Occupation, PA inaction and financial troubles drive education crisis in Palestine

For the second year, Nevine Hamad watches her son Jalal al-Din’s grades fall, despite once ranking among the top three in his class.

Now in the second term of Year Nine, his skills are markedly weaker than they were just a few years ago. 

“It’s as if he stopped progressing in Year Seven,” said his mother, who lives in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

Din attends a government school run by the Palestinian Ministry of Education. His parents chose it carefully. Built as a model school, it offered resource rooms, modern facilities and advanced teaching programmes. 

For years, the environment helped him excel. But over the past three years, his mother says, that has changed.

An ongoing financial crisis within the Palestinian Authority (PA) has led to cuts in teaching hours and reduced salaries for public sector workers, including teachers, undermining the quality of education.

The crisis dates back to 2021, when the government began paying public employees partial salaries, at times as little as 60 percent and often irregularly. 

Education staff, who make up more than half of public sector workers, responded with prolonged strikes, further disrupting a system still recovering from Covid-19.

'We cannot replace school at home'

- Nevine Hamad, Palestinian mother 

At the start of the 2025/2026 academic year, the ministry reduced the school week to three days after delaying the term by a week, due to the crisis. It was the second reduction in two years; the previous year, the week was cut from five days to four.

This has led to students effectively losing half their classroom time and curriculum.

The impact is now clear. Performance has dropped, particularly in reading and writing. Parents and educators warn of “slow illiteracy” in a society where education was once a defining strength.

Hamad and her husband try to compensate with online lessons, but say they cannot cover everything, especially with more complex subjects. They have also watched their son lose interest in studying, spending most of his time on electronic devices. 

“We cannot replace school at home,” Nevine told Middle East Eye. “He is getting barely half the curriculum.”

‘Educational alienation’

According to retired education supervisor Majed Abu Dawood, formerly of the Ministry of Education, the Palestinian curriculum adopted in 2017 was designed to be completed over 182 school days.

Cutting the school week has forced teachers to shorten explanations and compress material into 40-minute lessons, overwhelming students with dense information in a limited time.

The ministry has also reduced content through summarised “teaching packets”. 

But it remains practically impossible for teachers to complete the curriculum in three days a week, Abu Dawood says. 

“All of this has diluted the seriousness of teaching and learning, especially among students who have lost motivation and commitment, deepening the crisis,” he told MEE.

The burden has grown for teachers, students and parents alike. Material once taught over five days must now be covered in three, leaving students with heavier homework and less classroom explanation.

'I want to go back to school and learn with my friends'

- Ghouson Yousef Kaabneh, student displaced by settler attacks

International standards set the school year at 182 days across two terms. 

Yet government school students in the West Bank attended no more than 50 days in the first term of the current academic year, according to Naseem Kabha, a member of the ‏Palestinian Education Coalition.

That amounts to a learning loss of nearly half the curriculum, with no clear plan to restore regular schooling.

“Education has become about seizing opportunities rather than following a structured, cumulative process,” Kabha said. 

As students move up grades without completing previous curricula, they lose foundational skills that the next level depends on. 

Kabha describes this as “educational alienation”, with deficits accumulating, particularly in writing and expression.

This has pushed many parents to seek individual solutions: homeschooling, private schools despite high fees, or private tutoring.

Settler-driven displacement   

Meanwhile, the education system across the occupied Palestinian territories has fragmented. 

Most government schools in the West Bank now operate three days a week, although a few have independently extended to four. 

The cuts do not apply to public schools in occupied East Jerusalem, which, like private schools, continue full-time. 

In the Gaza Strip, an Israeli genocide since 2023 has left hundreds of thousands of students without school. 

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Schooling has also been halted altogether in some areas of the West Bank, due to prolonged military raids and settler violence. 

Seven-year-old Ghouson Yousef Kaabneh, from the nomad community of Shalal al-Auja, north of Jericho, is among those affected. 

She was displaced with her family last month due to settler attacks and threats, moving to the outskirts of the village of al-Auja.

Before they could complete building their new home and find a school for Kaabneh and her sister Jana, settler attacks began at their new location.

During the displacement, Kaabneh had made sure to bring her Year Two textbooks, but fears she may never use them. 

“I want to go back to school and learn with my friends,”  she said. “But there is no school here.”

Her father told MEE that none of the displaced children has enrolled in school. 

Ongoing settler attacks and the long distances to the nearest schools make attendance too dangerous.

PA inaction  

All parties in the education process, including the ministry, acknowledge a major decline but offer no real solutions, treating the crisis as damage control.

Ayoub Alian, the assistant undersecretary for educational affairs at the Ministry of Education, admits student performance is falling but blames circumstances beyond his ministry. 

“This is the responsibility of a government under occupation and without funding,” he told MEE. “Teachers get 60 percent of their salaries irregularly. Full attendance is impossible.”

Alian added that the ministry is taking steps to bridge learning losses, but lacks precise data. Current measures focus on core skills like reading and writing, assignment-based learning, and using term breaks to compensate. A supplementary plan is in development.

Alian stresses these actions only mitigate damage. Even with stable salaries, full recovery may take three to four years.

Saed Erziqat, head of the Teachers’ Union, agrees that restoring full salaries would resolve the issue. 

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However, he rejects linking it to the PA's financial crisis, arguing that making education a priority for the government is what’s needed.

“The government must be transparent and prioritise spending on education and health,” he told MEE. 

Additionally, the Central Parents’ Council says it has proposed solutions to secure funding outside the budget, but so far, they have been rejected by the PA. 

“We offered solutions, but they were ignored,” council member Sakhr al-Ahmad told MEE. 

He also accused the ministry of failing to determine the extent of learning loss after Covid-19 or the teacher strikes, leaving the issue unaddressed for years. 

Rifat al-Sabbagh, head of the Palestinian Education Coalition and Teacher Creativity Center, says learning loss needs a nationwide study. 

Pre-Covid research showed 40 percent of students struggled with reading and writing; today, the decline is worse and visible, he said. 

Sabbagh partly blames the ministry for the crisis and its failure to seek solutions. 

“The ministry’s handling of the teachers’ strike had the greatest negative impact on teachers’ ability to perform and weakened their commitment to education,” he told MEE.

He also highlighted the Israeli occupation’s effect, noting that students and teachers face ongoing psychological trauma without adequate support.

Alternative solutions 

Historically, education in Palestine has faced similar crises, during which schooling was completely halted at times. 

During the First Intifada in 1987, popular education emerged as an alternative solution.

It developed as an organised, resistance-focused movement, offering a national alternative to Israeli closures of schools and universities. 

'We must seek other alternatives that engage the new generation in their own language'

- Wissam al-Rifidi, sociologist

Community committees set up secret classes in homes, mosques and churches, with teachers, university students and parents volunteering to keep education going as a tool of resilience and resistance.

But such solutions are unlikely to work today, according to sociologist Wissam al-Rafidi.

The current conditions are different, and there is no supportive political or grassroots framework for such initiatives, he said.

“We must seek other alternatives that engage the new generation in their own language, using cultural and educational activities outside schools, in cooperation with youth groups and educational organisations,” Rafidi told MEE. 

He stressed that any alternatives must remain free from foreign funding, which can be more dangerous than illiteracy.

“[Foreign funding risks] rebuilding an alternative consciousness that undermines Palestinian national identity, which generations have preserved since 1948.”