International Journal of Educational Development
Volume 22, Issue 2 , March 2002, Pages 145-154

doi:10.1016/S0738-0593(01)00009-8      
Copyright © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Palestinian education: a national curriculum against all odds

Agustín Velloso de Santisteban

Department of Historia de la Educación y Educación Comparada, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Senda del Rey s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain

Available online 8 January 2002.

Abstract

This article deals with the political transition taking place in the Israeli Occupied Territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, in connection with the implementation of the first ever Palestinian national curriculum. The significance of this transition for the Palestinian national ambitions, with reference to relevant international law, is firstly analyzed. Then, a review of the landmarks in the construction of the curriculum, under the light of the main developments in the recent evolution of the Palestinian education, is made. The difficulties the Palestinian Ministry of Education has to overcome to implement its curriculum, because of the faltering political situation, are finally discussed. The main conclusion is that the curriculum is unable to contribute to the national construction because, the Palestinian nation's future is not in the Palestinians' hands.

Author Keywords: Curriculum construction; Political transition; Decolonization and education

 

 

1. Introduction

Researchers and educationists interested in educational issues related to emergent nationalisms, independence movements, and political transition in general, find nowadays an increasing literature dealing with the relationship between political change and education. In the Editorial to issue 2 of volume 33 of Comparative Education, which appeared in 1997, Mark Bray and W.O. Lee wrote that "a huge literature already exists on education and political transition". No wonder this field of study is growing everywhere, since political transitions are taking place continuously all around the world. They mention papers that focus on Central and Eastern Europe, and also on colonial and post-colonial Africa and Asia.

This journal devoted that issue to Hong Kong. Contributors focused on colonial transition, curriculum change and the links between the political setting and the educational system. More recently, in August 1998, John Pape wrote about "Changing education for majority rule in Zimbabwe and South Africa", in Comparative Education Review. No doubt more papers will contribute to the field, as new political movements, many of them unfolding with violence, are now taking place, particularly in developing countries.

Political transition, according to those editorialists, may take several forms. From colonial rule to independence, or autonomy, from dictatorship to democracy, or the other way round, from one state to two or more, etc. History and present conditions also have a say. The relationships between all that and education also vary according to each particular case. Because of this, it is very difficult to find useful commonalities, let alone to try any comparisons. However, increasing the knowledge about particular cases, in accordance with the editorialists' invitation, at least may help researchers to better conduct their own studies. The Palestinian case is not an exception, on the contrary, it is quite distinctive.

In this paper, the political transition taking place in the Israeli Occupied Territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with the recent establishment of the Palestinian Authority in parts of them, is linked to the implementation of the first ever Palestinian national curriculum. The relationships between the unfolding political setting and the Palestinian curriculum will be analyzed. In particular, the constraints under which the curriculum is being designed and is going to be implemented, will be the target of the study.

2. The political situation in the Occupied Territories

While this paper was being written, newspapers and political commentators in Europe and in the United States were celebrating, together with their Israeli counterparts, the results of the last Israeli elections, which gave the victory to Mr Ehud Barak, now the new Prime Minister of Israel. The main reason for the celebration is that governments and many people in Western countries hope that Mr Barak would speed up the peace process with the Palestinian Authority, led by Mr Yasser Arafat, which was almost paralysed under the previous government of Mr Netanyahu. Let us take here an optimistic stake for the sole purpose of establishing the linkage between political transition and education, without weighing up the real chances of a successful outcome. It is obvious that this process is continuously undergoing ups and downs, which makes it rather difficult to reach a conclusion.

What is this peace process? The main problem with the definition of this process is that it does not have a unique meaning for all those involved in it, not even for the independent observers. Moreover, it could be said that no serious effort has been made, especially amongst politicians, to clarify it and to relate it to international law, treaties and declarations in force, dealing with occupied territories, de-colonization and human rights issues. In other words, it seems that the Israel–Palestinian Authority agreements have superseded numerous United Nations Resolutions and relevant Geneva Convention provisions, although these have never been abrogated. Let us try to highlight the most important controversial issues of the process.

