Category: Technology

BETHLEHEM, Thursday, October 06, 2022 (WAFA) – A number of schoolchildren Thursday morning suffocated as Israeli forces attacked them in Tuqu‘ town, south of Bethlehem, according to a local activist.

Mustapha al-Badan said that Israeli soldiers the vicinity of Tuqu‘ Secondary Boys School in the southern West Bank town, and fired volleys of tear gas canisters towards the students, causing a number to suffocate.

A week ago, a seven-year-old Palestinian boy died on Thursday after falling from a significant height while running away from Israeli soldiers in the village of Tuqu in Bethlehem, health officials said.

Rayyan Yaser Suleiman was coming home from school with other pupils in the village when troops gave chase, and he died on the spot from fear, his father Yasser said.

A medical official who inspected the boy’s body told Reuters that it bore no sign of physical trauma and that the death appeared consistent with heart failure.

Attacks on education by Israeli military forces and Israeli settlers in the Palestine constitute grave violations of children’s rights to education and development. These attacks are particularly prevalent in the most vulnerable areas of the West Bank – Area C, H2 and Jerusalem.

Source: Palestine News & Information Agency

RAMALLAH, The illiteracy rates decreased by 84% throughout the last two decades, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS).

PCBS said in a press release on the occasion of International Literacy Day that the illiteracy rate in Palestine is one of the lowest rates in the world, reaching 2.3% among Palestinian population (15 years and above) during 2021.

It explained that the illiteracy rate among Palestinians aged 15 years and above in Israel reached 3.6% in 2017, according to the data of the Galilee Society (Rikaz). According to UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics, the illiteracy rate among persons (aged 15 years and above) in Western Asia and Northern Africa was 19.5% in 2020; 14.2% among males compared to 25.1% among females. In the same year, the rate was 13.3% in the world among the same age group; 9.9% among males compared to 16.7% among females.

The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines an illiterate person as the person who is unable to read and write with understanding a simple statement related to one’s daily life.

Moreover, PCBS said that the illiteracy rates decreased by 84% throughout the last two decades.

It explained that illiteracy rates among the Palestinian population (aged 15 years and above) in Palestine dropped during the period 1997-2021 from 13.9% to 2.3%, corresponding to a decline from 7.8% in 1997 to 1.2% in 2021 among males and from 20.3% to 3.5% among females during the same period.

It added that the illiteracy rate decreased from 14.1% in 1997 to 2.5% in 2021 in the West Bank, while it decreased from 13.7% in 1997 to 2.0% in 2021in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Furthermore, PCBS pointed that more than half of illiterate persons are elderly.

It elaborated that the illiteracy rate varies considerably between age groups. The age group (65 years and above) recorded the highest rate, while the lowest rate was among the age group (30-44 years). In 2021, the illiteracy rate among older persons 65 years and above reached about 24.8% (43.5 thousand illiterate persons). The rate was about 2.4% (15.5 thousand illiterate persons) among the age group 45-64 year, 0.8% (7.0 thousand illiterate persons) among the age group 30-44 year and 0.6% (9.4 thousand illiterate persons) among youth 15-29 years for the same year.

PCBS added that about 52 thousand illiterate persons live in urban areas.

In 2021, the illiteracy rate reached 3.3% in rural localities (16.2 thousand illiterate persons), 2.5% in refugee camps (6.8 thousand illiterate persons) and 2.1% (52.4 thousand illiterate persons) in urban areas.

It noted that there are 26 literacy centers in Palestine.

Data from the Ministry of Education showed that the number of literacy centers in Palestine for the scholastic year 2020/2021 was 26 centers; 5 centers in the West Bank and 21 centers in the Gaza Strip. The total number of students enrolled in such centers was 663, including418 males and 245 females.

Source: Palestine News & Info Agency

JERUSALEM, Tuesday, September 6, 2022 (WAFA) – UNICEF is receiving EUR 3.8 million from the European Union (EU) to support Palestinian children with cash transfers, remedial education, summer activities, and water, sanitation and hygiene in schools, a UNICEF and EU joint statement said.

UNICEF’s child-sensitive cash transfers will help almost 9,000 vulnerable children in the Gaza Strip meet their basic needs and receive psychosocial support. The children’s households are poor and had their homes partially damaged or destroyed in the May 2021 escalation, said the release.

