Palestinians have at all times been captivated with studying. Throughout the Ottoman period, Palestinian college students travelled to Istanbul, Cairo, and Beirut to pursue larger training. Throughout the British Mandate, within the face of colonial insurance policies aimed toward maintaining the native inhabitants ignorant, Palestinian farmers pooled their sources and established faculties of their very own in rural areas.
Then got here the Nakba, and the occupation and displacement introduced new ache that elevated the Palestinian pursuit of training to a completely completely different stage. Training grew to become an area the place Palestinians might really feel their presence, an area that enabled them to assert a few of their rights and dream of a greater future. Training grew to become hope.
In Gaza, instruction was one of many first social companies established in refugee camps. College students would sit on the sand in entrance of a blackboard to study. Communities did all the pieces they may to make sure that all youngsters had entry to training, no matter their stage of destitution. The primary establishment of upper training in Gaza – the Islamic College – held its first lectures in tents; its founders didn’t watch for a constructing to be erected.
I keep in mind how, as a baby, I might see the alleys of our neighbourhood each morning crowded with youngsters heading to highschool. All households despatched their youngsters to highschool.
Once I reached college age, I noticed the identical scene: Crowds of scholars commuting collectively to their universities and faculties, dreaming of a shiny future.
This relentless pursuit of training, for many years, immediately got here to a halt in October 2023. The Israeli military didn’t simply bomb faculties and universities and burn books. It destroyed one of the vital important pillars of Palestinian training: Academic justice.
Making training accessible to all
Earlier than the genocide, the training sector in Gaza was thriving. Regardless of the occupation and blockade, we had one of many highest literacy charges on the earth, reaching 97 %. The enrolment charge in secondary training was 90 %, and the enrolment in larger training was 45 %.
One of many important causes for this success was that training in Gaza was fully free within the major and secondary levels. Authorities- and UNRWA-run faculties had been open to all Palestinian youngsters, making certain equal alternatives for everybody.
Textbooks had been distributed free of charge, and households obtained assist to purchase baggage, notebooks, pens, and college uniforms.
There have been additionally many programmes sponsored by the Ministry of Training, UNRWA, and different establishments to assist gifted college students in varied fields, no matter their financial standing. Studying competitions, sports activities occasions, and know-how programmes had been organised commonly.
On the college stage, important efforts had been made to make larger training accessible. There was one authorities college which charged symbolic charges, seven non-public universities with average to excessive charges (relying on the school and main), and 5 college faculties with average charges. There was additionally a vocational faculty affiliated with UNRWA in Gaza that provided absolutely free training.
The colleges supplied beneficiant scholarships to excellent and deprived college students.
The Ministry of Training additionally provided inside and exterior scholarships in cooperation with a number of international locations and worldwide universities. There was a better training mortgage fund to assist cowl tuition charges.
Merely put, earlier than the genocide in Gaza, training was accessible to all.
The price of training amid genocide
Since October 2023, the Zionist warfare machine has systematically focused faculties, universities, and academic infrastructure. In line with UN statistics, 496 out of 564 faculties – almost 88 % – have been broken or destroyed. As well as, all universities and faculties in Gaza have been destroyed. Greater than 645,000 college students have been disadvantaged of school rooms, and 90,000 college college students have had their training disrupted.
Because the genocide continued, the Ministry of Training and universities tried to renew the academic course of, with in-person lessons for schoolchildren and on-line programs for college college students.
In displacement camps, tent faculties had been established, the place younger volunteers taught youngsters free of charge. College professors used on-line educating instruments like Google Classroom, Zoom, WhatsApp teams, and Telegram channels.
Regardless of these efforts, the absence of standard training created a big hole within the instructional course of. The incessant bombardment and compelled displacement orders issued by the Israeli occupation made attendance difficult. The shortage of sources additionally meant that tent faculties couldn’t present correct instruction.
In consequence, paid instructional centres emerged, providing non-public classes and particular person consideration to college students. On common, a centre prices between $25 to $30 per topic per thirty days, and with eight topics, the month-to-month value reaches $240 – an quantity most households in Gaza can’t afford.
Within the larger training sector, value additionally grew to become prohibitive. After the primary on-line semester, which was free, universities began requiring college students to pay parts of their tuition charges to proceed distance studying.
On-line training additionally requires a pill or a pc, steady web entry, and electrical energy. Most college students who misplaced their units because of bombing or displacement can’t purchase new ones due to the excessive costs. Entry to steady web and electrical energy at non-public “workspaces” can value as a lot as $5 an hour.
All of this has led many college students to drop out because of their incapacity to pay. I, myself, couldn’t full the final semester of my diploma.
The collapse of instructional justice
A yr and a half of genocide was sufficient to destroy what took a long time to construct in Gaza: Academic justice. Beforehand, social class was not a barrier for college kids to proceed their training, however as we speak, the poor have been left behind.
Only a few households can proceed educating all their youngsters. Some households are compelled to make troublesome choices: Sending older youngsters to work to assist fund the training of the youthful ones, or giving the chance solely to essentially the most excellent youngster to proceed learning, and depriving the others.
Then there are the extraordinarily poor, who can’t ship any of their youngsters to highschool. For them, survival is the precedence. Throughout the genocide, this group has come to signify a big portion of society.
The catastrophic financial scenario has compelled numerous school-aged youngsters to work as a substitute of going to highschool, particularly in households that misplaced their breadwinners. I see this painful actuality each time I step out of my tent and stroll round.
The streets are full of kids promoting varied items; many are exploited by warfare profiteers to promote issues like cigarettes for a meagre wage.
Little youngsters are compelled to beg, chasing passersby and asking them for something they may give.
I really feel insufferable ache after I see youngsters, who only a yr and a half in the past had been operating to their faculties, laughing and enjoying, now stand underneath the solar or within the chilly promoting or begging simply to earn just a few shekels to assist their households get an insufficient meal.
For Gaza’s college students, training was by no means nearly getting an educational certificates or an official paper. It was about optimism and braveness, it was a type of resistance in opposition to the Israeli occupation, and an opportunity to carry their households out of poverty and enhance their circumstances. Training was life and hope.
Right this moment, that hope has been killed and buried underneath the rubble by Israeli bombs.
We now discover ourselves in a harmful scenario, the place the hole between the well-to-do and the poor is widening, the place a complete technology’s skill to study and suppose is being diminished, and the place Palestinian society is vulnerable to shedding its identification and its capability to proceed its wrestle.
What is occurring in Gaza isn’t just a short lived instructional disaster, however a deliberate marketing campaign to destroy alternatives for equality and create an unbalanced society disadvantaged of justice.
Now we have reached a degree the place the architects of the continuing genocide are assured within the success of their technique of “voluntary switch” – pushing Palestinians to such depths of despair that they select to depart their land voluntarily.
However the Palestinian folks nonetheless refuse to let go of their land. They’re persevering. Even the kids, essentially the most susceptible, usually are not giving up. I typically consider the phrases I overheard from a dialog between two youngster distributors over the past Eid. One stated: “There isn’t any pleasure in Eid.” The opposite one responded: “That is one of the best Eid. It’s sufficient that we’re in Gaza and we didn’t depart it as Netanyahu needed.”
Certainly, we’re nonetheless in Gaza, we didn’t depart as Israel needs us to, and we are going to rebuild simply as our ancestors and elders have.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
