Another right denied

De-motivation and discontinuity mark education under occupation Going to school is hard enough without being tear gassed, shot at

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; the Convention on the Rights of the Child; and other international laws and conventions enshrine the right to education. Attainment of this right, however, is being impeded and sometimes denied for lengthy periods of time to young Palestinian refugees.

Clichés and truisms abound when talking about Palestinians and education: one third of the Palestinian population is under 14; Palestinians see education as their only way to a better future; those living in host countries usually do as well or better the local citizens in national examinations; and Palestinians are among the best-educated persons in the Middle East.

But many Palestinian children are falling behind. They are de-motivated and discouraged by the constant interruptions to their education. Children in Lebanon lost months of education during the 1970s and 80s. Children in the Occupied Territories of West Bank and Gaza have been suffering the same fate since the late 1980s.

Palestinians are constantly being told to establish civil society organizations and build a state. To do so, education must play a central role. Schools and universities should be turning out a corps of educated, professional Palestinians who would be at the forefront of developing governing structures and engaging in a rational dialogue leading to a peaceful solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The need and the desire for education exist. But what about the reality, especially today in the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern Jerusalem as well as for Palestinian citizens of Israel?

Schools for Palestinian children in Israel are chronically under funded just like other social services for this community which makes up nearly 20 per cent of Israel’s population.

In the 1967 occupied territories including eastern Jerusalem, there are more than 2,000 elementary and secondary schools including 264 UNRWA and 256 private schools, 12 universities and a similar number of community colleges and four UNRWA vocational and teacher training centers. While the physical conditions of these educational institutions are not always the best, the facilities exist. Often it is a question of access. Gaza students wishing to attend one of the three UNRWA training centers in the West Bank were, until recently, denied permits to travel to the West Bank for five years. The same has been true for university students from Gaza. Travel within Gaza and West Bank is often difficult or impossible causing missed days and missed examinations.

Children and young adults attending all levels of schooling in the occupied territories have faced years of interrupted education. It is also important to remember that Palestinian refugee children in Lebanon suffered months and sometimes years of lost schooling because of the civil war in the late 1970s, the 1982 Israeli invasion and its aftermath and the camps war in the mid-1980s. The poor security situation often prevented schools from opening, pupils and teachers were unable to get to schools, refugee communities were bombed and shelled, UNRWA schools were heavily damaged or destroyed and schools were occupied at times by homeless fleeing refugees.

In other host countries in the Middle East such as Jordan and Syria, Palestinians generally are treated on a par with citizens of those countries and have equal access to education plus access to UNRWA schools and training centers. In Egypt, however, there was a major change in the late 1980s. Palestinians had been treated almost as citizens from the time of President Nasser but new regulations forced most Palestinian children to attend private schools and to pay foreign student fees in sterling pounds at universities. Many students were already part way through their training when the change was introduced so either had to find the money or drop out. In the early 1990s, UNRWA and the Arab League raised almost $700,000 to pay the university fees for Palestinian students in their final year and for those who had graduated but had not yet received their diplomas because they had not been able to pay their fees.

Tear gassed, shot at

Closures, curfews, military actions such as tear gassing and shooting of pupils in al-Khader, near Bethlehem in May 2004, tank fire injuring two 10-year-old boys in Rafah at an UNRWA school as recently as June 2004, Israeli invasions of schools, teachers and students unable to get to their schools because of permit regulations, damage to schools from military attacks, estimated at $2.2 million for Palestinian Authority schools and $4.85 million for Palestinian universities and occupation of schools by Israeli military over the past almost 20 years have taken their toll in days of schooling lost, lower success rates in examinations, higher dropout rates and psychological problems among students.

UNRWA staff have seen an erosion of students’ skills, ill-preparing them for continuing their education. There has been a marked deterioration in test scores in Arabic, English and mathematics and scores will only deteriorate with the fourth consecutive year of severe school disruptions.

Taking all of the reasons into account, including general strikes in the early years of the first Intifada, more than 40 per cent of school days were lost in Gaza and West Bank during the 1990-91 school year. Currently there are very few general strikes so days lost are mainly the result of actions by the occupation authorities.

Now the wall

Because of the so-called “security fence” Israel is building around and deep into the West Bank, hundreds of children have to take circuitous routes to school as in Kafr Akab neighbourhood north of Jerusalem. They now take 2-3 hours to get to school because of the wall, a trip that used to take 20 minutes. Some teachers don’t have permits to go to the schools where they teach; Al Quds University’s main campus in Abu Dis just outside Jerusalem has been split in two by construction of the wall; primary and secondary schools students in Jenin, Tulkarem, Qalqilya, Ramallah, Jerusalem and Bethlehem have been cut off from their schools.

In Beit Iksa, near Jerusalem, access to secondary education has been seriously affected. The current practice is for students to enroll in Jerusalem secondary schools or to commute to some Palestinian villages that will not be included in pockets of land cut off by the wall. Once the barrier is complete, however, neither option will be available, so no secondary schooling for 198 refugee children will be available.

Fourteen UNRWA schools will be affected by the barrier in the Jerusalem area alone—10 outside and barrier and four inside. Seventy-four UNRWA teachers will have to cross the barrier to get to their work place and 12 will have to enter the area through the barrier. 260 school pupils will also be affected.

UNRWA’s Kalandia Training Centre, north of Jerusalem, has dormitories for trainees but if they want to go home for a weekend, 440 of them, almost half of Kalandia’s students will have to cross the barrier which could take hours with the added possibility that they might not be able to pass through the barrier on their return. Another case is Ezbit Jbara in northern West Bank which has no school. Residents have to go through an Israeli-manned iron gate to leave their villages. Some pupils can be up to three hours late getting to school because of the barrier, the gate and Israeli checkpoints.

