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Ethical obligation to confront scholasticide in Gaza

Ethical obligation to confront scholasticide in Gaza

In photo (L-R): Profs. Stefan Kipfer, Ahmed Shaban, Pablo Idahosa and Ratiba Hadj-Moussa.

In Fall 2024, EUC hosted an event titled ‘Confronting Scholasticide,’ where visiting professor Dr. Ahmed Abu Shaban recounts the struggles of developing independent Palestinian educational institutions amid the Israel-Palestine conflict. Dr. Shaban, an Associate Professor and Dean at the Al-Azhar University in Gaza, Palestine shares his experiences managing a university while facing considerable barriers. Also in attendance of the event are LA&PS Professors Pablo Idahosa and Ratiba Hadj-Moussa as well as EUC Professors Stefan Kipfer, Sarah Rotz, Anna Zalik, among a host of other York faculty, staff and students.

The event highlighted the need to support Gazan students, faculty, administration and institutions of higher learning. It was deemed that scholarship programs could help transfer foreign funds to students through non-governmental or international organizations in Gaza to help cover their tuition and other fees. Further support for shifting to distance learning modalities are critical because students require practical skills along with theoretical learning. Since there are no laboratories for the students to complete their practical skills, having a virtual counterpart is deemed essential to ensure students gain the necessary experiences and skills they need to succeed in their respective fields. Joint research and visiting scholarships also have been identified as important. Without these supports, the educational system created through the Resilience Model (as described below) will eventually collapse.

EUC work-study student, Gurneet Singh further interviews Dr. Shaban about the challenges and importance of research and education within Gaza during the current conflict.

Q. Could you give an overview of how the Palestinian higher education system has evolved in the last 50 years amidst the continuous conflict in Gaza?

Dr. Abu Shaban's Confronting Scholasticide lecture on Gaza at York University in Toronto in November 2024.

Since the beginning of the Israel-Palestine conflict, education has been considered a necessity by the Palestinian people. Prior to 1967, there were no universities in Palestinian territories. Students had to travel abroad to receive higher education, where they learned about the history of other cultures rather than their Palestinian heritage. Following the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank in 1967, the restriction of movement and lack of financial resources made it difficult for Palestinian students to travel to receive an education. This led to community-based initiatives that established Palestinian universities, which started as private schools and eventually became non-profit and non-governmental organizations.

Despite the challenges and barriers of the occupation, the Palestinian people have struggled, fought, and succeeded in establishing universities that represent our cause, identity, and history. In the most recent conflict that has been ongoing since 2023, all educational facilities have since been destroyed or shut down. The impacts of war have disrupted the education of 88,000 students and displaced 5,000 university staff with no income, with thousands more being targeted by Israeli forces. The restriction on importing building materials and laboratory equipment into Gaza has made it difficult to rebuild our educational institutions so students may resume learning. This is why we have created a three-phase Resilience Model. Despite the destruction of our buildings and barriers to re-establishing them, we have resumed learning through an online platform to maintain the continuity of the education system during the On-Going Conflict Phase. At the Al-Azhar University in Gaza, where I am an Associate Professor and Dean, we had over 10,000 students enrol in classes. Once we are in the Immediate Post-Conflict Phase, we will begin to rehabilitate standing buildings and resume teaching and research focusing on post-conflict and rehabilitation research. In the final Long-Term Rehabilitation Phase, we will gradually rehabilitate all buildings and facilities to restore full operational capacity and enhance long-term resilience.

Q. What changes to the education system will be necessary in a post-conflict era? How can the children who witnessed this level of violence be re-integrated into a traditional school setting?

If the war was over and there was a place for teachers to teach children, the conventional system of a classroom with a teacher and students would not be suitable for the children in Gaza. These children have seen their parents and loved ones being executed and, in many cases, had to leave their bodies behind. They have had to work to survive and provide for themselves and often younger siblings. With this level of trauma, we need to reformulate our education system to integrate psychosocial support for these children alongside their education. Education will not be successful if we do not consider the psychosocial context and status of the traumatized children.

Q. Can you share what kind of research is currently being conducted within Gaza and what further research you think is necessary to help the Palestinian cause?

We need research in all fields: environment, sociology, and economy – there are too many things to learn about how different institutions change through a crisis. This war has shown us how bad and good humanity can be. The impacted communities continue to develop initiatives to support and work with each other to share whatever resources they have left. The women in Gaza are strong and innovative in running their microscale food-related enterprises to sustain food production to feed their communities. The people in tent cities are co-operating with one another to cultivate seedlings near the tents to provide food. These modalities are essential to observe because we can learn from their resilience how communities affected by man-made or natural crises can learn to cope with food crises and reflect effective community-led initiatives. I have students on the ground collecting qualitative data, conducting focus group discussions and key informant interviews, and collecting personal experiences from the people affected in Gaza about their struggles to obtain essential resources. Research is important to mobilize resources to support students and colleagues in academia so they can provide for their basic needs. The world has an opportunity to learn from these innovative resilience modalities and create policies to reformulate and enhance our food system and its resilience. We cannot conduct quantitative research on the level of contamination within Gaza because there are no laboratories left, so we focus on what we can do, which is social research, not just to reflect the level of crime but also on how to rehabilitate and rebuild our independent nation.

Q. What insight would you like to share with students at York University that you think they could learn from your students in Palestine?

Universities are not just fancy buildings with equipment – the students and the faculty, the community they create, are what constitutes a university. The Palestinian resilience model provides evidence that universities exist beyond the infrastructure. We had 10,000 students sign up for classes after their university campus was destroyed. The students continue to work from tents with no electricity or Wi-Fi connection. We resumed operations despite these challenges because we believe education is awareness and we can make better decisions when we are well-informed. Education allows us to build our perspective rather than rely on external sources and propaganda to shape our worldviews. A message that I can share is: just go to your lectures, education is very important.

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Read also Toronto Star article titled 'If we stop education, we might as well stop living’: How this prof at York University fights to keep teaching his students back home in Gaza. Dr. Shaban will also deliver a talk at the EUC Geography Colloquium this Friday, January 31st at HNES 141, 11.30am-12.30pm on "Food Resilience Amid Conflict: The Use of Food as a Weapon in Gaza and Community Coping Mechanisms".

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