and the media.
The report then supplies statistics that demonstrate the effectiveness of UNICEF policy in the region. Concerning the state of children in Egypt, some interesting facts emerge. A survey entitled "Adolescence: A Critical Life Stage" reveals that in the academic year 1996-1997, net enrollment in primary schools among 8- to 11-year-olds was approximately 90 per cent. There was a marked improvement in adolescents' health. Most adolescents report feeling comfortable expressing their opinions to parents who listen to and respect them -- something that reflects the traditional role of the family in Egypt. Almost 60 per cent of boys but only five per cent of girls report participating in sports or physical activities; 97 per cent of adolescents report exposure to the media, particularly television, but also radio (64 per cent); yet only 15 per cent report reading books other than those on their school curricula.
The survey devotes a section to future challenges like investment in health, education and job preparation. Fortunately, the survey reports, Egypt has an emerging alliance between key government agencies, NGOs and research organisations committed to the goal. Several promising initiatives are addressing the need for health information and services.
A national strategy for youth, under development by the Ministry of Health and Population in collaboration with a number of specialised national experts, adopts a new concept of health development, thus integrating the issue of general health into the grand framework of academic education, psychological development skills training, work opportunities and the legal protection of youth, with the possibility of interventions in the current relevant jurisdiction. The newly appointed Minister of Youth has been given a broad mandate to establish youth policies and programmes, a trend evidenced by the fact that emphasis on youth issues has often been a priority in recent policy statements by the president and prime minister.
By and large, both the report and the Egyptian survey are quite promising, especially in the fields of health and education.
Culture, however, is missing. One would have expected that developing cultural aptitude and artistic skill would be particularly stressed in the work of UNICEF. After all, it is culture, in its multifarious manifestations, that can play a leading role in the development of personality and behaviour. Let us hope that this point will be one of the objectives included in the agenda of the Egyptian Minister of Youth.
