Worries about the school curriculum

Thanks to everyone involved in the first evening of our Virtual Visit to Palestine- the presentations gave a good overview and insights into aspects of life in Abu Dis and the locality.

One thing which struck me in particular- as I was one of the 11 Camden teachers to visit Abu Dis schools in 2007- was the ongoing, and possibly worsening, difficulty in instituting and maintaining an appropriate curriculum for Palestinian schools. When we visited we were accompanied by a high up Ministry of Education official (sorry I cannot recall his name or position)on some school visits. He was very happy to tell us about the new Palestinian curriculum developments, schools having been using the Jordanian/ Egyptian curriculum in the past. This new curriculum, some years in development, was tailored to Palestinian pupils to inform them of their own history and culture in context and to be ‘theirs’, not that of another country. This was a very exciting development.

I read an article recently which mentioned that there is an attempt to force changes to textbooks in the Palestinian curriculum as they are said to as contain ‘incitement’. These criticisms and alarm bells appear to be being raised by organisations and people who do not have an unbiased approach towards Palestinians in general and Palestinian education in particular. Israel is also imposing Israeli curricula on state schools- and increasingly trying to do the same in private schools- in the West Bank, depriving children of their own history and cultural context.

Hopefully some more positive observations to be made in due course - Fiona