The Palestinians always passionate about learning. Duration The Ottoman Era, Palestinian students traveled to Istanbul, Cairo and Beirut to follow higher education. Duration The British mandate, in the face of colonial policies, aimed at maintaining the ignorant local population, Palestinian farmers accumulated their resources and established their own schools in rural areas.
Then came the Nakba, and the occupation and displacement brought a new pain that raised the Palestinian search for education at a completely different level. Education became a space where the Palestinians could feel their presence, a space that allowed them to claim some of their rights and dream of a better future. Education became hope.
In Gaza, the instruction was one of the first social services established in the refugee fields. Students would sit in the sand in front of a board to learn. The communities did everything possible to make sure that all children had access to education, regardless of their indigence level. The first institution of higher education in Gaza, the Islamic University, carried out its first conferences in tents; Its founders did not wait for a building to be erected.
I remember how, when I was a child, I would see the Alys from our neighborhood every morning full of children who headed to school. All families sent their children to school.
When I arrived at the university age, I saw the same scene: multitudes of students traveling together to their universities and schools, dreaming of a brilliant future.
This implacable search for education, for decades, suddenly stopped in October 2023. The Israeli army not only bombed schools and universities and burned books. Destroyed one of the most vital pillars of Palestinian education: educational justice.
Make education accessible to all
Before the genocide, the education sector in Gaza was thriving. Despite the occupation and blockade, we had one of the highest literacy rates in the world, reaching 97 percent. The registration rate in secondary education was 90 percent, and registration in higher education was 45 percent.
One of the main reasons for this success was that Gaza education was completely free in the primary and secondary stages. Government administrative schools and did not address all Palestinian children, ensuring equal opportunities for all.
Textbooks were distributed for free, and families received support to buy bags, notebooks, pen and school uniforms.
There were also many programs sponsored by the Ministry of Education, UNRWA and other institutions to support talented students in several fields, regardless of their economic status. Reading contests, sporting events and technology programs were organized regularly.
At the university level, significant efforts were made to make higher education accessible. There was a government university that charged symbolic rates, seven private universities with moderate to high rates (depending on the university and the largest) and five universities with moderate rates. There was also a vocational university affiliated with UNRWA in Gaza who sacrificed totally free education.
Universities provided generous scholarships to outstanding and disadvantaged students.
The Ministry of Education also offered internal and external scholarships in cooperation with several international countries and universities. There was a Highher educational loan fund to help cover enrollment rates.
In a nutshell, before genocide in Gaza, education was accessible to all.
The cost of education amid genocide
Since October 2023, the Zionist war machine has systematically directed to schools, universities and educational infrastructure. According to UN statistics, 496 of 564 schools, almost 88 percent, have damaged or destroyed bone. In addition, all universities and schools in Gaza have been destroyed. More than 645,000 students have been deprived of classrooms, and 90,000 university students have had their interrupted education.
As the genocide continued, the Ministry of Education and Universities tried to resume the educational process, with classes in person for school and online courses for university students.
In the displacement camps, school stores were established, where young volunteers taught free children. University professors used online teaching tools such as Google Classroom, Zoom, WhatsApp groups and telegram channels.
Despite these efforts, the absence of regular education created a significant gap in the educational process. Incessant bombardment and forced displacement orders issued by the Israeli occupation caused the assistance to be challenging. Lack of resources also meant that campaign stores could not provide adequate instruction.
As a result, educational centers arose paid, offering private lessons and individual care to students. On average, a center charges between $ 25 and $ 30 per subject per month, and with eight subjects, the monthly cost reaches $ 240, an amount that most families in Gaza cannot pay.
In the higher education sector, the cost also became prohibitive. After the first online semester, which was free, universities began to demand students to pay portions of their registration rates to continuous learning at a distance.
Online education also requires a tablet or a computer, stable internet and electricity access. The majority of students who lost their devices due to a bombardment or displacement cannot buy new ones due to high prices. Stable Internet and Electricity Access in Private “Work Spaces” can cost up to $ 5 per hour.
All this has led many students to leave due to their inability to pay. I could not complete the last semester of my title.
The collapse of educational justice
A year and a half or genocide was enough to destroy what took decades to build in Gaza: educational justice. Previously, the social class was not a barrier for students to continue their education, but today, the poor have been left behind.
Very few families can continue to educate all their children. Some families are forced to make different decisions: send older children to work to help finance the education of the youngest, or give the opportunity only for the most prominent child to study continuous and deprive others.
Then they are the extremely poor, who can send any of their children to school. For them, survival is priority. Duration The genocide, this group has come to represent a large part of society.
The catastrophic economic situation has forced innumerable school -age children to work instead of going to school, especially in families who lost their family support. I see this painful reality every time I leave my store and on the way.
The streets are full of children who sell several products; Many are exploited by war benefits to sell things like cigarettes for a little salary.
Young children are forced to beg, chasing passersby and asking them for anything they can give.
I feel an unbearable pain when I see children, which only a year and a half ago ran to their schools, laughing and playing, now they are under the sun or in cold sale or simply to win some Shekels to help their families to get an inappropriate meal.
For Gaza students, education was never tried to obtain an academic certificate or an official document. It was optimism and courage, it was a form of resistance against Israeli occupation, and the opportunity to get their families out of poverty and improve their circumstances. Education was life and hope.
Today, that hope has been killed and buried under the rubble by Israeli bombs.
Now we are in a dangerous situation, where the gap between the well -off and the poor is turning, where the ability of a complete generation to learn and think is decreasing, and where the Palestine society is in struggle.
What is happening in Gaza is not only a temporary educational crisis, but a deliberate campaign to destroy opportunities for equality and create an unbalanced society deprived of justice.
We have reached a point where the architects of the current genocide trust their “voluntary transfer” strategy, pushing the Palestinians to such depths of despair that abandon their land voluntarily.
But the Palestinian people still refuse to let their land go. They are persevering. Even children, the most vulnerable, are not giving up. I thought about the words I heard from a conversation between two suppliers of children who bring the last eid. One said: “There is no joy in Eid.” The other replied: “This is the best eid. It is enough for us to be in Gaza and that we do it, we leave it as Netanyahu wanted.”
In fact, we are still in Gaza, we did not go as Israel moves us, and we will rebuild as our ancestors and other places have done.
The opinions expressed in this article are typical of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.