UNRWA’s latest statement on our joint report with UN Watch, which reviewed institutional UNRWA- branded teaching materials self-produced by the agency’s education departments and schools, does not question the facts of the report. Instead, UNRWA again reverts to vilifying IMPACT-se, after being warned by European parliament members to desist from these unsubstantiated and ad hominem attacks. Complete Article HERE
The recent gut-wrenching story of the Jewish student at a Launceston school subjected to antisemitic and Nazi abuse is just the tip of the iceberg. For Jewish students, public schools in Australia are not what you would imagine. Antisemitic bullying is alive and well, and these terrible forces are gaining traction. The frightening reality is that we are getting very close to a point where many young Australians will be hiding their Jewishness for fear of being targeted, singled out and mocked. Schools are supposed to provide an inclusive and nurturing environment in which our young people can learn, free from religious and racial assaults – that is, unless you are Jewish… Complete Article HERE
The underground school in suburban Kabul began in July this year, one of 50 set up by women’s rights activists, months after the Taliban regime in Afghanistan disallowed school for girls studying in classes 7 and above. In the Taliban’s interpretation of Islam, there is no sawaab in educating girls. While women have so far not been stopped from going to universities—men and women go on separate days—given the ban on schooling, there will be no new admissions. In the class of 26 are women of varying ages, including a woman in her thirties, who had to drop out of school in her fourth grade during the first Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001, and her daughter, who should have started Class 8 in March this year but is now out of school—two generations of women who know first-hand what it is to have dreams cut short, what it is for women and girls to live under the Taliban’s boots. “I could never go back to school after that. I come here because it is a chance to relearn how to write and read Dari and be able to do some sums, so that I can teach my children,” says the mother. Complete Article HERE
In respect to UNRWA’s latest statement on our report reviewing UNRWA-branded school materials, labeled for use in 2022, below is an executive summary. Given that UNRWA chose to reach out in its statement to IMPACT-se for guidance on the reviewed material, we felt compelled to provide additional information.
Although not within the scope of our research, a cursory inspection of UNRWA school social media accounts reveals that UNRWA-branded materials in our report, in violation of UN values, are, in fact, used in the UNRWA schools.
This is despite UNRWA’s absolute denial that problematic UNRWA-produced teaching materials were “authorized for use in any UNRWA school,” claiming that identified materials were from an unnamed, private commercial website, which illegally utilized the agency’s logo and names of employees.
The UNRWA-branded material analyzed in the report includes 590 pages, in 30 documents, across at least four freely available open-source platforms, spanning six separate grades. They all bear the UNRWA logo or its name in Arabic. The materials list UNRWA staff, six of whom are supervisors and inspectors, as well as 49 teachers affiliated with over 30 UNRWA schools in three verified UNRWA school districts, who helped to write and supervise the documents in question.
