Abu Hasan Shazli School is located in the town of Marsa Alam (in Red Sea Governorate), 150 kilometers south of Cairo, in a mountainous area that lacks the basic necessities of life. This area is populated by nomads and native tribesmen who depend on raising sheep, goats and other cattle for their livelihood. Now, they depend on school children to help them find gold.

Abu Hasan Shazli School is located in the town of Marsa Alam (in Red Sea Governorate), 150 kilometers south of Cairo, in a mountainous area that lacks the basic necessities of life. This area is populated by nomads and native tribesmen who depend on raising sheep, goats and other cattle for their livelihood. Now, they depend on school children to help them find gold.

A gold prospecting phenomenon has recently spread in the area’s mountains and valleys due their large deposits of gold, which are relatively easy to extract. Poverty-stricken shepherds have abandoned their activity to become gold prospectors in hope of improving their miserable living conditions.

During their quests, gold prospectors need young men to bring them food and water. The locals engage their own children to assist them in the exhausting task while others pay children for their labor.

 “The tough prospecting journey to the mountains lasts two to five days and it begins with exploring the area,” said a father who wished to remain anonymous for fear of legal repercussions.  “If gold veins or alluvial deposits are found by metal detectors, the extraction process begins.  I need an assistant in this journey so I take my son with me because he could keep things private and because money is easily spilt between father and son if gold is found.”

Hasan Shazli School – including students of both basic and elementary education – is located near Hasan Shazli Mosque and is surrounded by mountains. The two-story building is divided into two sections, one for basic education students and one for elementary education ones. The school accommodates 250 students, but lacks all the necessary educational facilities and services as it is not even fenced in. Nearly 40% of the school’s pupils have dropped out to go work in the gold extraction process.

“Children usually accompany their parents for gold prospecting in the eastern desert or they are hired by illegal gold prospecting gangs,” said the school’s Principal Najib Salamah. “As a result, school dropout rates have been on the rise, which threatens to empty the school from students over the coming few years since many parents are finding it increasingly hard to resist the money earned by their children in this gold prospecting business,” Salamah said.

For a few grams of gold

The school’s principal explained that some dropouts return to school with large amounts of money after a two-day gold prospecting journey. “Some of them return with 200 Egyptian pounds (US $29) in their pockets, which is a huge amount of money for a young student and this encourages other students to also drop out to earn money,” he said.  It is worth noting that an ounce of gold (28.3 grams) is worth around $ 1335 in Egypt.

The school dropout phenomenon is not new, but it is beginning to take a new dimension and is arousing fears among officials who fear that it may spread to other schools in the area.

“Gold prospecting is profitable and now I can afford my school expenses. Leaving school for a week does no harm to anyone.”

Governor of the Red Sea Governorate Major General Ahmad Abdulla called upon parents to make their children return to school, promising to build a Secondary School in the town if students abandon gold prospecting.

Abdulla addressed the people of Abu Hasan Shazli: “You are destroying your children’s future. Bring your children back to school and let them have a future and an identity.”

A teacher who refused to disclose his name said the dropout rate is constantly rising and students working in the gold prospecting business return to school loaded with money, which tempts their schoolmates to go with them.

Red Sea mountainous area is a large goldmine

Mountains of the Red Sea Governorate are known to have large deposits of gold where it has the largest gold mine in Egypt which is ‘Sukkari’. Prospectors use modern metal detectors – a portable electronic device with a search head that is swept over the ground – similar to those used for detecting landmines the price of which ranges between 15000 to 50000 Egyptian pounds (USD 7257) based on sensitivity and capacity. Those detectors are imported and purchased from famous markets in Sudan and Egypt.

Demands for legalizing the status of gold prospectors

Gold prospectors have decided recently to join forces and demand the government to legalize their status and regulate gold prospecting activities. Officials of the Red Sea Governorate said a study is underway in coordination with the Mineral Wealth Authority, the Geographical Survey Agency and the Armed Forces Office to regulate gold prospecting activities in order to help gold prospectors gain financial profit and ensure state profits as well. Another proposal under consideration is to create a stock market in Marsa Alam to purchase the gold legally collected by the locals. However, until the status of gold prospectors is officially legalized, the school dropout rates in the area will continue to rise.