CAIRO: Students from the April 6 Youth Movement kick started the “You are the Solution” campaign to raise political awareness of their colleagues.
The student activists distributed flyers in Cairo and Ain Shams Universities urging their colleagues to take a more active and positive role in political life.
“We want to solve the students’ problems and get them engaged in the political and social reform of their community,” coordinator of the movement Ahmed Maher told Daily News Egypt.
According to Maher, the biggest problems that face university students are the education system and the lack of freedom of opinion and expression.
“The curriculum they teach at universities has nothing to do with the actual work market, scientific research doesn’t exist in universities and students aren’t taught creative thinking techniques; they are only taught how to memorize information and obey rules,” he said.
“We believe the solution to all these problems stems from the students themselves, if each student is more pro-active and participates in improving and developing his community rather than just worrying about his studies and exams, we will achieve real change,” he added.
One of the April 6 students, Moataz Ballah, was reportedly interrogated in the university guard office for 3 hours for distributing the statement. He was advised to stay away from April 6 and from politics during the interrogation, according to Maher.
“It’s an arbitrary measure taken to intimidate and terrorize us, so we don’t express our opinions freely, “Maher said.
