OUR children are the apples of our eye. This is a fact that needs no affirmation. However, this might go deeper for a poor Egyptian father, who may not have had his share of education or good and dignified living conditions, for no other reason than being a citizen of a southern governorate, which has suffered long decades of negligence and deterioration of all services. However, he, like most other poor Egyptians, lives for his children and struggles to have them educated to get a better chance in life. So what could this father do, if he suddenly lost his son or daughter in a train crash or a road accident while they were heading to their school on the other side of the railway line or highway? And what if the loss was as great as losing all of his four children that he spent his life working in his field to raise them? This is the condition of Emara Anwar Abdel-Rashid, a small farmer of Sheikh Wali village who lost his four children in the tragic train crash with their school bus that took place in Assiut governorate early this month near Manfalout on Saturday November 17. Abdel-Rashid's wife lost her mind on seeing the corpses of her four children that had been torn into pieces in few minutes. Herein, this small farmer felt that there was no value to his life or fruit of his work on his farm with the death of his children, for whom he was hoping to fulfil his dream. Now, the children had gone and his wife has become insane, what should he do with his land? He decided to donate his small piece of land for the creation of a school complex to gather the three pre-university stages of education to serve the children of his village, so that no more parents would lose their children in such an accident. He also decided to create a health unit centre and two classes for teaching children the Holy Qur'an. Apparently, Abdel-Rashid does not have the finance to create these important educational and health institutions. But, he allocated the land in the hope that the State as well as rich people would offer donations for fulfilling the project as a practical way to express sorrow and condolence to the villagers who lost some 53 of their offspring in the tragic accident. Therefore, it is the turn of the Government, whose representatives disappeared from the scene on that black Saturday to speedily implement the project. By so doing they will ease the minds of families that wish to have their children educated, without their facing the threat of death while going to and from school across the railway line. Actually, village children of Assiut governorate are not the only one that undergo unsafe means of transport to reach their schools built dozens of miles away from their villages and towns. Nor it is the case of southern governorates only, as the same problem faces villagers in the Delta governorates and even greater Cairo. Agricultural highways connecting the capital with the northern and southern governorates continue to claim the lives of rural children, while going to and from school, without flyovers being constructed to enable students to cross the roads to school without facing the threat of being hit by speeding vehicles. At the beginning of the school year, while driving along Dokki Street in Giza to the newspaper in Ramses Street, I saw a lorry carrying school children at different ages. Every few metres, the driver slowed down to enable some students to jump out of the lorry to cross the street to nearby schools. As I was driving just behind the lorry, I drove very carefully so as not to harm any of the children, some of whom might have been as young as six years old. I wondered what made their parents take the risk of sending their children to schools located many miles away from their villages in such inhuman and dangerous means of transport, other than they could not find good schools or even any at all in their towns or villages. The Assiut accident should prompt us all to revise our theoretical explanations for the high illiteracy rate in the country and means of reducing or even eliminating it. It is not just the question of offering the poor the incentives to send their children to school, rather than working in the fields to help with the family's living costs. Some poor parents continue to struggle working for long hours every day to give their children a chance of education. The problem lies in having some schools that offer virtually no education or not having schools in the first place in many villages in Egypt. Therefore, while trying to upgrade educational conditions in Egypt, which is the real base of Egypt's development, we should not ignore the need to create thousands of schools in different villages and towns to convince parents to send their children to school without the risk of losing them on the way. Then, we should take real care of the quality of education in these schools not only through good buildings and facilities, but also via skilled and well-trained teachers that should enjoy higher financial incentives to accept working in such remote places. If Abdel-Rashid has given us the example of how to positively act to solve such chronic problem despite his immense sorrow, state departments as well as civil society should not be less active in launching a national project for ensuring children's right of having education safely and appropriately. Accordingly, within a decade we would drastically reduce the illiteracy rate instead of increasing it by continuing to ignore the plight of children in rural areas.
