2022-08-21

ًWest Bank

West Bank

MUSAWA’s memo to the Palestinian Minister of Education on the right to education for the residents of Bedouin communities

Honorable Minister of Education

Honorable Dr. Marwan Awartani- Ramallah,

MUSAWA - The Palestinian Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession expands its greetings to you, and based on the outcomes of the consultative meetings organized by the Center in three Bedouin communities (Ain Samiya, Ras Al-Ayn and Wadi Al-Siq), on the constitutional rights of Palestinian Bedouin citizens, these meetings revealed grave violations of the rights of the Bedouins, who are still grave deprived of the basic requirements of their right to education.

The Bedouins in Ain Samiya suffer from the lack of schools except for one school that was established only a year ago, and provides education from the first to sixth grades only, without the kindergarten, and suffers from a shortage of teaching staff, the absence of an English language teacher, and the lack of administrative monitoring over the performance of the staff, and the duration of the work there does not exceed two hours from (9-11) in the morning, and it is often devoted to playing and amusement at the expense of curricular education. Some sixth-grade students suffer from the problem of completing their education in their place of residence, which forces them to move to receive education in the nearest village to the Bedouin community (Kafr Malik) and this movement faces great difficulties, as there is no bus, which forces the residents to walk, the thing that puts them at risk from settlers, summer’s hot weather, winter’s coldness, and hardship of arrival, in addition to the suffering of those who successfully pass their education and obtain academic certificates and qualifications from the lack of job opportunities and public office occupation.

In the Ras Al-Ayn community, there is only one “zinco” school, the education in it is from the first to the ninth grade, and the students are forced to move after that to Al-Auja School, and their school is subject to demolition and its graduates suffer from the unemployment crisis. The same applies to the Wadi al-Siq community as there is one school from the first to sixth grades for both sexes, and the seventh and eighth grades are for females only, and the English language teacher works one day a week, although the school welcomes students from several Bedouin communities; Including Al-Baqa’a, Maghair al-Deir, Wadi Al-Siq, Al-Murajat  Al-Fawqa and Al-Taybeh, and the bus that transports students often undergoes a failure that requires a long-term to be repaired due to the distribution of the responsibility of its repair among the Ministry of Transport, your Ministry and several other official departments, the thing that keeps the bus not working for a long time.

This negatively affects the movement of male/female students and impede the progress of education, despite the fact that the bus itself does not accommodate more than 19 students, which leads to its use in more than one shift, which in turn leads to delaying students from arriving at school with the start of the official school day some of them arrive at school after the third class is over.

The situation of students is similar to the situation of their peers in the other two communities, where after the completion of the sixth grade for male students and the eighth grade for female students, they are forced to either stop receiving their education in order to avoid the dangers that they may be exposed to when they move outside the community to complete their education, especially the attacks of settlers, or the shortage of transportation between the community and the nearest village or city to that schools or educational institutions beyond the two mentioned stages, and its graduates’ situation is like those of the other two communities, the thing that puts an end to their education journey by joining the unemployment market.

Your Excellency, education is a feature of civilization, and education is a tool for building and development, and illiteracy is a disease that is considered a violation of the Basic Law and the international conventions to which Palestine accessed and is bound by its provisions if not cured. Providing the essential requirements for education is a duty and commitment of the State and it can oblige to it, and depriving part of the people of this is a clear discrimination that contradicts the provisions of Article (9) of the Basic Law, especially that education is not a right for every citizen and is compulsory until the elementary stage at least, and is free in schools, institutes and public institutions in accordance with first paragraph of Article (24) of the Basic Law.

Accordingly, and based on what the citizens expressed in the three Bedouin communities, which we see as their right and your duty, we ask you to organize specialized field visits to Bedouin communities, to identify the educational needs of each of them, and to work to provide them without delay, and to listen to the suffering of the citizens in education and what threatens their future and the future of their people, and take the necessary measures to prevent such.

With respect,

Published on: 21.08.2022       

MUSAWA