Page 431 - Bahrain Gov annual reports(V)_Neat

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remains elementary. The young men who return to Bahrain with or without degrees from the
American University of Beirut arc not inclined to work for the Government, in spite of having
undertaken to do so, and they almost invariably apply at once to be sent on some other course
to England or to the United Stales. There have been some successes, but not many. Those
who have entered government service tend to think that because they have acquired degrees
they should be given seniority over permanent officials with 20 or 30 years’ service. The only
arrangement which has almost always produced good results is when the Government has sent
young men who occupy posts in the administration to courses in England, which have usually
been arranged by the British Council, or to engineering and other firms, where they learn to
become more efficient in the line of work which they arc already employed on in Bahrain.
Courses of this kind do not seem to have an unsettling effect on men of this type. They benefit
not only from what they learn about their own occupations but also from coming into contact
with people of a different race.
Development of girls’ education progressed more slowly than that of boys, which is not i
surprising in a Moslem state in which the purdah system still exists. In 1938 a new girls’
school was built in Muharraq and a year or two later schools were opened in Hedd and East
Rafaa, the two largest towns in Bahrain after Manama and Muharraq. Gradually it became
possible to fill the teachers’ posts with women who had themselves been educated in the Bahrain ■:
schools, with a few experienced Syrians and Lebanese in the senior posts. Though girls did not
leave school to take up employment as was the case with the boys, yet many of the girls and the
teachers left school to be married. In 1938 the wife of the Adviser to the Government, who had
for some years been dealing with the management of the girls’ schools, was officially appointed
by the Ruler as Directress of Female Education. The girls’ schools provided primary education
on the same lines as the boys’ schools, but they also specialised in certain feminine subjects,
such as domestic hygiene, cooking, dress-making and embroidery, and for many years the girls’
schools held an annual exhibition of their work at which they displayed embroidery and other
handwork of great artistic merit. Unfortunately, in recent years, handwork has become
unpopular among the girls of Bahrain, who seem to regard it as an occupation below their
dignity.
1946. By the end of 1946 there were 13 boys’ schools containing 1,750 boys, staffed by
82 teachers ; and five girls’ schools, with 1,288 girls, staffed by 65 teachers. The amount spent
on Education had risen to over 5i lakhs, including the cost of the Technical School.

In 1947, Mr. Ahmed Omran, a Bahrain Arab, who was one of the students who were sent
to the American University of Beirut in 1929, was appointed Director of Education. He had
served for some years in the State Engineer’s Department and at the time of his appointment he
was Secretary of the Muharraq Municipal Council. He has continued to hold this post up to
the present time.
Expansion in the schools continued ; both town and village schools were enlarged to
admit more pupils but the difficulty in obtaining suitable teachers was great. A Teachers’
Training Class had been formed for training boys who passed out of the Secondary School but
the number of entrants was small. More boys were sent abroad for advanced education but
few of these had any ambition to become school teachers. Seven boys were given scholarships
to the American University of Beirut and two school teachers were sent to a course at Notting­
ham University, which was not eventually a success, and six boys were sent by their parents to
Millfield School in Somerset, where some of them remained for several years. It has been
found that when parents make their own arrangements for sending their boys to schools in
England they frequently move the boys from one school to another with the result that the
boys do not acquire much education. In 1950 the first two boys from Bahrain succeeded in
passing their B.A. examinations at Beirut.
By the Autumn of 1950 there were 3,282 boys and 1,763 girls attending government schools
and the State was spending 21 lakhs a year on education, which was about 32 per cent, of the
total expenditure in the budget. All education was free except for a small fee which was
charged for secondary education and this fee was subsequently waived by orders of the Ruler.
There is reason to believe that the advantages of Secondary Education were more appreciated
by the public when they had to pay a fee than when the Secondary School became another free
school. In both boys’ and girls’ schools the accommodation and the staff were insufficient to
allow the authorities to accept all the children who applied for admission. As usual the lower
classes were extremely crowded and the higher classes were comparatively empty.