Pupils at a school in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Sohag have been on strike for three days to demand a new school building.

Gazeerat Behag School in the village of Abnoub is old and in danger of collapsing, parents of the pupils say, and the upper floor has already been abandoned.

Pupils and their parents protested outside the school, the only one in the village, on Saturday to demand the education ministry build a new school on land that was allocated for the project in 2001.

According to the parents, a foreign grant has already been granted for the project but ministry officials have told them that additional state funding is required for it to begin.

In response to the protest, the ministry announced it would send a technical committee to inspect the condition of the old school building.

Ministry of Education Undersecretary Ibrahim Mowafy has told the Al-Ahram Arabic news website that if the technical committee says the school is dangerous, the pupils will be transfer to the nearest alternative school.

This is not the first pupils' strike in Egypt. In late 2010 pupils at three schools in Alexandria went on strike and held a series of protests against a decision to change the legal status of their schools by bringing them under the auspices of the education ministry.