What is the aim of the process? Some will say that the aim is a Palestinian state in some parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, after some years of confidence-building steps taken both by Israel and the Palestinian Authority, former enemies and presently "partners in peace". The number of years is unspecified. Besides, since the peace process started in 1993, with the signing of the Declaration of Principles by Mr Arafat, Mr Rabin, and Mr Clinton, in the White House on 13 September, there have continuously been many disagreements between the two parties over the actions and reactions of each other concerning these steps. The final shape of the state is unknown. On the other hand, some others would say that the aim is an autonomous entity, able to exercise power over Palestinian internal affairs, but not over foreign affairs and borders, and without an army, will coexist with Israel and will be dependent on it, mainly economically.

Even if the first option becomes a reality, the conflict will still be far from settled. Will that state enjoy all the features of any other modern state? Will the Palestinian government be in control of the resources, the borders, the infrastructure and the economy? Is it possible to talk about an independent state if its government has no full authority over these basic elements? Will the approximately four million Palestinian refugees who live in the Middle East countries have the opportunity to come back and become Palestinian citizens? Will the settlements, and their commuting roads, which are illegal Israeli outposts in the Occupied Territories according to international law, peacefully remain side by side the Palestinian towns, but under the exclusive authority of the Israeli government? These are not the only issues for which it is difficult to find an agreement between the parties. Jerusalem, which enjoys a special international regime (corpus separatum) under international law, and East Jerusalem, also illegally occupied territory, although claimed as the capital of the Palestinian state, has never been relinquished by Israel; on the contrary, it has been proclaimed its eternal and undivided capital.

Other difficulties can be added to those already mentioned. How will the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, separated by Israeli land, communicate with each other? Will Palestinians be able to commute between them at their will? Will Palestinians living in Jerusalem become Israeli citizens with the same rights as the Jewish Israelis? Will Palestinians be allowed by Israel to enter Jerusalem in order to worship at the Muslim places and visit their cultural and social centers? Will the Palestinian government be allowed to establish its own army, sign international agreements, or even join its state together with other Arab states, like Jordan for example?

The answer to these questions will have a great influence on the Palestinian education system, not only in the scholastic curriculum, but in the overall establishment of this system, its implementation, its development, and its outcome as well. This is something to be tackled in the following parts of this paper. On the other hand, these questions, whatever the answers, seem to support Bray's assertion that "one strong lesson from the literature is that colonial legacies are long enduring" (Bray, 1997).

Whatever the outcome of the peace process, a review of the last 50 years in the region shows that, in spite of continuous and repeated United Nations (UN) resolutions calling for the division of Palestine (United Nations' Partition Resolution 181, of 1947), the return — or failing this, the compensation — of the Palestinian refugees (UN General Assembly Resolution 194, of 1948), the internationalization of Jerusalem (UN General Assembly Resolution 303, of 1949), the withdrawal of Israel from territories occupied by force (UN Security Council Resolution 242, of 1967, and 425, of 1978), the recognition of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people in Palestine (UN General Assembly Resolution 3236, of 1974), the dismantling of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories (UN Security Council Resolution 446, of 1979), and deploring the policies and practices of Israel, the occupying power, which violates the human rights of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories (UN Security Council Resolution 605, of 1987), Israel has managed to bypass the relevant international law, and has increased its territory and its political and economic leverage on the Palestinians. On the other hand, the Palestinian Authority exerts a kind of municipal power in small and unconnected areas of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, while it remains totally dependent on Israel for its political and economic development.1

3. Palestinian education before and after the Washington Agreements of 1993

There are several studies which deal with Palestinian education, its history going back to the Ottoman Empire era, the British Mandate over Palestine, and above all the Israeli occupation since 1967. There are also some more recent ones dealing with the present conditions and the challenges of the future situation. These studies are easy to find, so there is no need to repeat their findings and conclusions here [see, for example, in chronological order, Graham-Brown (1984), Abdul-Hadi and Nur-Edin (1985), Educational and Educational Network, 2000, Rigby (1995), Palestinian National Authority. Ministry of Education (1997), Teacher Development Center Almawrid (1997) and Velloso (1998)]. However, a brief presentation of the main issues that have influenced the curriculum up until now will be made before moving to the current political situation.

