Nearly three-quarters of a million Palestinians became refugees in
the aftermath of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. In response to their
plight, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine
Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was created, in 1949, by the
United Nations General Assembly. Despite repeated international
efforts and numerous UN resolutions in the years since, the refugee
problem has gone unresolved, so that, while UNRWA's mission was
initially intended to be brief, its three-year mandate has been
consecutively renewed. At present, the Agency offers services to
the fourth generation of Palestine refugees. But the services are
of a different kind. The need for large-scale relief has gradually
diminished and UNRWA now provides education to over 400,000 people,
health services to over a million and a half, and welfare services
to the 18,437 most needy. It has developed from a pure relief
organization to a semi-governmental institution running important,
continuing programs.
Providing education for Palestine refugees means operating a
program extending over Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and
the Gaza Strip and comparable with a national system of education
in size, scope and complexity.
General Background on the UNRWA Education Program
The overall aim of the UNRWA Department of Education is to provide,
within the framework of the curricula prescribed by the host
countries, general education, in-service teacher education,
vocational and technical education, limited higher education
opportunities and university scholarships for Palestine refugee
children and young men and women, in accordance with their basic
educational needs, identity and cultural heritage. The department
also aims to maintain its continuous improvement at all levels in
the system to meet recognized international standards.
At present UNRWA operates 643 elementary and preparatory schools in
the five geographical areas, 43 percent of which are located
outside camps in towns and villages where Palestine refugees are
concentrated. At the beginning of the 1995-1996 school year, the
total number of Palestine refugee children enrolled in UNRWA
schools amounted to 421,854 pupils served by 13,073 educational
staff. Vocational, technical and pre-service teacher education is
provided in one non-residential and seven residential training
colleges with a total enrollment of 5,449 students and 541
instructors. Upon the request of Palestinian and Jordanian
authorities, and in order to improve the qualifications of teachers
and to help them meet the new teacher requirements, the Agency
established, effective September 1993, the four-year Educational
Science Politics at the three training colleges in Jordan and the
West Bank, with a capacity of 900 training places. Additionally,
the Institute of Education provides in-service training courses for
about 750 education staff members through the Education Development
Centers in the five fields of operation. At the university level,
959 students benefited from the Agency's university scholarship
program in 1995-1996.
The education program has long been the largest item in UNRWA's
annual budgets, reaching US $210 million, or 48 percent of the
total, in 1995.
Mission Statement of the Education Program
The primary mission of UNRWA schools and training centers
(colleges) as formulated in 1992, is to prepare Palestinian
children and youth as individuals living in their community:
First, to fully participate as democratic citizens of the
Palestinian, host country, Arab, and world communities, with the
competency to contribute their full intellectual and personal
potential to meeting the challenges and uncertainties of the
rapidly changing world of the 21st century.
Second, to fully participate as democratic citizens, imbued with a
sense of their Palestinian identity and cultural heritage, and
sensitive to their own rights and needs, while maintaining a sense
of responsibility to balance their rights and needs with those of
their family, community and multicultural and global society, in an
effort to improve the quality of life for all. Third, to fully
participate as citizens who are value-oriented,
career¬-directed, competent in communication and
problem-solving skills; skillful in creative and critical
thinking.
General Education
UNRWA schools have always conformed to the official education
system of the host countries [Lebanon, Syria, Jordan (includes West
Bank), and Egypt for the Gaza Strip]. Thus the department is
required to operate four allied but different systems of education,
with four different curricula and four different sets of textbooks.
While this arrangement has the advantage of permitting refugee
children in UNRWA schools to take local state examinations, and
thereby qualify for higher education on terms of educational
equality with the local school population, it has the disadvantage
of restricting independent radical changes in the level, quality,
quantity and the spread of content. The main contribution of the
UNRWA Department of Education, therefore, remains in the realm of
curriculum enrichment.
School accommodation has always presented a problem for UNRWA, and
although its modem schools are a far cry from the original tents,
it still cannot be claimed that conditions are universally
satisfactory. Owing to the shortage of funds and available building
land, many UNRWA schools use rented premises. The education program
continues to be handicapped by overcrowding, and examples of 50
pupils to a class still exist. Double-shifting is to be found in 66
percent of Agency schools.
The textbooks used in UNRWA schools are those prescribed by host
governments. In order to ensure compatibility with UN principles,
books have been vetted, since 1969, by the Director-General of
UNESCO before procurement. In the West Bank and Gaza and before the
Palestinian National Authority (PNA) assumed responsibility for
Education, books were subject to a special import permit from the
Israeli authorities. These permits were not automatically granted
and a great number were declared forbidden imports, despite
previous approval by UNESCO.
By the end of the 1995-1998 planning period, enrollment in UNRWA
elementary, preparatory and secondary schools will exceed half a
million pupils at current population growth rates. The efforts of
the general education program will be directed at achieving access
to and completion of basic school education by all eligible
school-age Palestine refugee children (6-16 years of age),
including handicapped children, wherever possible.
