Education of Bedouins in Sinai (Video)

In the following video, Hemaid, a Bedouin in Dahab, South Sinai, Egypt who has previously spoken many times to Connect the Cultures, talks in general about childhood education as well as the resulting jobs Sinai Bedouins find.

After shooting this video, I met with Hemaid again, and off camera he spoke to me specifically about the education of Bedouin girls in the Sinai.

Hemaid told me that both Bedouin girls and boys in the Sinai are expected by their families and the educational system to receive equal educations, but girls usually go farther and do better in school. Bedouin girls tend to be competitive and enjoy the challenge of trying to get high grades, so they end up learning more than the boys.

Many Bedouin boys in the Sinai like to play, not study, and often drop out of secondary school, Hemaid says. Those who continue usually aren’t admitted to university because their grades are not high enough.

But the girls don’t play around.  And in the Sinai, Bedouin girls often love their educations so much that they want to become teachers themselves. Currently in Dahab there are five Bedouin teachers in the school. Four of them are women.

You can’t imagine how much they help the children, Hemaid says of the Bedouin girls who become teachers.  I think the future will be better for education if more teachers are Bedouin.

In the following video Hemaid speaks further about the education of Bedouins in the Sinai.