Under the power of the Ottoman and the British rulers, that is to say, before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the education of the indigenous population of Palestine was controlled by the colonizers, who were not interested in developing a genuine Palestinian curriculum. Concerning this, it may be recalled that the 1917 Balfour Declaration (named after the British Foreign Secretary Arthur J. Balfour), supporting the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, referred to the Palestinians, the overwhelming majority of the population in Palestine, as the "existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine". Between 1948, when the Mandate ended and the State of Israel was declared, and 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the West Bank was controlled by Jordan, while the Gaza Strip was controlled by Egypt. In the first the Jordanian curriculum was established, while in the second the Egyptian one was established. The aim was to facilitate the transfer of Palestinian students to the institutions of higher education of those countries. On the other hand, the United Nations set up its Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, in 1950, to provide basic services, education included, to those Palestinians who became refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. UNRWA's students follow the national curriculum of the host countries.2

From 1967 to 1994 this situation remained stable for the most part. Israel maintained both curricula in the Occupied Territories, although it introduced some modifications in them, and also censored some textbooks with the aim of removing the information it considered to be against its interests. "The Israelis interfered, changed, deleted, or substituted parts of school curricula since the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967. Through a number of military orders, laws, and regulations, Israel tried to distort school curricula for the sake of minimizing any national spirit among Palestinian youths" (Adwan, 1996, p. 86). Palestinian educators complained that the curriculum they had to teach was unrelated to the students reality and aspirations. They missed, obviously, the strenghtening of the national feeling, the lack of links to the Palestinian history, and the absence of content about the Palestinian land, its borders, its natural resources. In their view, "this does not come about from vain ... it is the outcome of an intentional policy. This is why 1700 books were banned since 1967 in Occupied Palestine" ( Center for Applied Research in Education, 1991, p. 4). However, two important developments have to be taken into account.

First is that the official curriculum can be modified, to a certain extent, by the hidden curriculum, and also by all those educational influences that students continuously receive outside the school setting. Teachers behind the closed doors of the classrooms conveyed their own messages, which were different and even opposite to the official messages. Teaching at home and in other environments also reinforced the teachers' stand. To sum up, it can be said that teachers, parents, peers, and other persons, through different means, taught students and youngsters about Palestine, as an occupied land to be liberated, and about Palestinians, as a people aiming for self-determination free from Israeli rule. This teaching took place not only in the universities but in primary and secondary schools and even in pre-schools: "Nursery schools in the West Bank have served as an institutional system that has reinforced this politization of Palestinian children. Teachers and peers have acted as significant socializing agents, instilling political norms through the teaching of rhymes from pamphlets, books and tapes distributed by the Palestinian underground leadership" (Nazzal and Nazzal, 1996).

Second is that, specially although not exclusively, the Intifada (uprising) years brought, together with the "educational effect" of the repression and the violence displayed by the Israeli Defense Forces against the Palestinian youth in the Occupied Territories, continuous school closures and curfews, and the enactment of numerous Israeli Administration military orders aimed at curtailing any Palestinian aspiration through the education sector.3 The Israeli occupation authorities neglected the education of the Palestinians in every way. No schools were built in the Occupied Territories during the first 10 years of the occupation, and the ones built afterwards did not keep pace with the population increase, which resulted in overcrowded classrooms and poor facilities. Lack of appropriate funding led to the absence of basic educational facilities and equipment: laboratories, libraries, workshops and playgrounds. Extracurricular activities were banned, as well as social and cultural clubs.

More drastic policies and measures were added to those. It can be safely said that Palestinian teachers and students were subjected to a plethora of human rights violations at the hands of the occupiers. These included arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment under interrogation, deportation, army raids on schools (which resulted in the killing of many schoolchildren), intrusion of soldiers onto school premises, and harassment of students and teachers. Curfews and closures were also imposed. These were a form of collective punishment, and Israel has been repeatedly condemned for this policy by the United Nations and the international community. "Israeli authorities have closed schools in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip on a prolonged and repeated basis during the uprising. The military government together with Jerusalem police and municipality authorities have effected the closures through area-wide closure orders, individual school closures, and the frequent and extensive imposition of curfews ... Israeli policy appears to be directed towards asserting control over the students and enforcing ignorance upon them as a punishment for the uprising. In this Israel is not fulfilling its legal obligations as an occupying power to provide education" (Jerusalem Media and Communication Center, 1990, p. 34).

The Palestinian people, under the rule of different colonizers throughout the years, never had a national education system of their own. A Palestinian curriculum has also been absent. As happens with any other nation struggling for self-determination, the establishment of one is a matter of paramount importance.

