CAIRO, (PIC)
The Palestinian education minister Amjad Barham said that the educational situation in the Gaza Strip is tragic, and the Israeli occupation wants to destroy the future of Palestinian children.
This came during the emergency meeting of the Council of Educational Affairs for the Children of Palestine, which was held at the headquarters of the Arab League on Sunday in Cairo.
“We decided that educational life would return to the Gaza Strip through displacement tents despite the random bombing, through e-learning for all students present in Gaza and outside it, and that the high school exams would be held, which is one of the most difficult challenges,” Barham said.
Over 90 percent of schools have been destroyed in Gaza amidst Israel’s ongoing bombardment of the enclave, the Palestinian education minister said.
Amjad Barham said that out of 309 schools, 290 had been destroyed, while the remainder were repurposed as refuges for the displaced.
Educational sites belonging to the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA were not safe from Israel’s war on Gaza, he added, however, many have become displacement facilities.
He said 80 percent of universities have been destroyed and 630,000 students are unable to access education.
He said 19,000 students entered Egypt and that attempts were being made to allow them to finish their education.
“We lost 9,500 of them [students] to the Israeli aggression,” the minister said, with 15,000 wounded, including 5,000 disabled because of the “continuation of this aggression and the fierce war on our people.”
Humanitarian agencies have warned that the absence of education will leave children with long-term difficulties and make it harder to pick up learning again.
