A new intervention model is needed to rebuild HE in Gaza

On Sunday 19 January, a ceasefire came into effect in Gaza and the fighting halted. While there is no certainty that the ceasefire will hold, it has brought us closer to thinking about how to rebuild Gaza and its higher education system after Israel’s 15-month war which caused unprecedented devastation to Gaza universities and the ecosystem in which those universities function.

Many different scenarios are being offered for what could happen next: who might govern the Gaza Strip, how public services such as health and education will be delivered and by whom, and how long the process of reconstruction might take and who will deliver it, and its projected cost.

In my research on health and higher education in the Gaza Strip, I have taken a developmental lens, and what I know from this work as well as from my own personal experience of working as a lecturer at two of Gaza’s universities is that development in Gaza has always been a challenging and complex task. At any given time in its recent history, Gaza has faced different possibilities and constraints, and development in the Gaza Strip has not followed any common trajectory.

The process of ‘de-development’

The Gaza Strip has been suffering for decades from a process of ‘de-development’. Previously, de-development has been framed mainly in economic terms, for example, the economist Sara Roy describes it as “a process which weakens the ability of an economy to grow and expand by preventing it from accessing and utilising critical inputs needed to promote internal growth beyond a specific structural level”.

My education research, however, indicates that a structure of de-development in the Gaza Strip extends to the higher education sector, while my political economy of health research shows that it extends to the Gaza health sector as well. This de-development is manifested in all aspects of life in Gaza.

What Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza is reported to have done is to return Gaza to the 1980s, erasing decades of hard work to improve the situation and thus setting the territory back, even within the spectrum of de-development.

As international universities are considering how to support higher education in Gaza, they need to be aware of this context and take a critical view of their role, which could be double-edged. Any intervention should be based on a Palestinian vision for higher education and it must be home-grown.

The dilemma is that this Palestinian vision does not exist in reality and did not exist even decades before Israel’s current war on Gaza. Therefore, the visions being put forward are not necessarily based on scientific deliberations or unified negotiations or consensus; they remain limited in terms of representation, and possibly also partisan.

The alternative solution being put forward is for these interventions to be driven by international agendas, which are often competing and political, and history has shown how they lead to fragmentation, replication of power structures and contention.

A new model of intervention

In my view, what is needed is a new model of intervention that is based on an equitable partnership between international and local higher education, marked by solidarity, a relationship of trust and accountability, of international and local learning and of support and agency building.

Developing this model requires ‘real world engagement’ with the Gaza Strip, but also maintaining a critically informed, and yet friendly distance, which enables international institutions to work with Gaza’s universities to achieve a just global higher education for everyone. This is not an easy road to take, but one that is necessary.

If international higher education institutions had taken this path earlier, they would have been in a better position to respond now, and yet it is never too late to offer solidarity and support in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which have faced a constant battle for survival and development.

However, this delay means that international higher education institutions are grappling with an additional challenge: their lack of knowledge, experience and connections in the region. Their willingness to get involved now may come from different motivations, including solidarity, humanity, ethical demands, student and public pressure and-or because of academic competition, ie, to keep ahead in terms of research, partnership and funding opportunities, and continue to be relevant.

With the scale of destruction in Gaza, the Strip does not have the luxury of being able to dismiss any support wherever it comes from and regardless of the motivation behind it. Therefore, the process and outcome are what it is focused on and it is important to improve these as much as possible, within the constraints of the ongoing circumstances, ensuring that any support does not lead to further fragmentation of Palestinian society and dependency.

Recommendations for reconstruction

My main recommendations are therefore that any reconstruction should aim to break free of the model of benefactor-beneficiary and be based on an equitable relationship model that empowers agency and productivity on the Palestinian side, rather than dependency, as well as ensuring that such efforts are of mutual benefit and therefore sustainable.

Reconstruction efforts should also get better at dealing with uncertainty by learning how to navigate a turbulent context with local actors, and reflecting constantly on the methods used and the outcomes that result.

My research has shown that a structure of de-development at Gaza’s universities is manifested in a simultaneous process of construction and destruction. Thus, it should be expected that under occupation, destruction is a fact of life in Gaza, and that, even after the war ends, it will continue in various ways. The challenge is how to increase the scale of construction to outweigh that of destruction, and how to design initiatives in a creative, flexible and adaptable way that is resilient to these conditions.

