CAIRO — Classrooms that have more than 60 children, teachers who beat students and bathrooms that are rarely cleaned are part of the daily school experience for Mariam, a third-grade student in Cairo.
“We will get beaten if we don’t pay attention, if we are noisy or if we don’t do our homework,” Mariam, who goes to a public school in the extremely poor neighborhood of Manshiyet Nasr, told Al-Monitor.