Cairo to Kisumu : $b Egypt—The Sudan—Kenya ColonyCarpenter, Frank G. (Frank George)
History
Cairo to Kisumu : $b Egypt—The Sudan—Kenya Colony
Carpenter, Frank G. (Frank George)
Egypt -- Description and travel; Kenya -- Description and travel; Sudan -- Description and travel
An important movement has been the introduction of modern studies into
the village schools belonging to the Mohammedans. These were formerly,
and are to some extent now, under the university of El-Azhar. They were
connected with the mosques and taught by Mohammedan priests. They were
supported by the people themselves and also by a Mohammedan religious
organization known as the Wakf, which has an enormous endowment. There
were something like ten thousand of these schools scattered over the
lower part of the Nile valley, with an attendance of nearly two hundred
thousand. They taught little more than the Arabic language, the Koran,
and reading, writing, and arithmetic. Lord Cromer wanted to bring these
schools under the ministry of public instruction and introduce our modern
studies. When the teachers refused to accept supervision, he offered to
give every mosque school that would come in an appropriation of fifty
cents for every boy and seventy-five cents for every girl. This brought
good results. At present only half of each school day is set apart for
the study of the Koran and the precepts of Islam, and I am told that such
of the Mohammedan pupils as do well are more likely to get appointments
under the government than if they were Christians or Copts.
The girls of Egypt are beginning to get an education. For a long time it
was hard to persuade their parents to send them either to the government
or the private schools, but of late some of the native educated women
have taken places as teachers and many girls are now preparing
themselves for school work. Other parents send their daughters to school
to give them a good general education, because the educated boys want
educated women for wives. There are at present something like two hundred
girls’ schools, with an attendance of nearly fifty thousand pupils. An
effort is being made to establish village schools for girls, and the
time will come when there will be girls’ schools all over Egypt and the
Mohammedan women may become educated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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