Things took a turn for the better in 1994, because the aforementioned Declaration of Principles opened the way to subsequent agreements in different fields. In August 1994, the Agreement on Preparatory Transfer of Powers and Responsibilities, known as the Transfer Agreement, was signed. Since then Israel has disengaged itself from, and the Palestinian Authority has taken over, the fields of tourism, direct taxation, health, social welfare, culture and education in some parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Transfer Agreement maintains that Israel is in full control of borders, movement of people and goods through them, and also between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and between major cities in the West Bank.

Also in 1994 the Palestinian Authority set up the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, although in 1996 the Ministry of Higher Education became a separate ministry in charge of post-secondary education, while the Ministry of Education kept basic and secondary education under its control.

The Palestinian Authority decided to maintain both curricula, the Jordanian and the Egyptian, in their respective areas, until the Palestinian curriculum was designed and ready for implementation. This has been planned in several stages, the first one starting in the year 2000. Differences between both areas relate mainly to the number of weekly classes, to subjects — philosophy, logic, psychology, economics — which are included in the Gaza curriculum but not in the West Bank curriculum, and to subjects — mathematics, general science, statistics — which are taught in some grades in the West Bank and in others in the Gaza Strip.

Whatever the differences between the two areas, the key issue does not revolve around the unification of specific subjects, but around the implementation of a national curriculum, a project Palestinians have never undertaken before. This includes the overall designing of what the Palestinian Authority wants to achieve with its education system, and the arrangements for exercising complete authority over the educational field. Moreover, it also relates to the management of all human and economic resources devoted to that aim. The whole enterprise depends on several factors, some of them lying outside the education system itself. Now, attention will not be paid to specific subjects, number of weekly classes, content and class activities, but to the difficulties that the Palestinian Authority meets in connection with the general development of its Palestinian curriculum.

4. The construction of the first Palestinian national curriculum

If some individual attempts made by Palestinian educators in the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s are left apart for now (Nasru and Nakhleh, 1994), the first organized work devoted to the construction of the Palestinian curriculum was carried out by the Palestinian Curriculum Development Center, established in Ramallah, in the West Bank, in 1994. UNESCO's cooperation with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) since 1990 resulted in the creation of the Center. This center submitted to the Ministry of Education and UNESCO in September 1996 The Comprehensive Plan for the Development of the First Palestinian Curriculum for General Education, in two volumes totalling around 600 pages. The first volume presented an historical background of the Palestinian concern for the national curiculum, the findings of the 12 technical studies undertaken by several educators, and the outline of the curriculum plan. The second volume focused on the subjects themselves and their respective methodologies in use in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and the proposals for each one inside the new plan.

This Center was funded by the Italian Ministry of International Cooperation and carried out its tasks with the technical assistance of UNESCO. After the submission of its plan, a new group of specialists, appointed by the Palestinian Authority, took over the Center and began new work on the curriculum in 1996. The Center is currently supervised by the Ministry of Education and UNESCO, with the Italian Ministry again taking care of the funding. In its new stage, the Center, headed by the Deputy Minister of Education, and made up of 10 civil servants working in key positions at the Ministry of Education, represents the General Administration of Curricula. Because of this the current Center is a unit fully integrated in the Ministry of Education, while the previous one was headed by a university professor and was more like an associated unit.

In spite of these differences, the Center announced that its work is based on the Comprehensive Plan of its predecessor, and also on the documents of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and on curricula from Arab and other countries. The Center also takes advantage of UNESCO's expertise, and several contacts between the Ministry of Education and its Arab counterparts are taking place. The Palestinian Curriculum Plan, in its turn, is part of the overall plan of the Ministry of Education concerning the development of education after the transfer of powers. In summary, this consists of five programs:

1. securing the opportunity for all students to enroll in the basic stage;

2. improving the quality and sources of learning through setting a Palestinian curriculum;

3. developing formal and non-formal education;

4. developing the educational administration system; and

5. developing human resources in the educational system.

The Ministry of Education, through the General Administration of Curricula (Palestinian Curriculum Development Center), published its First Palestinian Curriculum Plan in Jerusalem in 1998, which has been approved by the Palestinian Authority and by the Legislative Council, that is to say, the executive and legislative branches of the Palestinian Autonomy.