This new EU-supported program is a collaboration between UNICEF and the Palestinian Ministry of Social Development. It aims to address a critical humanitarian situation while strengthening the national social protection system to make it more child-sensitive and more responsive to shocks, it added.

In addition, the EU and UNICEF remain committed to supporting children affected by emergencies with access to quality education in safe and protected learning environments. More than 500,000 school-aged children from the poorest communities in Area C, H2 Hebron, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip need education support, said UNICEF.

“The EU will support remedial education to improve the numeracy and literacy skills of at least 5,000 elementary grade pupils in Gaza schools and engage boys and girls who are at risk of dropping out. Recreational programs and fun learning activities will also be organized for 10,000 children in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip during the summer break of 2023.”

Finally, the partnership with the EU will benefit over 4,200 students by rehabilitating water, sanitation and hygiene facilities in 17 schools in Tubas and Hebron governorates, distributing hygiene kits, and hygiene promotion in schools, it noted.

The EU is an important humanitarian partner for UNICEF programming in the State of Palestine and the effective delivery of humanitarian assistance.

Source: Palestine news & Information Agency

Minister of Education Marwan Awartani affirmed that the current school year is the year of education sovereignty, especially in the city of Jerusalem, rejecting any dictations or interferences in the Palestinian curriculum.

During an interview with Palestine TV, Awartani said that the term ” education sovereignty” emerged three years ago when Israel and associated lobby groups began launching a strong attack against the Palestinian curriculum, portraying it as “racist and inciting violence,” stressing that the state of Palestine welcomes any unconditional financial support to education.

He said that the Israeli government grants itself the right to make a decision about interfering with the school curriculum by distorting and making amendments to Palestinian textbooks and then redistributing them to schools, considering this a violation of international laws; as intellectual property rights do not tolerate violations of property rights, stressing that the State of Palestine, therefore, has the right to file a lawsuit against those who forge and distort.

He pointed out that international humanitarian law, the Geneva Convention and the Law of the Rights of the Child grant the occupied people the right to teach their children the appropriate natural curriculum that respects their culture and religion.

Awartani stressed that the Palestinian Basic Law and the Education Law obligate every Palestinian school that has obtained a license to adopt and employ official Palestinian books, and to not introduce any new course without an official license, and therefore any school in Jerusalem is legally obligated to preserve Palestinian books, and in the event that it wants to introduce any new course, it is required to obtain a license from the ministry of education and the competent authorities.

He indicated that the government paid unprecedented attention to this matter, formed a crisis management committee, and affirmed its readiness to provide the necessary, emergency, and urgent funding to fortify the schools in the face of extortion and the attacks launched against them.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

Israeli occupation forces arrested a teacher today and confiscated his vehicle in Masafer Yatta area, to the south of Hebron in the south of the occupied West Bank, according to local sources.

Foad Eamour, a local activist, told WAFA that Israeli occupation soldiers manning a surprising checkpoint in the area arrested Nabil Younes, a Palestinian teacher, and confiscated his vehicle after asking him to stop.

He said six other teachers were briefly detained by the soldiers, and were denied access to their school in the village of Fakheit, one of the villages of Masafer Yatta. The school is already facing an imminent risk of demolition by the Israeli occupation forces.

Israel is trying to force more than 1000 residents of Masafer Yatta out of their homes and lands after the Israeli High Court gave the army on May 4 the greenlight to force the Palestinians out of their homes and to demolish eight of their communities by claiming the area as a firing zone.

The decision received strong local and international condemnation and warning of serious consequences if carried out.

Israel has been gradually demolishing homes and displacing families in several Masafer Yatta communities over the past few weeks.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

Parents and students of the Ibrahimia School in occupied East Jerusalem today held a protest outside their school against steps by the Israeli occupation authorities to prevent the school from using the Palestinian textbooks and curriculum and impose instead altered and distorted Israeli-issued textbooks.

Members of the Parents Committee said the Israeli Ministry of Education and the West Jerusalem Municipality have forced many schools in occupied East Jerusalem to teach the Israeli curriculum or use textbooks altered and distorted by the Israelis instead of the Palestinian textbooks that have been used for decades by threatening to cancel their teaching license if they continue to use the Palestinian textbooks.

