In Palestine, Integration, Development, Participation.

As the twentieth century, with its major transformations determining events, approaches its finale, the fate of Palestine and its people will stand out as one of its more notable issues, and one with which the United Nations has been intimately associated.

Subsequent to its military occupation in December 1917 by the British army, the League of Nations charged Britain with a mandate to govern Palestine and prepare its population for self-government. Simultaneously, the mandate was also to "facilitate the establishment of the Jewish National Home" in Palestine. We don't need to concern ourselves with the political history of Palestine; we are more concerned with educational developments that reflect the interplay between the political system and the growth of Palestinian Arab education in Palestine. The Palestinian Arab people who were born or raised in the Palestine of the British mandate, and their descendants, irrespective of their current residence or national status, today number slightly more than 8 million. Less than 3 million are under the educational jurisdiction of a Palestinian authority that functions in parts of Palestine (less than 10 per cent of the total land of historic Palestine). Modest as this educational jurisdiction may be, and despite som e subtle constraints and limitations inherent in the Oslo Agreements concluded by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, it signifies the possible independence of the Palestinians, for the first time in their history, to chart the educational future of their people.

Even a rudimentary review of the history of the Palestinian people suggests that non-Palestinian authorities--some openly hostile to their development and aspirations, while others more concerned with their own particular national priorities and needs--determined their educational curriculum. That was true since the onset of the British mandate in 1922. Until 1948, the Palestine Mandate Government determined the structure of education, certification of schooling, the overall purposes of the system of education, the curriculum to be used and the budget allotted for that purpose. The consequence of that exogenous control became evident as the years went by. First, the Government did not allot enough of the Palestinian budget to meet the educational needs of the Palestinian Arab people in Palestine. By the termination of the mandate, less than one third of the school-age population (6 to 17) was able to enrol in the basic educational system, which was structured into an elementary system lasting seven years, an d a secondary system lasting four years. Post-secondary education was confined to a two-year junior college (the Arab College of Jerusalem) that admitted less than 30 students each year and some three vocational secondary-level schools. Palestinians seeking university education-and many of the more economically-able did so-pursued their university education beginning at the American University of Beirut and, somewhat later, in Britain or the United States.

While the quality of that educational system was reasonable, it conformed to the needs of a colonial administration in educating "natives" in useful skills for an alien system and values not necessarily supported by Palestinian culture, or lacking in sensitivity to Palestinian and Arab history, culture, values and national aspirations. When Palestine was forcibly dismembered in 1948 and effectively replaced by Israel, the Jordanian West Bank and the Egyptian-administered Gaza Strip, Palestinian education came under these authorities' jurisdiction. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), established in 1949, assumed an important role in the education of Palestinian refugees displaced from their homes in what became Israel and who continue to exist as refugees, not only in the West Bank and Gaza, but also in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. UNRWA assumed direct educational responsibility for all refugees irrespective of place of residence, with two important limitat ions: its educational scope was restricted for the most part to the first nine years of education and some significant but limited vocational and teacher training systems; and, consistent with the agreements concluded with the "host" countries, it utilized the national curricula of the host States. UNRWA could not function within the Palestinian refugee population displaced from their original homes who continued to live within Israel. As evident from the data opposite, considerable progress in school enrolment and school building was achieved during this period; and although the curriculum was not Palestinian, the close affinity of Palestinians with Arab culture helped in conveying more Arab values and concerns than either the previous or the following periods.

The situation changed quite positively for Palestinian education in 1993/1994, in the wake of the transfer of authority from Israel to the Palestinian Authority under the 1993 Oslo Agreement. The Palestinian Authority assumed its governing role in the principal cities of Palestine and assumed full jurisdiction over a number of social and cultural functions, including that of education. Organized in 1994, the Palestinian Ministry of Education reviewed the existing conditions of the school system, devised plans for the future and has been trying to meet the increasing educational demands of the population.

The situation changed considerably once more when Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 and became the supervising authority for education. Important sections of the history textbooks and geography, including maps of Palestine and the Arab world, as well as Arabic language and literature, were altered by a censor. The ceiling on the educational budget made inevitable deterioration in the structure of education, the provision of educational material and the standard of living of educational personnel. The entire school system was closed for prolonged periods of time. And yet, this period witnessed the emergence of Palestinian higher education through individual and collective Palestinian initiative. Birzeit University pioneered the effort and obtained its Charter as a public university in 1974; it was followed by al-Najah National University in Nablus. Today, eight national universities and a considerable number of technical and junior colleges train more than 40,000 students. The Israeli occupation also obstructed the growth of these universities and effectively "closed" them repeatedly, the last time for about four years (1987-1991).

With the Ministry of Education an important component of the Palestinian Authority, for the first time in Palestinian Arab history a truly national authority is in charge of the future of manpower training of Palestinians. With its assumption of the responsibility of enforcing the "Compulsory Education Law" (now 10 years of schooling), the vast majority of school-age children are actually in school, even though they are accommodated in two, and sometimes three, daily shifts as a result of the shortage of school buildings. The 1998 enrolment in all levels of schooling (excluding higher education), was slightly more than 800,000 poorly-paid and at times less than adequately trained teachers. The Ministry of Education has been striving to double the space and absorptive capacity of its schools; it is estimated that, with assistance from international donors, more than 40 schools (out of the more than 1,000

additionally required) have been constructed. Considerably more have been repaired since the termination of Israel's military occupation of the principal Palestinian cities of the West Bank and Gaza. The Ministry has successfully obtained international support for its acquisition of educational texts and resources and equipment to meet the immediate needs of the schools in Palestine. It has obtained significant international support for educational planning, for the implementation of the newly-planned First National Curriculum.

Clearly, Palestine will need a great deal of international support to modernize the educational system structure, physical facilities, equipment and the provision of educational material meet the needs of a society ambitious to be part of the twenty-first century and to become more competitive internationally. Its educational authorities aspire to an educational system that would help the process of national integration and development, and the rise of a participatory social and political system. Only an educated Palestinian population can commit itself to democratic principles leading to domestic, regional and international peace. That is the challenge Palestinian society confronts as it becomes free and independence on the eve of the twenty-first century.

Ibrahim Abu Lughod Professor of International Studies, Birzeit University, Palestine, and Director of Qartan Institute of Educational Development and Research

From Pressure to Promise

The Palestinian Arab people number slightly more than 8 million. But in 1992, when the mandate was imposed on Palestine, they numbered close to 800,000. At the time of their dispersion in 1948, they numbered close to 1.5 million.

The table gives the approximate numbers of students by selected years and their relative ratio to the total population, as well as the number of schools that accommodated these numbers. One is struck by the very limited numbers of those who had access to education during the British mandate and its improvement during the British mandate and its improvement during the Arab jurisdiction (Jordanian, Egyptian and Palestinian), as well as the increasing pressure on the system in the eighties and nineties. These pressure clearly reflect the Palestinian commitment to education and commitment of a national authority concerned with nation and State building to meet those needs.

Year    Population Number of     Ratio/Population Number of Schools
                    Students
1922       800,000    20,000            2%               311
1947/48  1,400,000   103,000            7%               550
1967/68 14,000,000 2,222,226           16%               990 [*]
         (WB/Gaza)
1997/98  1,600,000   479,133           29%             1,515
         (WB/Gaza)
1998     2,500,000   800,000 [*]       32%             2,000+ [*]
         (WB/Gaza)
(*.)numbers include private schools