5. Between the desire and the reality

In the Preface of the plan (page 1) it is stated that "we, the Ministry of Education, need to establish a modern and comprehensive curriculum to prepare the Palestinian people to restore all of their national rights on their land and to establish their independent state whose capital is Jerusalem, under the leadership of President Yasser Arafat". This aim, which at first sight appears clear, becomes mystifying as soon as the concepts Jerusalem, capital, all national rights, land, and independent state, come under scrutiny.

Israeli leaders have made public to the world again and again that Jerusalem is and will be the capital of Israel. They just repeat what the Basic Law on Jerusalem passed in the Knesset (Israeli parliament) declares. On the other hand, the United Nations, through several Security Council and General Assembly Resolutions on Jerusalem, have also made public "in the clearest possible terms that all legislative and administrative actions taken by Israel to change the status of the city of Jerusalem ... are totally invalid and cannot change that status", as the UN Security Council Resolution of 25 September 1971, states. The issue of Jerusalem is just an outstanding example of the difficulties the Ministry of Education has to tackle while approving textbooks about history, geography, Islamic religion, national education, and civics, to name just the closest subjects dealing with the issue, but it is not the only one. The land itself is another one, and the state itself, let alone the national rights of the Palestinian people.

What Westerners can follow from time to time through the news, is what the Palestinians are experiencing everyday: Israel is building settlements, by-pass roads, and military outposts in Palestinian occupied land. The Palestinian Authority does not have control over that land, only over the Palestinians. Besides, Israel is adamant in prohibiting the return of the Palestinian refugees to their houses either in Israel, or in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israel is curtailing the economic autonomy of the Palestinians through several punitive measures: it retains total control over the import of foreign — and export of Palestinian — goods to and from the autonomous areas, and it restricts at will the movement of people through the (still undefined) borders. Israel also controls the natural resources, especially the most needed water resources. It can be safely said that the scholastic teaching can hardly balance this "political" teaching that takes place out of the schoolrooms.4

There is no need to proceed one by one with all the issues at stake. The simplest questions for any schoolchild in any nation, are unsolvable for Palestinian kids: what are the borders and extension of the Palestinian land? What are the attributes of the Palestinian state? What is the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees who live in Arab countries, in Europe and in America, and are not allowed to live in this state? Why do Palestinians not have a fully-fledged state as Israelis do? How are students going to contribute to the national construction and the restoration of their national rights?

Are children supposed to learn about Jerusalem only in the books, since it is a city they are not allowed to visit? Or will they learn about a capital to be regained? The 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence has to be taken into account in this respect because it "proclaims the establishment of the State of Palestine on our Palestinian territory with its capital Holy Jerusalem". There is a clear mismatch between the political and educational statements and the political and educational realities. It is difficult to be envious of the Palestinian teacher trying to answer his or her students' questions about international understanding, respect for the law, love for peace, and human dignity.

Palestinian education authorities, teachers, families, and citizens in general, cannot avoid dealing with this schizophrenic situation. The current Ministry of Education Director General of International and Public Affairs, and member of the Curriculum Center, reflecting on this wrote that:

School education is faced with the daunting task of keeping the hope in liberation, through non-violence and negotiations high, while children, and people at large, are subject to daily suffering and infringements on their national and human rights at the hands of the Israeli Government, military and settlers. The education system has, also, to keep the faith in peace alive and prepare children for good neighborly relations and cooperation with their Israeli counterparts in the future when, hopefully, a just and durable peace has been realized. Helping children to deal with their present frustration and pain and transcend them to an acceptance of reconciliation and cooperation is not an easy task for the Palestinians at large and the educators in specific (Mahshi, 1998).

To make matters more complicated, under the provisions of the Declaration of Principles and subsequent agreements, there are tripartite (United States–Israel–Palestinian Authority) monitoring groups which control the curriculum development, and also anti-incitement committees in Israel and the United States, which also monitor the teaching in the autonomous territories. The Ministry of Education is under a double pressure. On the one hand, there are the Palestinian declarations, projects and ambitions, on the other the weight of history, the current situation, the lack of room to maneuver. At the end of the day the Palestinian Authority is not in a position to challenge its partners in this area. It seems that teachers, during their lessons in the classrooms, will be inclined to come back to practices of the pre-peace process years, and instill in their pupils and students through the hidden curriculum those knowledges and attitudes which are more attuned with their own ideas about Palestine.5

Similarly, more questions pile up if the principles upon which the curriculum is based — according to what is written in page 5 of "Chapter I: The General Principles of the Palestinian Curriculum" — are considered:

Palestine is a peace-loving state, working towards international understanding and cooperation based on equality, liberty, dignity, peace and human rights.