Read Complete Response HERE
Early this year, an Arab lawmaker caused a stir by delivering a speech on the Knesset floor in Arabic. As Ra’am MK Walid Taha held forth on a controversial bill being considered, a right-wing parliamentarian assailed him, demanding that he speak Hebrew. Days later, another right-wing MK called for legislation mandating Hebrew in the plenum. In June, the issue reared its head again, nearly blowing a non-issue into a coalition crisis. Meretz MK Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi told an interviewer in Arabic that she and now-Prime Minister Yair Lapid had discussed issues she wanted resolved, but in a Hebrew tweet summarizing the interview, was misquoted as saying Lapid made her several controversial “promises.” Some reporters who relied on the Hebrew rather than the Arabic initially misquoted her, while others embarked on a wild goose chase as they tried to verify the comments or gather responses. The lack of Arabic comprehension in Israeli society is not limited to the Knesset or media, with few Jewish Israelis having more than rudimentary knowledge of the language. While some reformers have sought to make Arabic instruction mandatory in schools, students and others say even the classes that are being offered are not preparing students to be able to use the language outside of an academic setting. “We need to stop the oriental treatment of Arabic: Arabic is not a frozen language, it’s not the language of the enemy, it should be taught like French and English,” said Yoni Mendel, an Arabic scholar at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev who co-authored a 2020 report on the state of Arabic knowledge among Jewish Israelis for the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem… Complete Article HERE
Amin and his family fled Syria ten years ago, when the conflict broke out. He was just a baby when they arrived to Jbeil, Lebanon. When he was seven, Amin first joined JRS’s activities. Today, at 10 years old, he attends the JRS learning support program at Nicolas Kluiters Centre (NKC) in the morning and a local public school in the afternoon. The learning support program is designed to provide language and homework assistance to kids registered in public schools, as well as other educational activities to help students succeed. Amin is one of many children whose families, for a variety of reasons, had to flee their home country. Growing up in an unfamiliar environment, these children are now battling for a better future in their host countries… Complete Article HERE
Affo, 29, was born in a polygamous family comprising more than two dozen children. He is the second child to have obtained a high school degree but the only one to have gone to university. For his seven years at high school, he had to balance his studies with part-time jobs to pay tuition fees and daily expenses. Affo was brought up in a place where educational opportunities are nearly non-existent. But Affo’s is not an isolated story. Rather, it’s common in Benin and the wider African continent. If we’re serious about intergenerational fairness, we need to urgently address the education problems facing millions of Affos in Africa. A widening educational inequality is a global problem but its effects are particularly dire in Africa, given the low level of literacy and the failure of education systems to adapt to the constantly evolving dynamics of learning. While the global literacy rate stands at 90 percent, the average in Africa is about 70 percent. But this continental average does not provide an accurate understanding of the realities. Complete Article HERE
“Afghanistan’s education system has been devastated by more than three decades of sustained conflict. For many of the country’s children, completing primary school remains a distant dream—especially in rural areas and for girls—despite recent progress in raising enrollment.In the poorest and remote areas of the country, enrollment levels vary extensively and girls still lack equal access” (UNICEF— https://www.unicef.org/afghanistan/education). Afghan volunteers have organized a mobile educational program to tour remote areas, giving children hope after the Taliban closed schools for girls in March. An Afghan NGO, Pen Path, gives lessons and library books to children who might otherwise be starved of any opportunity to learn. Pictorial Essay Begins HERE
Pakistani student Mah Jabeen credits a new public bus system in her home city with saving her from being stuck at her parents’ house doing chores – or even having to get married. Thanks to the Bus Rapid Transit system in the northwestern city of Peshawar, Ms. Jabeen said she had been able to continue her master’s degree—keeping alive her dreams of becoming a botanist. “My parents had decided to stop my education … because they didn’t like me traveling in the disheveled Mazda wagons,” Ms. Jabeen said, referring to the city’s privately run minibuses while sitting on a shiny BRT bus en route to college. They relented, she said, because the new bus stop was just a few minutes from her front door and dropped her off at the university gates. Launched in 2020, the BRT has proved hugely popular among women in the ultra-conservative city, where burqas and veils are standard female dress and 90 percent of women reported feeling unsafe using public transport in a 2016 survey. Complete Article HERE
Seven years into a deadly and devastating war, thousands of Yemeni parents are using what little they have left to fight for an untold victim of the country’s conflict: their childrens’ education. Ahmed Mahdi, 50, is one of them. The father of three drives a taxi in Yemen’s Houthi rebel-held capital city of Sana’a. He was already struggling to make ends meet by 2016, a year into the conflict between the rebels and Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which is backed by a Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates-led coalition. That year, the government decamped from Sana’a to Aden and moved the central bank there too. After that, teachers at the public schools Mahdi’s three high-schoolers attended stopped receiving regular salaries, along with around 170,000 teachers and many more public servants in parts of the country controlled by the Houthis. Complete Article HERE
Indian Express: Nirupama Subramanian
Photo by Miriam Alster/Flash90 *** Local Caption *** כיכר רבין ארצות הברית בחריין תל אביב איחוד האמירויות דגל ישראל הסכם שלום דגלים