Any reconstruction effort should also combine practical interventions with research on these interventions to ensure that the learning process is dynamic and effective and to diversify the reach of those efforts to include not only major Palestinian universities, but also Gaza’s remaining universities and learning centres, some of which, although they are for-profit organisations, offer vital higher education to thousands of Palestinian students in the Gaza Strip.

Reconstruction efforts should work to develop proxy support channels for its work with higher education in Gaza through engagement with humanitarian and international agencies and NGOs, since, in case of emergency, these would perhaps have better physical and digital access in a war or siege situation.

Finally there is a need to widen participation to Gaza’s academic community, which is both inside and outside Gaza.

Why scholarships matter

A further recommendation is related to the offering of scholarships, something that appears to be a difficult issue, given arguments that they drive brain drain and migration from Gaza or conversely, the opposite, leading to what has been referred to as ‘brain in the drain’ where students who remain in Gaza with limited opportunities and under siege and war conditions may struggle psychologically, and in other ways and find themselves unable to use what they have learned, leading to falling motivation.

My stance here is clear: I am one of those Palestinians who have benefited from scholarships offered to students from the Gaza Strip, and I have been able to study at two of the world’s most elite universities, Oxford and Cambridge.

After I finished my MSc at Oxford, I returned to Gaza and contributed on the ground through my work at the university. After my PhD at Cambridge, the conditions were different and I haven’t been to Gaza since 2012, but Gaza has been on my agenda daily, as it was the focus of my academic research and so I continue to contribute even though I am outside Gaza.

Let’s remember too that Palestinians have been in the diaspora since Al Nakba in 1948. The Palestinians who have graduated from international and regional universities and returned to the Occupied Palestinian Territories have set the tone for Gaza’s higher education institutions and contributed to the development of new specialisations as well as contributing to other sectors with their knowledge and professional expertise.

Some are also contributing financially by offering assistance to their families or by establishing projects and foundations in Gaza, such as the AM Qattan Foundation programmes in Gaza and the West Bank.

International scholarships have empowered the Palestinian community and have empowered Palestinians, particularly those living under siege, with opportunities for mobility and academic advancement. While there are some scholars who choose to remain outside the occupied territories, there are others who choose to return.

If the borders were open, scholarships would not be an issue as they are not in other countries because people can go back and forth at any time. What makes them an issue in Gaza are the deteriorating economic and social conditions due to Israel’s repeated wars on the Gaza Strip and the imposed siege on Gaza, particularly since 2007, which limits the possibility of making a decent living and curbs opportunities for employment, thus forcing some people to choose to leave.

Human rights

It is important at all times to centre human rights in any work to reconstruct higher education in Gaza and to maintain freedom for the individual student to choose their future, and where they want to be.

Therefore, it is my view that offering scholarships that are controlled by Gaza higher education institutions under the banner of serving the system rather than one element of the system is neither fair nor feasible, particularly if other scholarships are not made available to individuals. Like any other institutions in the world, Gaza’s institutions can be democratic or bureaucratic and some have good practices and others have room for improvement.

So it is the responsibility of both local institutions in Gaza and the international higher education institutions that work to support Gaza to ensure this balance between societal, institutional and individual rights.

Currently, Gaza’s institutions are in an unprecedented state that is likely to put severe constraints on their capacity to achieve this balance as they prioritise the collective and try to put the system back on its feet again. But this collective is in the end a collective of individuals, and the health of the system relies on those individuals who should not simply be viewed as passive ‘elements’ of it.

My research on higher education and on the political economy of health in Gaza revealed that reform in the Gaza Strip has been in a deadlock between long-term initiatives and short-term relief at times of emergency.

What is lacking is meaningful collaboration and support that is based on sustainable friendship and that leads to mutual benefit and development. International higher education institutions that are thinking of rebuilding Gaza’s higher education institutions should see this work as a journey rather than a destination.

Dr Mona Jebril is a research associate at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Business Research and a Bye-Fellow in education and academic development at Queens’ College, University of Cambridge. She is also host of the podcast A Life Lived in Conflict. More information about Mona can be found here.

This article is a commentary. Commentary articles are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of University World News.