13 - 19 September 2001
Issue No.551
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 13 - 19 September 2001 Issue No.551 |
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Dangerous minds
Has Egypt begun to import the West's 'culture of violence'? Alaa Shahine looks at the alarming increase in school violence
What do school girls carry in their book-bags? Text books, lipstick -- maybe even hidden within the pages of their homework the photo of a boyfriend? Think again. Last April, Naglaa Salah, a 16-year-old student at the girls-only Bahteem commercial school in the governorate in Giza, arrived at school with the following: a large knife, an iron bar and an array of sharp objects. Naglaa, along with seven of her friends, were planning a rumble with another group of girls after she saw her boyfriend walking with one of her classmates.
Naglaa and her small gang were dismissed and told not to bother returning to the public education system. The incident provoked a furious, if short-lived, campaign to fight violence among school students.
"We have done little but talk," laments Ahmed El-Magdoub, a researcher at the Centre for Criminal and Social Studies, "Criminal activity among young people is currently increasing at an alarming rate," he warned. Indeed, in the same month that Naglaa's weaponry were uncovered, two homicides involving preparatory and secondary school students took place. A survey of newspapers between last March and August undertaken by Al-Ahram Weekly showed that 19 different acts of violence had taken place among school students, including gang violence, thefts, bullying, gun use and assault. A detailed study by the Childhood Studies Centre indicates a 60 per cent increase in incidents of violence among school students in the year 2000. The study also shows a 40 per cent increase in felonies committed by students, and a 70 per cent increase in gang crimes.
El-Magdoub notes that not only are criminal acts increasing, but new, "more developed trends" of violence are emerging. He said that female students are now more frequently involved in violent acts and suggested that the dissolution of the traditional family values in Egyptian society was partly to blame. "A girl, by nature, is more attached to home than a boy," he offered, by way of an explanation. "When she loses her sense of warmth and safety at home, this, along with her increased interactions with boys, leads to delinquency."
El-Magdoub's "broken-home" explanation is only one theory as to why violence is increasing among the nation's youth. More obvious problems are poverty, over-crowding and unemployment. Students are burdened with the knowledge that once they graduate, it will be even more difficult than it was for their parents to make a living.
A recent study by the Specialised National Councils showed that public schools nationwide have only 3,000 social counsellors -- advisers who, in theory, are responsible for handling students' social problems. Worse, the majority of these 3,000 do not have offices where they can carry out their work and, in general, school administrations give them the role of substitute teachers. Counsellors expected to deal with student's psychological problems, are virtually non-existent.
"The post of the social counsellor is mere fiction," claimed one high school teacher in Alexandria, who spoke to the Weeklyon the condition of anonymity. "We [teachers] have become vulnerable in the face of violent students. Many teachers have become unable to enforce their authority after the Ministry of Education revoked teachers' right to use physical punishment," he said, though he admitted that physical punishment is not, and should not, be the only way for teachers to control their classes. He stressed, however, that the reality of many classrooms is worse than people think, saying that teachers are losing control and are even being beat up by their own students.
"If a teacher punished a student physically for attacking him, that teacher will then be punished by the school -- and the ministry. In most cases, schools choose not to disclose any violent incidents by the students, to avoid any possible trouble with the ministry," the teacher added. This, coupled with low salaries, can only lead to apathy among teachers.
Commenting on the increased violence in schools in a press interview last month, Minister of Education Hussein Kamel Bahaaeddin, cited what he called a "culture of violence" evolving in society. "Everything around you: traffic, movies, video games and computer games, all provoke violence among people," he said.
He went on, however, to throw the blame on both teachers and the family. "How can you expect a student to respect a teacher who begs to give private lessons?" demanded Bahaaeddin. "Some teachers are doing their best," he conceded, noting that some teachers can't help things getting out given the vast numbers of students in classes. "But others, whose aim is only to give private lessons, share the responsibility of what is going on."
El-Magdoub argues that the ministry is itself responsible for weakening teachers' characters, saying that in the absence of a national plan to curb school violence, the only possible solution is to allow teachers to use physical punishment. "In Britain, they faced a similar problem, and it was decided that they would give teachers the right to physical punishment -- and it worked wonders," he confirmed.
But Khalil Fadel, a psychiatrist who trained at Oxford disagrees. "The British are able to exercise self-control and choose the right moment and the suitable punishment," Fadel argued. "But I doubt that we could do the same here in Egypt. Egyptian [teachers] will vent all their anger and frustration if we allowed them to punish the students physically."
Alternatively, Fadel suggests borrowing other methods of therapy from countries more advanced in disciplinary programmes. One such method, "psycho-drama," attempts to let a troubled child work through his problems on-stage. The method, which combines group therapy with play-acting turns the therapist into a director. The patient -- called the protagonist in this situation -- deals with his emotional and intellectual stress as if it were that of another character.
"Sometimes we make him confront the real people causing him troubles, and sometimes we employ other methods, like facing an empty chair as his enemy," explained Fadel. "Once, I had a very violent student who had troubles with his father and even tried to stab him with a knife in real life. When the exact scene took place in a psycho-drama session, he [the kid] told his father all that he dared not say in real life. He did not try to harm him, which put them on the road to establishing a healthy relationship."
Fadel introduced this method in Egypt upon his return from England last February and although he claims success, he also admits the prospects of using these types of advance methods to curb violence among teenagers is bleak. "If the current health and educational policies are not changed, it will be extremely difficult to contain a dangerous phenomenon like violence," he said.
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