According to a recent report by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and Ir Amim, over five thousand Palestinian children in East Jerusalem are completely outside the education system. Last year, only half went to schools run by the Jerusalem Education Administration (Manhi), the rest attending schools set up by UNRWA and Islamic organisations schools. “Failed Grade,” published in August 2010, has shed light on the failure of the state to provide a healthy and inclusive educational environment for Palestinian youths.

While the state is legally obligated to provide free education to all its citizens, it has neglected to provide enough schools to cater for residents of annexed East Jerusalem. ‘One thousand five hundred new schoolrooms need to be built’, explains Balad chairman Jamal Zahalka, who is active in the Knesset on this matter.

‘On the one hand is the negligence of the municipality and Education Ministry and on the other are internal divisions,’ notes Aryeh Dayan, author of “Failed Grade.” Many unofficial, private schools have been established to soak up the thousands of students left out of the municipal system, putting families in the predicament of either financing the exorbitant fees themselves or leaving their children out of school. ‘Schools fall under several different categories, including church-run and wafq schools, and the private schools run by Sakhnin College, a commercial enterprise. There is no coordination between them, creating a system that is unmanageable and chaotic.’

Legal proceedings have been ongoing for the past decade, whereby parents’ committees have petitioned the High Court to force the state to provide their children the education they are entitled to. This method is not a long-term solution as it deals only with individuals.

The problem boils down to chronic underfunding. ‘Children in East Jerusalem make up thirty percent of the city’s children but they are only allotted eleven percent of the municipal education budget,’ Jerusalem councilman Meir Margalit, of the Meretz party, explains. Manhi is legally bound to build more classrooms to accommodate all of the children but construction progresses very slowly. ‘The new rooms, when eventually built, will only accommodate natural population growth,’ Mr. Margalit says, illustrating the lack of any real impetus to solve the crisis.

The dropout rate is fifty percent, evidenced by the heavy presence of secondary level-aged boys working in store warehouses and markets. This has led to an increase in the number of youths turning to drugs and delinquency. ‘Sixty three percent of people are living below the poverty line in East Jerusalem,’ Mr. Zahalka explains. ‘People are trapped in a cycle, wherein they are poorly educated, cannot find good jobs, and turn to drugs; then their children inherit this atmosphere of poverty.’

Over the past twenty years the socio-economic threads of East Jerusalem have been deteriorating, with its people becoming less educated and thus less affluent. The shambolic education system only perpetuates the community’s poverty and encumbers chances for social mobility.

By keeping Palestinian standards of education down, the state can slow the pace of organised political resistance, or better yet, stifle it altogether. ‘The state’s overall policy is to destroy Palestinian society step by step; education is ignored in East Jerusalem in order to weaken its society and deny it a political voice,’ Mr. Zahalka opines. According to Mr. Zahalka, academic achievement in East Jerusalem is worse than in any other Palestinian community, including the OPT, Gaza and refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

While Israel takes physical space away from Palestinians, this policy is pernicious in a more insidious way; people are mired in ignorance, precluding the development of a strong political voice, which could mount a serious challenge to its persecutory policies. Mr. Zahalka advocates collaboration with UNESCO to force Israel to comply with its legal duty towards the city’s Palestinians. ‘This is one of the most crucial questions today,’ he insists, ‘and the PA should be highlighting it on the international level’.

Mr. Margalit believes the state’s attitude towards this problem is a natural extension of its overall policy regarding Palestinians; ‘the state is trying to prompt Palestinians to leave Jerusalem by offering them nothing with regard to opportunity and quality of life. The inspiration behind municipal policies in every field, not just in education, is towards this end.’a

Palestine Monitor