Palestinian national and cultural identity must be fostered and developed.

Opportunities must be provided to develop all Palestinians intellectually, socially, physically, spiritually and emotionally, to become responsible citizens, able to participate in solving problems of their community, their country and the world.

That daunting task can be even more difficult to accomplish, if the main problems inside the Palestinian camp are also taken into account. Teachers have to be trained for the curriculum, and funding is needed for this and for the implementation of the curriculum, but the Ministry of Education heavily depends on foreign donors; the uncertainty of the political situation vis-à-vis Israel does not allow the authorities to clearly set up educational objectives in line with political aims; and finally and more importantly there is no consensus amongst the Palestinians on the future of their national project.

Frictions between the Palestinian Authority and its Ministry of Education on the one hand, and the teachers and the teacher unions on the other, are frequent and sometimes have led to detrimental developments and have even reached dangerous situations. Teachers working in government schools have gone on strike on a number of occasions during the last few years. They demand both an increase in their salaries — which are not in line with the costs of living — and that the Authority implements the Civil Service Law, already approved by the Palestinian Legislative Council, which includes civil servants in the teaching profession, and takes into account retirement benefits and other social and working improvements.6 What are usual requests among teachers all over the world, have been met by the Palestinian Authority with several harsh and punitive measures: firing of the most active teachers and transferring of some others from their usual schools to schools far away from their homes. In an extreme case, one of the leaders of the teacher movement has been held incommunicado in detention.7

These measures do not only reach the teachers, and do not only affect school life. Journalists who reported on the strikes, professors who showed solidarity with them, parents of school children, and human rights activists who supported the teachers, have also been affected in several ways: radio and television stations have been closed down, newspapers have been either forced into self-censorship, or closed down, and people have been harassed by the Palestinian security forces.8 Again, these actions by the Palestinian Authority and its security aparatuses, also have a deep "educational" effect on all the peoples concerned: teachers, obviously, but also their students and their families. These actions are not exclusively directed against the teaching profession, but are standard procedure these days under the Palestinian Authority towards all those who disagree with their policies, in the political, the social and the economic fields.

6. Conclusion

Some lessons can be drawn from the Palestinian case. The Palestinian political transition, as many others, is a distinctive case. Its main feature is its uncertainty. This uncertainty is not mainly about the pace of the transition, or the educational level of the population, or the resources the nation in the making can put to work in favor of the education system. It is an inherent uncertainty. The two partners in the peace process are working for opposite aims. Besides, the Palestinians, the weakest party, almost totally depends on the stronger. Moreover, relevant international law, although not officially abrogated, has become meaningless in the solution of the conflict.

Although the Palestinian Authority, with its Ministry of Education is totally in control of the Palestinian education system, notwithstanding its economic dependence, it does not really control the Palestinian nation's fate. Because of this, although the Palestinian curriculum is designed to contribute to the realization of the Palestinian national ambitions, it can hardly do so.

The Palestinian national curriculum, now in its very initial stages for the first time in history, is heavily affected by the political situation. A clear set of political aims and their respective means is lacking, and this hinders its implementation and its functioning.

The future of the Palestinian nation is not in Palestinians' hands. Theirs is not only a struggle against the legacy of the past occupation, it is also an adaptation to the current occupation, albeit a "remote control" occupation. In other words, with the peace process, the Palestinian nation is not evolving towards the Palestinian state as it could be considered under international law, let alone Palestinians' ambitions. Because of this, although Palestinians in declarations, statements, demonstrations, and conversations talk about "the State of Palestine on our Palestine territory with its capital Jerusalem", nothing of this is real. Even worse, nothing of this seems to be in its way to become a reality in the years to come.

There is a deep mismatch between the political situation and the curriculum, both in relation to Israel and to the Palestinian society itself. Because of this, the curriculum is not able to contribute to the state formation. It could be said that the state construction in Palestine should come before the curriculum construction, not the other way round, if the national cause is to move forward. The role of the hidden curriculum implemented both by Israel and by the Palestinian Authority seems to be more powerful than the official school curriculum and the official political declarations and plans.

