At the end of August, Egyptian President Sisi publicly praised an 83-year-old grandmother who obtained a doctorate. She was forced to drop out of school and get married at the age of 12, but her dream of studying has never stopped. This is not only the story of an Egyptian grandmother’s personal pursuit of her dream, but also allows people to see the long-term obstacles to the interruption of education for women in rural areas of Egypt due to child marriage or child labor.
Amal Ismail Metwally Abdo, an 83-year-old Egyptian grandmother, stood on the podium, quoted the title of a song by the famous Egyptian singer Mohamed Mounir, and said to the audience: "My 'dream' allows me to live out my life!"
In advanced countries around the world, it is common to hear of people who pick up books after retirement and earn a master's or doctorate degree. However, in Egypt, a society where the illiteracy rate is still nearly 17%, and child marriage and child labor are common in rural areas, resulting in girls being deprived of their right to education. It is indeed rare to be able to study hard from junior high school at the age of nearly 70 and obtain a doctorate at the age of 83.
Amal was born in Dakahlia, a major agricultural province in Egypt's Nile Delta, in 1943. At the age of 12, she was forced to drop out of school and get married according to family tradition. She has been dedicated to the family; but her dream of studying has never stopped in her heart.
Amal returned to books as she entered middle age and obtained a preparatory school certificate at the age of 38. During this period, she suffered from cancer and had to interrupt her studies to fight the disease. After recovering from the illness, she returned to school in 2011 at the age of 68, then passed the high school exam and entered Mansoura University to study sociology. During college, she suffered health crises such as fractures of both feet, but Amal always persisted in this long path of study. In July this year, Amar obtained his PhD with his thesis "Study on the relationship between "active aging" and sociological variables".
Amal's story attracted widespread attention on Egyptian social media, and she was summoned by the governor of Dakalia in July. At the end of August this year, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi commended Amal for his firm will and focus at the Prophet's birthday celebration. The Egyptian media "Al Ahram" reported that Sisi bowed his head and kissed Amal's head on stage to express his respect for her.
Amal's extremely difficult path to education actually highlights the problems that still need to be solved in Egypt's rural society: child labor and the interruption of education due to early marriage for women.
Rawya, who works as an Arabic tutor in Cairo, told the Central News Agency that education issues in rural areas of Egypt are not simply measured by "whether there is a school or not."
According to data from Egypt’s Central Authority for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), the illiteracy rate among Egypt’s population over the age of 10 is 16.1%, but the illiteracy rate among women is as high as 21%. Data from the Bureau of Statistics in 2021 also shows that the proportion of child labor in Egypt between the ages of 5 and 17 is 5%, about 1.3 million people; the proportion of women married before the age of 18 is 15.8%.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) points out that once women get married and become full-time housewives, they are easily disconnected from society due to responsibilities such as housework, pregnancy and childbirth, and childcare. Girls who are married as children are more likely to miss school and may face higher health risks and domestic violence, which may have long-term consequences for their future participation in the labor market.
In 2024, a shocking tragedy occurred in Gharbiya, a remote province in Egypt. A 12-year-old girl who was married off by her mother was thrown from a roof and tortured to death by her husband at the age of 15 because the girl ate a plate of noodles without permission.
In addition, data from the International Labor Organization (ILO) show that agriculture is the main field of work for Egyptian child workers, especially in rural areas with extremely poor socio-economic conditions. Last year, there was a major car accident involving a minibus and a truck in Menoufiya province. The 18 dead in the car were all female child workers who were going to work in the vineyards.
In recent years, the Egyptian government has begun to actively promote "literacy" and adult education policies. In 2025, local media in Egypt also reported that the Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population will begin to severely punish criminals of child marriages under 18 years of age and female circumcision, and specifically pointed out that the current illiteracy problem in Egyptian society is closely related to female education, early marriage in rural areas, and child labor.
For Egyptians, what Dr. Egypt’s grandma proves is not only the gap in educational age, but also the gap in “the continuation of educational opportunities.” Not only did Amal study at an advanced age, she also used her extremely strong will to break through various limitations and re-create educational opportunities for herself. Her own experience became the most direct example of the theme of her thesis, "Active Aging."
