PALESTINIAN SOCIETY - Fafo

education to the world outside laeal boundaries also tend to become
channels for funnelling new ideas and saeial attitudes back into the
local community. They tend to become agents for a type of change that
often challenges and redefmes local assumptions and practice.
Frequently, the educ�tional process not only produces change and
mobility but also an increased intellectual tolerance. A comprehensive
educational system which ensures high educational attainment
for the vast majority of individuals builds its own intellectual checks
and balances against the possible dominance of small, intransigent
intellectual minorities. Attempts to impose ideological dogma tend to
be confronted by the countervailing force of an educated population
that acts as discriminating consurners in an international superrnarket
filled with competing dogmas, ideologies and ideas. The broadened
and more informed range of intellectual discourse produced by such
a system of quality mass education ensures that most ideas, conventions
and intellectual assumptions have to withstand the scrutiny of
constant questioning and debate.
Brief Overview of the Evolution of
the Palestinian Educational System
Lirnited mainly to primary education, an official educational system
in historical Palestine was first instituted at the beginning of this
century under the Ottoman Empire. Under the British Mandate
Authority education facilities were expanded and endeavours were
made, largely unsuccessful, to establish a system of compulsory
education. Although possibilities forfemale education were enlarged,
this initial expansion of educational facilities during the Mandate
period was primarily of benefit to men.
In 1948 the Gaza Strip became a trusteeship ofEgypt. Consequently,
the Gazan school system was transferred from British to Egyptian
authority and placed under the Egyptian system of education and
curriculum. Sirnilarly, the incorporation of the West Bank into Jordan
meant the extension of Jordanian educational authority into the
region. Thus, until 1967 theeducational systems of the West Bank and
Gaza operated under the auspices of two independent states. With the
establishment ofIsraeli occupation in 1967, the structure of education
in the territories was subjected to an additional complication. While
the Israeli rnilitary authorities retained the Jordanian and Egyptian
educational systems and curricula in the West Bank and Gaza
respectively, actual control of educational institutions was placed
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