Yemen Observer: http://www.yobserver.com
Posted in:
Reports
Written By: Roa`a Almansoob
Article Date: Jun 6, 2009 - 12:25:16 PM
International law states that all countries must make education obligatory for all children while encouraging, improving, and providing all educational materials, yet a large number of Yemeni children see the Yemeni educational system as doing anything but that. Encouraging the students and exhorting them to study is, according to the students this reporter interviewed, not one of Yemeni teachers’ “top priorities”. Al-Khaulany, a seventh-grade student, said, “I pay my teacher to let me skip class without telling my parents.” According to the students, teachers encourage the students to skip classes, but do they know where they go then?
According to a recent report, around 42% of Yemeni students sneak out of their schools, and a large number of them go to internet cafés when they should be in school. The Yemen observer went to several internet cafés in Sana’a to speak with students about why exactly they prefer to go to internet cafés instead of school.
One student, Mohammed, from Othman Ben Affan public school, said, “I come here because I can have fun, far away from my boring, violent teachers because whenever they want to punish one of us, they always use beating as a punishment”.
Most of the students, interviewed for this article, reported that when they are at internet cafés they prefer to participate in chats with strangers, play video games, or listen to music. Video games appeared to be most popular with students between the ages of 8-13 and they tend to spend an average of three hours a day playing these violent games. This is worrisome because numerous psychological studies have shown that violent games cause violent attitudes among the people who play them. Many of the students interviewed reported feeling angry, and even that they felt the urge to argue and fight with others after they played these kinds of games.
We asked the owners of those internet cafés if they ever try to prevent students from coming to their shops during school hours, but they said “if their families did not prevent them, why should we?” Osama Al-Rawhani, the owner of an internet coffee on Mazda Street, said “I am so lucky that I have a school next to my net shop because my shop works only when they come”. On the other hand, some owners claim to have instructions from Yemen Net, their internet provider, that ban the owners from allowing children under the age of 12 to be their customers without their parents’ permission.
When we asked the owners how often they apply these rules, they said that some owners do not follow these terms and they accept anybody as long as he pays for using the internet. Social directors inside the schools said that the problem behind this phenomenon is that the students need outlets for their energy, and schools lack sports programs or any other types of activities that might facilitate this. As a result, children gravitate towards internet cafés because video games are more entertaining than their school environment.
The absence of family supervision is also a major contributing factor to students sneaking out of their schools, and having parents who worked in the education system did not seem to make a difference, said a social director of Alfarouq Public School. Indeed, some of the students that were part of the Yemen Observer`s research have parents who are teachers or who work in some other capacity within the education system.
The Yemen Observer asked Mr. Yahya Al-Hobishi, the vice manager of Al-Farouq Public School, about the solution to this problem and whether the public schools in Sana`a have any future plans to resolve this issue. He replied that the solution has to be a collaboration between the children’s homes and schools as well as the internet café owners. Saying, “the government does indeed have to play a role in providing suitable places for children and youth where they can burn off energy”.
The government has attempted to enact reforms in the past. It even came up with numerous protocols to reform and improve the education system so that it would be able to provide all Yemeni children with high quality education. However, the current educational system does not do that and as for the various protocols, they were all supposed to have been implemented by 2005.
