Page 316 - Bahrain Gov Annual Reports (IV)_Neat

20
road. For sonic years this was the only school in Bahrain, then a boys' school was opened in Manamah.
In 1928 a second boys’ school was built in Manamah to provide education for the Shia sect whose parents
were unwilling to send their sons to a school which was predominantly Sunni. Today sectarian diff­
erences over matters of education have disappeared and boys and teachers of both sects work together
in the same schools.
"In the same year the first girls’ school was started. At first this was regarded by the more
conservative Arabs as a very dangerous innovation. Old fashioned parents disapproved of their
daughters being taught to read and write, partly because they thought that it would enable girls to-
correspond with people who were unknown to their parents. Since those days public opinion has
changed and parents of girls arc now demanding secondary and advanced education for their daughters.
"Technical education was started in 1936 with carpentry and engineering classes in a small
school which since then has expanded very greatly, but the Technical School has never been as popular
as the other schools. Unfortunately many Bahrain Arabs have an inherent idea that it is somewhat
infra dig. to work with their hands. The position corresponding to a " white collar ” job in Europe,
though often less well paid than manual work, is more popular in Bahrain.
"During the following years education made rapid strides. Today there are 3,500 boys and
2,000 girls attending 19 State schools in Bahrain, these schools include kindergarten and village schools,
primary, secondary and technical schools. A new girls’ school and a large new secondary school are
under construction in Manamah and next year it is proposed to build another boys’school in Muharraq.
A substantial proportion of the State’s revenue, which is derived from oil royalties and customs duty,
is allocated to social services of which Public Health and Education arc regarded as the most important.
Last year the sum which was spent upon education amounted to 22 per cent of the State's total
expenditure.
"The Arabs of Bahrain are insatiable in their demand for education, provided that they do not
have to pay for it. Primary education is free and a large proportion of the boys in the Secondary
School hold scholarships from the Slate, those who do not pay a small fee. In the Technical School
boys are paid an allowance, without which few of them would attend the school. At present the
deterrent factor against more rapid expansion is the shortage of suitable local Arab teachers. The
same situation exists in many Middle East countries. Men who are qualified to be teachers can obtain
higher pay from oil companies outside Bahrain than they would earn as schoolmasters in their own
country.
" Enthusiasm for education among boys and young men is rarely a genuine desire for learning,
too often education is regarded merely as a means of securing better paid employment than an illiterate
Arab could obtain. When a census was taken in Bahrain last year it was found that the resident
population was 110,000 but about 5,000 men were working abroad, in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere,
with oil companies and contracting companies connected with the development of oil in the Gulf,
in states where educational facilities, if they existed at all, were far below the educational level of
Bahrain.
" Bahrain is still a purdah country and girls cannot at present hope to obtain employment except
a few who are taken on as teachers in their own schools. There is no mercenary incentive to attract
girls to school. They are taught, in addition to the ordinary class room subjects, cooking, sewing
and domestic hygiene and now both they and their parents realise that what they learn at school makes
them better fitted to be wives and mothers. Today girls who have been at school are unwilling to
marry at the youthful age which used to be customary and educated girls are more keenly sought in
marriage than those who are uneducated.
" Before State schools existed almost the only sources of education in Bahrain were the Koran
schools, which still flourish in the towns and villages, serving a useful purpose as pre-preparatory
schools for the primary schools. Koran schools are attended by boys and girls up to about six years
of age, some of them are co-education, others arc exclusively for boys or girls. Their main object is
to teach the children to learn portions of the Koran by heart but in some of these schools reading,
writing and arithmetic are taught. The men teachers are usually officials connected with mosques,
the girls' schools are run by elderly women, both appear to be good disciplinarians. There is no western

m