Egyptian head teacher 'stabbed by disgruntled employee' in front of pupils

Sohag province stabbing was third violent or deadly incident at a state school this week

A school employee stabbed the headmaster in front of students and teachers. AFP

A disgruntled employee stabbed the head teacher of a girls’ high school in southern Egypt in front of students and teachers gathered for a morning assembly, police said.

The headteacher was rushed to hospital and released late on Tuesday after his wounds had been treated.

The employee was angered by the headmaster’s repeated rebukes over frequent absences and dereliction of duty, according to local media reports.

The employee has been arrested, police said.

Tuesday’s stabbing in Sohag province was the third violent or deadly incident in Egyptian schools in as many days. The new school year began on Saturday.

On Monday, a seven-year-old girl died after falling out of a third-storey window at her Cairo school as she ran away from a teacher who was allegedly trying to physically punish her. The teacher has been arrested.

And on Sunday, a girl died and 15 others were injured when a staircase partially collapsed as they ran up the stairs to their classes after a break in a town near Cairo. Authorities are investigating the incident.

Although banned by law, physical punishment is not uncommon at state schools in Egypt, where many teachers use rulers or even tree branches to hit pupils. Verbal insults are also common.

There are 25 million schoolchildren in Egypt, a country of 104 million, attending nearly 50,000 state schools.

Classes at private schools, which number about 9,000, began two weeks ago.

Many of Egypt’s state schools suffer from decades of neglect. They are overcrowded, lack sufficient facilities and many buildings are in desperate need of renovation or rebuilding.

Authorities say 130 billion Egyptian pounds (about $700 million) are needed to build 250,000 classrooms to end overcrowding at existing schools.

On Monday, authorities ordered an investigation into a report on a popular talk show that parents faced with mounds of rubbish in a Nile delta school their children are attending had cleaned the area themselves.

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi recently responded to questions about his government’s spending priorities, arguing that while reforming the school system was both important and sorely needed, Egyptians would not have tolerated resources going to education while they had no reliable electricity, roads or sufficient food supplies.

“We as people, as regular citizens on the streets, would not have stomached the consequences of placing the country’s entire limited resources on education,” he said.

Mr El Sisi has since taking office in 2014 launched an ambitious drive to overhaul the economy and the country’s infrastructure. His government has built nearly two dozen new cities, including a new capital in the desert west of Cairo, an elaborate road network and new, cutting-edge transport systems running on clean energy.

The new school year in Egypt began against the backdrop of an acute economic crisis caused, in large part, by the fall-out from the Russia-Ukraine war.

Rising costs

Parents regularly complain about the rising cost of school supplies on top of the recent surge in the price of food.

The Egyptian pound has depreciated by more than 20 per cent against the US dollar since March, causing steep price increases across the board in a country saddled with an annual $75bn import bill. Inflation rose to about 14 per cent in August, the most recent month for which figures were available.

On Tuesday, however, the Egyptian leader sought to cast aside growing worries about the economy, reassuring Egyptians his government will pull them through.

“We will, by the grace of God, sail through these difficult circumstances,” he said.