In-Service Teacher Training
The early emphasis was on general training for new and
inexperienced teachers. In 1964, the UNRWA-UNESCO Institute of
Education was established to supplement the Agency's pre-service
teacher education programs offered at its teachers training
colleges. A team of international and local specialists was
recruited to carry out the overall responsibility for the proper
organization and orientation of the teaching and learning of
subjects prescribed in the curricula of schools and teachers
training colleges. In 1974, the Education Development Centers (EDC)
were established in the areas of operation in an effort to achieve
qualitative improvements in the education services through
innovations and better utilization of available resources.
The primary objective of UNRWA institutions responsible for
in-service and pre-service training of educators is to plan,
motivate, organize, coordinate, monitor and evaluate training
programs which efficiently and effectively use the Agency's limited
resources:
• To continuously enrich their clients' curricula and
instructional materials and their own academic and professional
backgrounds to teach it;
• To continuously improve teaching methods, strategies and
techniques: to give attention to differences in learning styles of
students, and to promote life-long learning and personal growth, to
build self-discipline and to develop sustaining values, attitudes,
knowledge and skills - the most important of which is how to think
and how to learn;
• To continuously improve personal and professional
competencies of teachers, instructors and key educators through
staff development programs; and
• To continuously improve, as a support system, the
partnership between schools and training centers and parents and
the community.
Vocational and Technical Education
The aim of the Vocational and Technical Education Program is to
provide Palestinian refugee students with marketable skills and
techniques in a number of trades and technical occupations, which
lead to their employment. Since its first Vocational Training
Center (VTC) was founded in Qalandia (West Bank) in 1953, UNRWA has
instituted seven more such centers - one in the Gaza Strip, two in
Jordan, one in Syria, one in Lebanon and two in the West Bank.
Three centers are combined vocational and teachers training centers
(colleges).
When the Qalandia VTC was established in 1953, there were 127
trainees enrolled in eight courses. Now, the Agency's eight
vocational training centers offer 42 different trade and technical
courses for 4,352 trainees. Since 1955 when UNRWA produced its
first 165 graduates, more than 40,000 refugees have already
graduated from the VTC courses. Vocational courses are of two
types: trade courses (post-preparatory level) and semi-professional
courses (post-secondary level). Trade courses include
mechanical/metal trades, electrical/ electronic trades, building /
construction trades and vocational courses for women.
Semi-professional courses include technicians courses, paramedical
courses and commercial courses.
An essential element in UNRWA's services to refugees throughout the
1950s was the scheme to assist work-seekers to locate appropriate
job opportunities. The Agency maintained close contact with
governments and other major employers in the Middle East and
collated the resulting information on vacancies and job prospects,
providing thus a regular and free source which helped thousands to
obtain employment. From 1963, the Placement Service was transferred
to UNRWA's Department of Education where it concentrated on job
location for graduates of the Agency's own VTC. Despite the
existence of a ready market for the available skills, location of
opportunities on behalf of the work-seekers continues to be a
valuable service, much in demand by the graduates.
Future Challenges
The education program faced and will continue to face major
demographic, socioeconomic and technological challenges that
require continued efforts to meet the present and future needs of
the Palestine refugees. Among these are:
• Anticipated increases in the refugee school population,
resulting from the natural growth of about 5.3 percent per year,
and the movement of students of returning families to Gaza and the
West Bank that necessitate additional teaching staff and school
facilities;
• Rapid changes in employment opportunities for qualified
teachers, skilled workers and technicians in local and external
labor markets;
• Effects of the continued disruption of schooling in the
West Bank and Gaza and the consequences on the quality of learning
and student achievements;
• Expected increase in the number of handicapped refugee
children seeking access to Agency schools; and
• Need for innovation to improve teaching-learning and
monitoring¬evaluation methods in the Agency school, vocational
and technical education systems.
Conclusion
The devotion of the Palestine people to academic education is a
remarkable and national characteristic which has enriched the lives
of the homeless group of refugees throughout their three or four
decades of displacement. Today, it is a universally accepted truism
that education is the right of all human beings; in large areas of
the world, however, it remains a right that must be enforced by
law. In the case of the Palestine refugees the reverse is true.
There is no legal obligation for any refugee to enter school and
yet, since the very earliest days, the schools provided by UNRWA
have been over-filled, despite acute problems of accommodation,
equipment, and distance. For the people of Palestine, education is
more than a practical necessity; it is an integral part of life, a
lodge of pride for a people who possess little else. In the course
of the past 45 years, hundreds of thousands of Palestine refugee
children have received education in UNRWA institutions, and this
has helped them become self-supporting. Less obvious, but perhaps
equally important, is the fact that the educational system has
significantly contributed to the preservation of the cultural
identity of a displaced and dispersed people.