Towards an early recovery plan to restore the educational process in Gaza to its normal state

The war on Gaza was not only in response to what happened on October 7th, but it was and still is a retaliatory war that conceals Israeli strategic goals to undermine everything in Gaza. First, by killing, exterminating, and besieging people, and second, by confiscating their rights that enable them to live a normal life, such as the right to housing, the right to education, the right to receive treatment and social care, and the right to protection from wars and organized terrorism. Consequently, they have no right to civil protection as stipulated by international laws. The education sector in Gaza was severely hit during this war. The occupation left no schools intact in the sector, with more than 90% of schools damaged according to UNICEF reports. Official reports state that Israel completely destroyed 204 educational institutions, including 190 schools and 14 universities, and damaged 305 other institutions, including 293 schools and 12 universities. The damage did not stop there; Israel destroyed many cultural and educational centers, museums, and private and public libraries that provided supplementary education services to thousands of students and deprived many of scientific research after forcibly burning university libraries that were rich with tens of thousands of references, periodicals, and scientific and educational journals.
Study at all levels was suspended during the war, and there was no form of in-person or even e-learning during the first year. After a period, the Ministry of Education and some schools were able to activate e-learning, but unfortunately, many did not enroll in this type of education due to the lack of internet services for many of our people in displacement areas or because they did not even own the necessary devices to engage in this type of education. Consequently, entire generations have been deprived of education and have faced, since the beginning of the war until now, the risk of ignorance and school dropout. This danger now threatens both genders, males before females, but it is noted that males are still at risk in terms of their enrollment in education because there is a severe shortage of educational institutions that provide education services in the upper and secondary stages, and males may have been busy providing for the needs of their displaced families, such as shelter, water, and food. As for the primary stage, the number of institutions that provide this type of learning is few, but they are insufficient and unqualified to accommodate large numbers; they are no more than learning points established in the form of tents in various displacement areas through popular or institutional efforts. UNICEF states in a report that 60% of Palestinian children in Gaza of school age do not receive in-person education and do not go to schools, and that back-to-school programs operate by providing learning centers to accommodate only 336,000 children. The report added that there is a severe shortage of learning materials, stationery, and recreational tools that these centers desperately need to implement activities to relieve psychological pressure on children and remove the effects of war-related trauma.
All educational programs and private and government-affiliated or UNRWA educational institutions rely on a remedial plan to compensate for the loss in achievement, which is closer to a rescue plan rather than an early recovery plan, to try to save what can be saved and compensate basic education groups for the past period. However, it is clear that these programs are currently being implemented under great pressure, as the war has not yet ended, and there are no qualified institutions or sufficient schools that can be returned to service because many damaged schools that could be reopened are being used as shelters for residents in Gaza without a corresponding plan to evacuate these schools of displaced persons and accommodate them in alternative camps, and thus rehabilitate these schools with any number of classrooms to begin in-person education and the return of students to them. The truth is that the educational process in the Gaza Strip has suffered severe injuries due to the war, whether in buildings that could be used as schools or in the resources required to start a sound and successful educational process, or even in the educational staff capable of providing education to children, especially as they suffer from the effects of trauma and the repercussions of the brutal war that destroyed their future. The need for an early recovery plan for the educational process today has become urgent and a priority, even over reconstruction and finding suitable shelter for millions of residents of the Strip, especially after a ceasefire was announced in Gaza, at least a halt to the war of extermination and a reduction in the daily and indiscriminate killing, and the beginning of hope among people here for a daily life without death and without hunger, at least.
Any early recovery plan for the sector must take into account and prioritize a comprehensive plan for the destroyed education sector to restore the educational process in the sector to at least a semi-normal state. This plan must take into account ten important points, which are: -
- Establishing a cell of specialized educational and academic experts working through the Ministry of Education and with the participation of relevant international institutions and organizations to monitor the implementation of the plan and ensure the integrity of the path of restoring the educational process to its normal state through an evaluative system capable of meeting all the requirements of the recovery program.
- Preparing a map for the deployment of as many temporary schools and learning points as possible in all displacement areas, camps, and remote areas to facilitate the enrollment of all children in the educational process.
- Implementing a community awareness campaign through social media, local radio stations, and official television about the importance of all children and adults engaging in different learning stages, and conducting field visits to families and population centers to encourage their children to join the educational process.
- Developing a preparation plan for schools, kindergartens, and universities, with work to be done on preparing them as an initial stage to remove hazards and unexploded ordnance. This requires international teams and companies with trained staff and expertise in this field.
- Equipping suitable caravans with alternative energy to add new classrooms and establish new schools to replace those destroyed by the war.
- Importing school desks, school supplies, and stationery, including textbooks, blackboards, tables, pens, furniture, and other recreational tools suitable for the stage and age of the children.
- Training teaching staff to provide them with the most important appropriate educational methods and teaching strategies that enable them to build compensatory and empowering plans that proceed sequentially.
- Building a sound evaluation system to achieve real academic achievement outcomes that ensure smooth transition from one learning stage to another, taking into account the age of each stage.
- Setting a timeline for the implementation of the recovery plan, not exceeding one year from the start date of the plan as a maximum, to restore the educational process to its normal state.
- Activating the supplementary learning and popular learning system to achieve effective academic support that facilitates in-person education and achieves satisfactory results.
The situation our people in Gaza are living in and the imminent danger facing our students at all levels today compel us to pay attention to the risks of the educational process remaining in an unsatisfactory state as we observe now, and compel everyone to bear social and national responsibility to work with the national collective as a partner in building this society that is experiencing catastrophe and suffering due to the war, and which yearns to recover from the effects of this cursed war to be granted life anew and live without anxiety about the future of these generations whose war destroyed all foundations and elements of life and survival, and are now in imminent danger regarding their future. This is a historical responsibility so that we do not find our Gazan society eventually becoming a society at the bottom of the list of educated societies after it was at the forefront.