From the Daily News Egypt:
The new academic year got off on the wrong foot on Saturday as teachers and students decided to take the day off.
A shortage of school books and lack of preparation at the schools completed the picture, though on the bright side smoothly-flowing traffic put Cairenes relatively at ease.
This is arguably the result of a call by the Kefaya movement to boycott the first day of school, to “make Sept. 20 a day for peaceful protest against policies of humiliation and degradation.”
George Ishaq, founder and former coordinator of the Kefaya movement, considers the strike a success. He sees it as “a response to the worsening situation of the education scene by the failed government policies.”
“The peaceful strike was successful and its effect was notable in the relatively smooth traffic yesterday [Saturday],” Ishaq told Daily News Egypt.
“Elementary students went to school but middle and high school students didn’t go. In addition many teachers didn’t attend the first day of classes in protest at the implementation of the new teachers’ law,” added Ishaq, referring only to public schools.
In related news, the Dessouq teachers’ sit-in was aborted by police intervention, according to Kareem el-Beheiry, while protests and sit-ins were reported in Cairo, Alexandria and the Nile Delta.