As the new school year is about to start, parents and students of the Ibrahimia School on the Mount of Olives protested outside the school against the Israeli measures stressing that Israel seeks to alter everything the students learn about their history and culture and force them to learn the distorted Israeli narrative of their city, history and the history of this region.

The Parents Committee said the Israeli authorities have printed new textbooks similar to the ones provided by the Palestinian Ministry of Education but with alterations and omission of many facts, such as the Palestinian flag, national symbols, and other terms and historical facts, and replaced them with others in a way intended to deny the Palestinian students in occupied East Jerusalem the right to learn about their history, culture and the history of their city, Jerusalem, and country, Palestine.

The purpose behind this, said the Committee, is an attempt by the Israeli occupation authorities to abolish the students’ Palestinian identity and sense of being a Palestinian Arab, in addition to falsifying and distorting the facts about Jerusalem in particular and Palestine in general.

The Israeli authorities sent letters to Palestinian schools in East Jerusalem warning them that continuing to use the Palestinian textbooks in their original copy will lead to the suspension of their teaching license prompting some to alter their education plans and turn to the Israeli curriculum, while others decided to resist the Israeli plans.

“Our children have the right to learn the Palestinian curriculum without distortion,” said a parent of an Ibrahimia School student.

“Our presence here is the first stop for more protests to come later,” said another.

In defiance of the Israeli measure, the school and parents brought the original Palestinian textbooks and started to distribute them to the students who were outside the Ibrahimia School, which is supposed to open its doors on Monday for the new school year.

The Palestinian Ministry of Education said 1,385,000 students are expected to start the new school year on Monday in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 3192 schools distributed into 2,333 government schools, 375 schools operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), and 484 private schools.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)

RAMALLAH, The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Siblin Training Centre (STC) celebrated the graduation of 301 students in 18 specializations on 29 July 2022, the UN agency said in a press release.

The ceremony was attended by the Director of UNRWA Affairs in Lebanon, Claudio Cordone, representatives of the Palestinian factions and Lebanese political and local officials, as well as UNRWA partners and STC staff and parents.

Cordone congratulated the students and said: “We are proud of the achievements you have made despite the challenges you have faced, which reflect the hard work of staff, students and parents.” He also highlighted that 100 per cent of Siblin students passed the Lebanese Technique Superieur (TS) vocational and technical exams, with 66 percent passing with honors. Cordone concluded with a message to everyone on the importance of not losing hope despite the difficulties and continuing with the commitment to education and contributing to the community.

The students celebrated their graduation as Lebanon is facing economic collapse, with 86 per cent of Palestine refugees reportedly living below the poverty line, making their achievement all the more remarkable.

The principal of STC, Saeed Bekai, said, “Siblin has been a main resource for Palestine refugee youth since 1961. It continues to empower them to seek opportunities for a better future for themselves and their community. Our dream is to expand and develop the centre’s facilities to become the main reference for all Palestine refugee youth to find solutions for their social and economic concerns.”

Speaking on behalf of parents, Ghassan Abd Al Aziz, said: “Without Siblin Training Centre my son would not have been able to obtain a diploma and get a start in life. Myself being a technician in the local market, I can confirm that my son has gained all the required skills qualifying him to start his career thanks to UNRWA and the Siblin Training Centre team.”

Rana Issa, one of the graduating students, said, “Siblin Training Centre was a home to me. Our life at STC was rich in activities that sharpened my technical and practical skills and provided me with self-confidence to face the challenges of life and the labor market. I was a member of the basketball team, through which I built new fruitful friendships, learned the meaning of being team member and the value of providing and getting support. Thanks to the entire Siblin Training Centre team.”

Source: Palestine News & Info Agency

Two schools in the northern West Bank town of Burqa, northwest of Nablus, were today quickly evacuated from their students and teachers after soldiers opened live fire in the direction of the schools, according to a local official.

Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors Israeli settlement activities in the north of the West Bank, told WAFA that the soldiers shot live bullets at the schools following the outbreak of confrontations in the area.

He said this was the second day in a row the schools come under attack from the Israeli soldiers, explaining that the soldiers also yesterday fired tear gas at the schools causing panic among the students and suffocation cases.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)