Foreign Policy reports that the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has brought on a wave of strikes across Egypt's education system, with tens of thousand of teachers, university professors and students taking part in mass protests across the country. Education-reform advocates who want changes ranging from increased wages for teachers to the removal of regime-appointed officials now see their demands as achievable, but they have been met with resistance:
Mounting frustration boiled over this month, culminating in a series of protests and strikes across multiple levels of the education system.
Although the Education Ministry announced that the number of teachers participating in the strike was minimal, media reports, citing activists and organizers, estimated that 65 to 75 percent of Egypt's 1 million teachers did not report to their classrooms.
Prime Minister Essam Sharaf responded by saying that meeting the teachers' demands along with those of 6 million other public servants would be a difficult task, but added he is working with the education minister to resolve teachers' grievances with the goal of bringing the strike to an end.
"The teachers' revolution has begun, and it will not stop unless there is immediate reform," says Barakat El Sharafawi, the Giza representative of the Independent Teachers' Syndicate, which called for the strike. "We won't back down until at least the education minister resigns and there is a timetable in place for our other demands."
Read more at Foreign Policy.
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