In Palestine, Integration, Development, Participation.

• Author: Lughod, Ibrahim Abu
• Position: School system and education

As the twentieth century, with its major transformations determining events, approaches its finale, the fate of Palestine and its people will stand out as one of its more notable issues, and one with which the United Nations has been intimately associated.

Subsequent to its military occupation in December 1917 by the British army, the League of Nations charged Britain with a mandate to govern Palestine and prepare its population for self-government. Simultaneously, the mandate was also to "facilitate the establishment of the Jewish National Home" in Palestine. We don't need to concern ourselves with the political history of Palestine; we are more concerned with educational developments that reflect the interplay between the political system and the growth of Palestinian Arab education in Palestine. The Palestinian Arab people who were born or raised in the Palestine of the British mandate, and their descendants, irrespective of their current residence or national status, today number slightly more than 8 million. Less than 3 million are under the educational jurisdiction of a Palestinian authority that functions in parts of Palestine (less than 10 per cent of the total land of historic Palestine). Modest as this educational jurisdiction may be, and despite som e subtle constraints and limitations inherent in the Oslo Agreements concluded by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, it signifies the possible independence of the Palestinians, for the first time in their history, to chart the educational future of their people.

Even a rudimentary review of the history of the Palestinian people suggests that non-Palestinian authorities--some openly hostile to their development and aspirations, while others more concerned with their own particular national priorities and needs--determined their educational curriculum. That was true since the onset of the British mandate in 1922. Until 1948, the Palestine Mandate Government determined the structure of education, certification of schooling, the overall purposes of the system of education, the curriculum to be used and the budget allotted for that purpose. The consequence of that exogenous control became evident as the years went by. First, the Government did not allot enough of the Palestinian budget to meet the educational needs of the Palestinian Arab people in Palestine. By the termination of the mandate, less than one third of the school-age population (6 to 17) was able to enrol in...