Imagine the political fallout if every schoolchild in London had missed a month’s schooling last year because teachers could not get to classes. Think of the parental anguish and outrage if the Paris school system saw its pass rates in French language exams fall from 71 to 38 percent in a year. Now picture your own child traumatized by fear, because every day her journey to school meant a trip past tanks, checkpoints and soldiers. This nightmare is the reality facing Palestinian parents, teachers and around a million pupils – the school population of a major European capital – in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip after two years of the intifada.

The main causes of this educational crisis are the curfews and closures imposed by the Israeli authorities in their attempt to deal with Palestinian militants. These have crippled the education program of the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations. The UN Relief and Works Agency runs 264 schools for almost 250,000 pupils in the West Bank and Gaza.

Last year it lost an average of 29 working school days per school because staff or pupils could not get to their classes. Last year, in total, 72,000 teacher workdays were lost. Exams could be given only when curfews were lifted, and summer schools, designed to create a secure environment for children, were barely attended. Things this year seem, if anything, to be getting worse. Since school started on August 31, 36 UN schools in the West Bank have been closed for from two to 15 days. Access to schools in Nablus has been so bad that some teachers have been hired based only on telephone interviews and will meet their supervisors only when they can get to work. But closed schools are only one part of the story.

Military operations, largely by Israel but in some instances by Palestinian factions, have violated the sanctity of schools across the occupied territory. Scores of schools have been used as detention centers, almost 200 have been damaged by gunfire and more than 170 students have been arrested. According to an Amnesty International report, 250 Palestinian schoolchildren have been killed since September 2000. It is not uncommon for children to be searched and abused by Israeli troops on their way to and from school or to be subject to tear gas and warning shots near checkpoints. This terrifying environment has had a devastating effect on Palestinian children. Exam pass rates in Arabic and math have collapsed, while dropout rates are starting to rise for the first time in a decade. Pupil assaults on teachers, unthinkable in the past, have begun to make an appearance. Teachers are increasingly reporting signs of psychological trauma.

UNRWA has employed counselors to encourage children to share their experiences and has boosted its remedial and summer school programs, as well as extended its school year, in an effort to mitigate the worst effects of the conflict. But it is becoming ever more apparent that Palestinian children will be paying twice over for the crisis in the West Bank and Gaza. Already they have paid with the loss of their security, innocence and education. But they will also pay with their futures. They will pay with the loss of opportunity, development and hope that a sound education brings. This is a tragedy for the Palestinian people, who, with so many disadvantages to cope with, have traditionally put great stock in education. Palestinian literacy rates were among the highest in the region. Palestinian girls were the first in the Arab world to achieve educational parity with boys. All of which meant that Palestinian-educated engineers helped build the Gulf region and Palestinian-educated doctors have benefited communities from California to Cairo.

It is imperative that the Israeli authorities begin to lift their curfews and closures on population centers now, before more damage is done to children. Israel has security concerns – and Amnesty reports that 72 of its children have been killed since the start of the intifada – but I cannot believe that those security concerns are being served by depriving a generation of Palestinians of their right to a future.

Peter Hansen is Commisioner General of UNRWA
This article ran in International Herald Tribune on October 9, 2002

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