 

References

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Nakhleh, K., 1994. The educational sector in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A profile of what exists and recommendations for the European Commission's funding intervention. Jerusalem, photocopied document.

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1 The Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the most recent episodes included, that is the peace process and its outcomes, has been studied in hundreds upon hundreds of papers and books. See, for example, Velloso (1997). In order to keep track of the latest developments, the official Palestinian point of view can be checked in the web page of the Palestinian National Authority: http//:www.pna.net/, which gives statements about the peace process, Palestine and the United Nations, international relations, Jerusalem and a number of relevant issues. The official Israeli point of view can be checked in the web page of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs: http://www.israel.org/mfa/home.asp, which also gives statements on the peace process, facts about Israel, the government, policy statements and a number of relevant issues.

2 Data on the education provided by UNRWA can be found in the official web page of this organization: http://www.un.org/unrwa/progs/edu/index.html, which deals with elementary and prepatory education, teacher training, achievements and programme management.

3 See, for example, Ramsden and Senker (1993); also see Palestine Human Rights Information Center (1989). One example gives an idea of the effects of closures in the Occupied Territories: in the West Bank students lost nearly 14 months of schooling during the academic years 1987/88 and 1988/89, while the academic year 1989/90 started 4 months later than usual.

4 It has to be taken into account that most of the non-scholastic lessons, that is to say, the educational influences of the environment, do not come from the leaders' political statements and institutional declarations, but through daily actions of the Israeli military and settlers. The newspapers Al Ayyam and Al-Quds reported on 7 May 1998 and 1 April 1998, and 17 March 1998, respectively, three different incidents, which are not uncommonly reported in the Palestinian daily press:

Settlers living in Hebron released vicious dogs in Kurtaba Basic Girls School. Samah Al-Sharbati, a seven year old student, was injured by the dogs. The principal of the school said settlers are making continuous attacks on the school, with the aim of closing it.

Israeli military closed Takoue Secondary School in Bethlehem area, which has 600 students, for three days after clashes between the students and Israeli soldiers. A spokesperson from the Educational Office said: A unit of the Israeli military came to the school and gave notice of its decision to close the school 10 minutes later.

The Israeli army has closed the area of Ras Karkar, a village near Ramallah. They prevented the students, teachers and others from leaving or entering the village, giving the excuse that the army have military training on the agricultural lands of the village.

5 Nadav Shragai, Ha'aretz correspondent, reporting on textbooks published by the Palestinian Ministry of Education, wrote on 3 November 1999 that it "has published a textbook which compares Zionism with Nazism and describes the Talmud as a book of hatred towards gentiles". The correspondent also adds that "in treating Zionism, Talmudic passages are employed which speak of the subjection ad inferiority of the gentile nations to the Jews, as well as the permissibility of mistreating of non-Jews". Israel and United States critics of the Palestinian Authority do not spare this of accusations of incitement through the textbooks and some educational activities, i.e. summer camps.

6 Khalid Amayreh reported from Jerusalem on 3 May 2000: "Palestinian teachers resume strike, say Arafat reneged on pay-rise: the average Palestinian teacher receives a monthly salary of up to 380 US dollars, less than a fifth of the salary Israeli teachers receive. Both Israeli and Palestinian teachers receive their salaries in the Israeli currency, the Shekel. The PA argues that it does not have the financial resources to meet the teachers' demands for a pay-rise. However, the teachers often retort by citing the luxurious lifestyles of many PA operatives, particularly those working for the security agencies. The lion's share of the PA budget goes to the security agencies". Reproduced in freedom@alquds.net on 3 May 2000.

7 See the Press Release on 8 May 2000 through law@lawsociety.org, LAW requests the PNA to respond to teachers' demands, Ramallah, West Bank: "The Palestinian police are still holding the Palestinian teacher Mr Omar Nimir Abdul Rahman (Asaf), 50, in detention at Ramallah prison. The police do not allow any visits to Mr Asaf, even from his relatives".

8 See, for example, Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (1999). This report brings a telling and well-known case: "While most professors agree that book censorship is not a problem, the aforementioned book, by Dr Abdul Sattar Kassem, was not available in his university bookstore because the staff refused to carry it. In addition, the book was published in Israel because no publishing house in the West Bank was willing to print it".

 

International Journal of Educational Development
Volume 22, Issue 2 , March 2002, Pages 145-154

 

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