CAIRO — Since arriving in Cairo 10 months ago, Nisreen*, a Palestinian woman from war-torn Gaza, has been trying to adapt to Egyptian lifestyle. She managed to cross into Egypt before the closure of the Rafah crossing, leaving her mother and her siblings behind under Israel’s bombardment.
The woman, a pharmacist in her 30s who worked for several relief organizations in Gaza, entered Egypt with her husband, who has Egyptian travel documents.
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The mother of three lives in Nasr City, in the eastern part of Cairo, where a large Palestinian community from Gaza is based. She feels safe and hopes that one day she and her family will be able to return to Gaza and resume their normal life, which has been disrupted by the Israeli aggression. The aggression deprived Palestinians of their basic rights, including education.
In order to provide them with an education, Nisreen registered her children with the Palestinian Ministry of Education in the West Bank to follow their school year remotely.
Stuck in between
Mayar, who is in the eighth grade, and her brother Nadi, who is in the fourth grade, managed to complete their academic year despited the war disrupting their lives.The little Ahed, however, was not able to start his first year in the kindergarten in Gaza. While in Egypt, he was unable to cope with the remote learning.
“The first week the war started, and although I registered him with his siblings, he could not benefit as much as he would have if the teaching was direct,” Nisreen told Al-Manassa.
Nisreen continues to rely on distance learning for her children’s education. “The children are busy studying without thinking about the war and its impact on them.”
She couldn’t register her children in the Egyptian education system, because they don’t have Egyptian residency, she said.
Egyptian authorities give Gaza’s refugees a 45-day tourist visa, which doesn’t allow them to apply for residency or study or work in the country.
To address the issue, the Palestinian Education Ministry in Ramallah expanded the remote learning initiative it started last year to include students from Gaza. It’s a free service that allows the Gaza students to complete their schooling.
An official educational platform
Sadeq Khaddour, spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Education, called the remote learning a “virtual schooling” for Gaza students. He said the initiative aims at saving the school year that was disrupted by the Israeli war in the strip.
He said the war affected 290 educational facilities out of 307 and deprived 39,000 students in Gaza from their high school exams, and 58,000 children were prevented from joining the first grade.
The past school year will be merged into the upcoming one
He said the past school year will be merged into the upcoming one to “to save what is possible for the students of Gaza.”
Yasser Saeed, a Palestinian from Gaza, arrived in Egypt earlier in May, just a few days before the closure of the Rafah crossing. His 12-year-old Alma joined the remote schooling to complete her fifth grade.
“As soon as I arrived in Egypt, I registered her for remote learning,” he said, adding that his daughter passed the exam qualifying for the sixth grade. She will continue her remote learning until the family is able to return to Gaza, he said.
The remote learning system allows students who were unable to complete the previous school year to make up for what they missed by merging the two school years.
The students have to register at the Palestinian embassy in Cairo, which successfully carried out the high school exams for Palestinian students who arrived in Egypt last year, coinciding with the start of the exams in the West Bank.
About 1,100 Palestinian students in Egypt took the Tawjihi exams for the 2023-2024 academic year in July, the embassy said in a statement. The exams were held under the supervision of a delegation from the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education and the Cultural Affairs Section of the Embassy of the State of Palestine, a team of administrative and academic staff from the Egyptian Ministry of Education and a team of volunteer academics based in Egypt.
Technical problems
But remote learning is challenging, and parents encounter many obstacles — including technical issues.
“The service is slow and does not provide any way to inquire or communicate with officials to answer parents’ questions,” said a Palestinian woman working with an international aid group.
The woman arrived in Egypt in February along with her two children in the 8th grade and the 3rd grade. Her children passed the exam remotely and moved to the next grades, she said.
“My dream was to leave Gaza to give my children a better education because they are my only investment and I couldn’t fulfill it,” the woman said, ”but now I hope to see them in school.”
Anan tried to find an Egyptian school to enroll her children in.
“The kids are on their devices all day. School makes them get away from the situation and do some activities,” she said. “It might also make them feel like they’re living normally after the war experience.”
She tried to get an educational experience similar to the one they had in Gaza. “I was surprised that government schools didn’t accept them, and private schools required a valid residency,” she said.
Other platforms
And it appears that the remote learning system is no longer able to accommodate more students. She said that she is not able to register her sister’s children who arrived in Egypt in April.
The Palestinian embassy in Cairo says it is working with Egyptian authorities to provide temporary residency for Palestinians so that their children can attend school.
There are nearly 100,000 Gazans in Egypt, according to Palestinian Ambassador Diab al-Louh. He urged Egyptian authorities to regularize their status in order to “register their children in schools, open companies or bank accounts, travel, or obtain health services.”
Nisreen considers her children’s experience in remote learning a success.
These estimates are consistent with figures published by the United Nations, which calculates that 110,000 people left Gaza.
To address the crisis, the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education announced that it is in the process of establishing affiliated educational centers in Cairo in coordination with its embassy, to provide a “healthy (educational) environment for its community.”
On the other hand, some institutions have opened the door to Palestinian students, including Al-Azhar whose Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb announced in December the provision of full scholarships for Palestinian students registered in Al-Azhar institutes in Gaza.
The Azhar students will be exempted from tuition and accommodation fees, and will be given a monthly stipend.
Other initiatives have also been launched, including an online school to teach the children of Gaza. The initiative relies on recording videos of Palestinian curricula and broadcasting them online.
“I was enthusiastic about the idea because it is a charitable act,” Samiha, one of the volunteer teachers, told Al-Manassa.
Another initiative in Cairo, called the Grandchildren of Olives, established a website that provides a direct educational program for the children of Gaza.
Nisreen considers her children’s experience in remote learning a success despite difficulties she encountered.
But she hopes that the war will stop so that she can return to Gaza, and her children can regain their seats in their schools.
*Nisreen is not her real name