These are only a few examples of how the wall is affecting Palestinian education and all aspects of life in the West Bank. Since the wall hasn’t been yet completed, the list will grow in the 2004-5 school year.

De-motivation, fragmentation

Years of disrupted education results in the fragmentation of the learning experience. The lack of continuity and progress in learning results in de-motivation. These factors plus the daily impediments of getting to and from school and the possibility of being innocent victims of violence has led to severe trauma and emotion stress among school children which doesn’t make it any easier to try to educate Palestinian refugee children.

UNRWA’s Commissioner-General Peter Hansen says that where once Palestinian refugee communities had, through their own hard work and determination, with the support of the international community, major donors and host governments, “reached and in some cases exceeded, regional standards in health and education, they are now today at the bottom.

“The Palestine refugee population is at a crucial juncture: as in many developing countries around the world, the benefits of available and efficient primary health care had led to sharp drops in child mortality and increase in life expectancy. As a result, the age pyramid of this population shows a very broad base, with 33 per cent of the refugees under 14 years of age, and a very broad middle: 57 per cent between 15 and 59 years…The consequence is simple, we are faced with a cohort of refugees in their prime, enjoying a good level of health and literacy. It will be followed by another large cohort, those currently under 14 years of age.”

What role model will they follow? “…The hooded, gun-slinging military or that of the modern young computer whiz? Will it be graduation caps and gowns or will it be unemployment and forced idleness? Will it be pride in achievement or pride in
destruction? Will it be self-confidence and tolerance or cynicism and bigotry?”

“We cannot afford to disappoint Palestine refugee youth, not only because our failure to secure their future would come back to haunt us, but also because we would have sorely failed in our mission” of preparing them to play their rightful role in the development of their community.

Further “barriers” to learning

Additional barriers facing Palestinian education in the West Bank and Gaza Strip include: Israeli incursions into schools and education ministry offices taking away student records and computer hard drives; arrests of thousands of students often at military checkpoints on their way to or from university or school; forced closures of schools and universities e.g. Hebron’s university and polytechnic university were closed by military order for most of one school year, denying more than 6,000 students their right to education; other universities have been closed for varying periods of time; in the 1993-94 school year, UNRWA’s Kalandia Training Centre lost 31 per cent of training time, the Gaza Training Centre lost 25 per cent; in the 2001-02 school year, an average of 352 teachers out of a total of 1,787 teachers daily were unable to reach their schools in West Bank. The situation was the same in the Gaza Strip. Also in 2001-2002, 36 UNRWA students were killed and 828 injured, some of whom sustained permanent disabilities.

In a report on the effect of Israeli occupation on education from September 2000 to March 2004, the Palestinian Ministry of Education says that 27 teachers and 645 students (all levels) were killed, 53 teachers and 4,599 students were injured; 167 teachers and 1,252 students were detained by the occupation authorities.

Trying to compensate

To help compensate for the disruption to the education of the quarter of a million refugee children in UNRWA schools across the occupied Palestinian Territories, UNRWA has an emergency education program costing almost $2.2 million in 2004.

The program includes:
Reassigning teachers to schools closer to their homes so the chances of being able to get to work through checkpoints and roadblocks are increased and hiring additional teachers to replace those unable to reach their work; hiring additional
teachers to give makeup and remedial classes in Arabic, Math and English. These classes are being provided to 39,000 students in the Gaza Strip and 23,500 in the West Bank, grades 4-9.

The Palestinian Ministry of Education has also take steps to try to fill the gaps in educating Palestinian children, creating a substitute schooling system by providing materials for home-schooling and for makeshift schools in mosques, basements and empty buildings.

Closure and curfews have left many children confined to their homes so UNRWA has developed distance learning programs using self-teaching and home-schooling materials. With the help of NGOs and individuals an after school program of activities has been developed to provide a stress-free environment to counter the impact of the violence which pupils witness on an almost daily basis and to help them learn to use their free time more purposefully.

The opportunities for education, training and employment have diminished dramatically and the socio-economic cost of not responding to the needs of idle youth is very high. One way UNRWA is addressing this issue is to use existing programs and facilities to engage youth in a constructive learning program to enhance their chances of being employable. The Agency has consulted local business owners and potential employers to design courses responding to local labor market needs. During 2004, 269 trainees in West Bank and 142 in Gaza will be able to take advantage of short-term courses (12-20 weeks) in computer skills, secretarial, automotive electronics and mechanics at existing Agency vocational training centers.

Psycho-social support

Armed conflict as well as closures and curfews are a source of acute psychological stress for all Palestinians. A USAID-funded study by the U.S. and Sweden Save the Children and the National Plan of Action for Palestinian Children release in 2003 showed a particularly devastating impact on children. The study, conducted with the help of UNRWA school counselors found that 93 per cent of children reported feeling unsafe with more than half of them feeling that their parents could no longer protect them. This insecurity was partly brought on by seeing family members subjected to violence and the forced flight from their homes. As a consequence most parents reported traumatic behavior among their children that included nightmares, bedwetting, increased aggression, hyperactivity and decreased ability to concentrate.

To help deal with this, UNRWA has developed a psycho-social support program employing 75 school counselors and 41 mental health counselors in West Bank and Gaza. Cost of this program in 2004 is $3.7 million.

Sources: UNICEF, UNRWA, OCHA Relief Web, Christian Peacemaker Teams, Palestinian Ministry of Education, Save the Children (U.S. and Sweden).

Ron Wilkinson is a media consultant with BADIL Resource Center.