“There are two systems for education in Egypt,” said Omar Morsi, a Cairo teacher, during the Saturday protest. “A foreign system for the children of the rich, who live in closed compounds and lead a different life-style; and the other one for the children of the ugly duckling–our children! The first one has all the privileges, while the second has none… We want a free syndicate! We want a syndicate that doesn’t sleep! We want a syndicate that doesn’t fear (the govt)!”
“We (the teachers) have become proletariat el-ta’aleem (the education proletariat),” said N Sinai teacher and left wing activist Ashraf Ayoub in the meeting that followed Saturday’s protest. “Are we different from the workers? No. The government treats us in the same way. We are exploited and oppressed… We need to mobilize for a national conference for teachers in Egypt and overthrow the (state-backed) syndicate.”
“We need to know one another, and who’s doing what in each province.” said Na’eem Ramadan, an Arabic teacher from Dessouq, in the northern Nile Delta province of Kafr el-Sheik. “We can’t stay fragmented… We have to strike. The people (teachers) have reached their limits and cannot take it anymore. Before Kefaya, no one used to demonstrate in the streets. It’s different now. But we will not be able to do anything unless we unite ourselves. In Dessouq, we are staging a sit-in 20 September, on the first day of classes. We are not going to our schools. We will go to the Teachers’ Syndicate Club in Dessouq and assemble there. Other provinces need to do the same.”
