Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education

The Ministry of Education and Higher Education of the Palestinian National Authority is the branch of the Palestinian government in charge of managing the education in Palestine. It was established in 1994 after the formation of the Palestinian National Authority.

Nasser al-Shaer, the former Minister of Education was arrested by Israeli authorities twice for membership in Hamas and released both times. After the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed all Hamas ministers including Shaer.

Marwan Awartani was appointed minister in 2019 and served from April 14, 2019 until his resignation was accepted on September 3, 2023.

Activities
Throughout 2001-2005, the ministry finalized the establishment of a Palestinian national curriculum by hiring teachers and providing classrooms and books.

The five programs of the plan were:
 * 1) Education as a human right Aim to provide an opportunity for all children from kindergarten to secondary school, by recruiting new teachers, adding new classrooms, textbooks, increasing the level of enrollment in the secondary stage, and decreasing the dropout rate.
 * 2) Education as the basic component of citizenship Developing quality education is the production, assessment, evaluation, and enrichment of school textbooks and instruction manuals for the Palestinian Curriculum as well as teacher and supervisor training.
 * 3) Education as a tool for social and economic development  Developing a vocational and technical training program aiming to meet the basic needs of the local market, and providing a skilled workforce that can contribute positively to the national economy. Providing schools with the necessary equipment and resources.
 * 4) Education as a tool for social and economic development  Developing new programs for general education, pre-school, informal education, adult education, and special education, that is available for the general population.
 * 5) Education as a continuous, renewable, participatory process  Restructuring the financial and administrative systems to ensure efficient use of available resources. The program will include the school-map project, as well as reinforce concepts of strategic planning and organizational administration. Also, developing and reviewing policies, and rules and regulations; updating of position responsibilities and job descriptions; and developing relations between schools and the local community.

Other activities are training and providing income for teachers, increasing the quality of school technology as well as expanding and building new schools.

The K12 educational system is divided into the First Stage of Basic Education (Preparation Stage; grades 1–4), the Second Stage of Basic Education (Empowerment Stage; grades 5–9); and Secondary Stage (Acquisition Stage; grades 10–12. In grade 11, students can opt for a literary stream focused on languages and social science, or a scientific stream focuses on subjects such as physics, chemistry, and mathematics. Grades 1–10 are compulsory, according to the Palestinian Educational Law (Ministry of Education and Higher Education, 2017).

According to a Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (2021), there are 1,309,000 school students in grades K-12 across the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.

The Ministry of Education’s strategic plan of 2017-2022 states the goal of K12 education as “a Palestinian society that possess the culture, values, skills, science and technology to produce new knowledge and leverage it in development and liberation.”

In 2007, when Hamas led the Ministry of Education as part of power sharing agreement with Fatah, the ministry confiscated around 1,500 copies of the book Speak Bird, Speak Again. from public school libraries in Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas suppressed this book of folk tales, which featured the female oral tradition of Palestinian hikaye, from public school libraries on the grounds that the stories used colloquial and sometimes offensive language that was unsuitable for teaching children. However, after a storm of public outrage, this decision was soon withdrawn.

Taking advantages of teachers’ strikes in 2008, Hamas “implemented a gradual takeover of the Ministry of Education,” by hiring and appointing teachers and administrators who were Hamas members or sympathizers, thus paving the way for increased Islamic influence in schools, particularly in Gaza.

In 2013, at a time when the Hamas-run ministry of education in Gaza was operating independently of the PA-run ministry in the West Bank, schools in Gaza introduced new textbooks as part of a “patriotic education” program.