Thursday, January 7, 2010

The Role of Higher Education in the Context of an Independent Palestinian State


Vision for Higher Education in Palestine: Education for National Integration and Development




 
Ibrahim Abu-Lughud



Conference on:

The Role of Higher Education in the Context of an Independent Palestinian State
7-9 Nov.1996
  
Introduction

The state of Palestinian higher education and the problems it suffers ITom are accountable to the fact that, since 1967, there has been no legitimate national authority, capable of directly supervising this aspect of Palestinian education as a whole. The Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza have gained a great deal of experience and skill in organizing their educational affairs generally, and in overseeing the activities of institutes of higher education specifically. This explains how the Palestiruan universities currently in existence and the Council for Higher Education were created by popular initiative.

By way of mutual co-operation between the universities and itself, in addition to support from. the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the Council for Higher Education was able to fully assert its steering authority and direction over the institutions of higher education in Palestine. Such a feat came in the absence of any kind of political authority co-operating with it in this task.

Despite the accomplishments of the system of higher education, which allowed the Palestinian people to retain their national identity and develop under the exceptional circumstances of adverse military occupation, there is clearly a need for a radical change in the present system. Therefore, we might allude to another important achievement, which proves to be useful as background information to this report: the fact is that the Palestinian people gained important skills in the fields of establishing, administrating, and developing educational institutions. One of the main results of this experience was the evolution of people's understanding 'of higher education, its effectiveness and drawbacks. They learned how to better take into consideration social, cultural, and geographical factors in organizing and administrating higher education in this day and age. In order to more clearly illustrate this point, consider that several universities were formed out of institutions which formerly served as high schools. Universities were created in areas which are geographically difficult to reach, as well as a result of regional competition between the inhabitants of different areas of Palestine. The Palestinians were subsequently able to overcome many of the impediments to study created by the occupation. Those who oversaw higher education understood the particulars of Palestinian society and managed to effectively administer it, despite both their limited resources and the collective punishment measures of the occupation authorities.

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