The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has played a very important, if not always uncriticized, role in the life of refugees in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and neighboring Arab countries, where it has provided services in the field of education, health and social welfare since 1948. With the emergence of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), certain things are bound to change in the policy and outlook of this agency, which, after all, is a relief agency. The Educational Network visited Mr. Ahmad Hillis in the Education Department of the UNRWA Head Offices in Gaza city to ask him about the Agency's role in the new era.
Ahmad Hillis: Relations between UNRWA and the authorities so far have been good. the PNA came to help UNRWA and to benefit from its experience. The Minister of Education, Yaser 'Ammer, keeps close and good relations with the office and has request in-service training for all government education staff. We will also undertake comprehensive maintenance of some government schools. We have regular meetings with the Ministry of Education staff and keep on good terms. Whether UNRWA services will gradually be taken over by the authority still has to be decided. However, I envisage that the UNRWA will have both a supporting and an advisory role.
UNRWA has played a very important role in the life of Palestinians. First of all, I think it constituted a unifying factor; a network for the exchange of ideas and experience in five fields of operation in several Middle Eastern countries. Secondly, UNRWA was important because from 150 up to present it has been responsible for education, health and social services to Palestinian refugees. it offers six years elementary and three years preparatory education, health and social services to Palestinian refugee children, in addition to non-refugee children in such areas such as Al-Breij, Nuseirat, Maghazi and Khuza'a which do not have government schools. A third bright side of the UNRWA is vocational training. Our Vocational Training Center has graduated 8000 young men and women. In the Center in question we offer training to 700 male and female trainees in 13 treads, in addition to physiotherapy, secretarial skills and industrial electronics.
Financial problems have always restricted our activities. Moreover, during the Israeli Occupation (since 1967) all the Egyptian textbooks we used were screened and censored. The Israelis would cut short what they did not like and reprint the censored version, which meant that almost 40% of our books were not allowed, mostly in the subjects of Arabic and social sciences but sometimes even in mathematics or science. We were instructed by UNESCO not to use the censored copies. To partly solve this restriction we produced enrichment materials, provided library books for teachers and developed self teaching materials through UNRWA teacher committees. But these naturally could not replace the textbooks.
Other restrictions we faced were related to the intifada. Closures and curfews greatly hampered education: two of our schools were closed for three years! The security situation in the camps; the arrests and beatings and sometimes deaths of fathers and brothers; confrontations between soldiers and shabab (young men, Ednet), and tear-gas and shooting, limited the student's ability to concentrate. Moreover, harassment by Israeli soldiers, including intrusion into classrooms and the beatings of children and teachers had very negative impact on education. To give but one example, once we had to evacuate 55 girls under age 12 from their school to be treated in hospital because tear gas and sound bombs, which explode in a terrifying way, had been thrown into their classrooms. Teachers on their way to school were often ill-treated, arrested, or their ID cards would be taken until they complied with orders such as the removal of barricades, burning tires or slogans on walls. Someone who has been treated like this cannot be effective as a teacher.
But to return to the present: as a result of the above and other reasons we face many problems. The first problem this year is the arrival of over 4000 extra students from other countries; children of PLO staff and policeman. We had only planned for a natural increase of about 3-4% per year. We had to take on 275 new teachers to deal with the situation.
Our biggest challenge is the improvement of children's educational achievement, which is very low, especially since the intifada. I know this cannot be done in a short period. The largest responsibility lies on our shoulders as education staff, but we will face difficulties unless UNWRA, the PNA, NGO's and the Palestinian community work hand in hand. Local NGO's are important for the improvement of educational standards. Up to recently there were very few educational NGO's in Gaza. Things are changing now, and we try to keep good relations with all local NGO's and are open to cooperation and improvement as well as an exchange of experience an ideas within our own limitations and structure.
Another problem is that are two curricula: the Egyptian one here in Gaza and the Jordanian one in the West Bank. The question is how to unify them, to have one curriculum. A change of curriculum is not like a change of currency, where within three months you can make people change from shekel to dinar. Naturally it takes time and preparation, both of ourselves and of the population: there has to be a philosophy of education and authors have to be found that can apply this philosophy in textbooks, which have to be experimented with for a year. As far as our role is concerned, we are actively involved in designing a new curriculum. a smaller challenge is the problem of authority. During the intifada, family and school authority has become loose. The question is how to return to the right kind of control. This will have to be done in cooperation with parents and in combination with a full program of guidance and counseling.
I do not expect a decrease in our services, but this depends on the financial situation. At present UNRWA has a $40 million deficit (in its regular budget, while generous contributions are received for projects, 1). As far as I see it, donor countries are putting their weight an fund into other efforts. This affects UNRWA and a solution has to be found or otherwise we will have no other option but to reduce our services. nevertheless several new projects are being implemented under the Peace Implementation Program. The first of these is a maintenance program offered by US AID, which improves schools and playgrounds. A second project is the building of schools, most of which are not new schools, but replacements of existing schools. Most of the UNRWA schools were built in the 1950's and the early 1960's and in some cases these old buildings have become unsafe and need to be replaced.
There will be no major changes for UNRWA teachers; most of our teachers are well trained and professional; moreover, since 1964 they were offered in-service courses. In the future this kind of training will be continued based on needs assessment. Palestinian government school teachers, however, have not had any in-service training since 1967. We are planning on training all government school teachers and have submitted a proposal on the subject to the donor countries but so far we have not received any funding.
The refugee problem has been suspended until the end of the peace negotiations. Thus we still have a refugee problem and UNRWA services will continue until it is settled. I am not fully in the picture but I myself expect that UNRWA will remain during the transition period. After that there will be changes; education, health and social services will be handed over to the Palestinian authorities. I think UNRWA's role will then change, but this is my personal and not an official view; I expect it will be like the UNDP and similar agencies offering developmental and planning activities.
Elaine Clark
Educational Network, POB 66, Ramallah, West Bank
tel: 02 995 6230/fax: 02 995 6231 e-mail: eclark@ednet.birzeit.edu