Palestinian education ‘under attack’, leaving a generation close to losing hope, study warns

The ongoing war in Gaza will set children and young people’s education back by up to 5 years and risks creating a lost generation of permanently traumatised Palestinian youth, a new study warns.

The report, by a team of academics working in partnership with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), is the first to comprehensively quantify the war’s toll on learning since it began in October 2023. It also details the devastating impact on children, young people and teachers, supported by new accounts from frontline staff and aid workers.

The study was a joint undertaking involving researchers at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge and the Centre for Lebanese Studies, in partnership with UNRWA. It shows that Gaza’s children have already lost 14 months of education since 2019 due to COVID-19, earlier Israeli military operations, and the current war.

On this basis and using information such as global post-COVID-19 education recovery data, the researchers model several potential futures for Gaza’s younger generation, depending on when the war ends and how quickly the education system is restored.

The most optimistic prediction – assuming an immediate ceasefire and rapid international effort to rebuild the education system – is that students will lose 2 years of learning. If the fighting continues until 2026, the losses could stretch to 5 years. This does not account for the additional effects of trauma, hunger and forced displacement, all of which are deepening Gaza’s education crisis.

Without urgent, large-scale international support for education, the researchers suggest that there is a significant threat not just to students’ learning, but their overall faith in the future and in concepts such as human rights. Despite this, the study shows that education has been deprioritised in international aid efforts, in favour of other areas. “Education, simply put, is not seen as lifesaving,” the report warns.

Professor Pauline Rose, Director of the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre, University of Cambridge, said: “Palestinian education is under attack in Gaza. Israeli military operations have had a significant effect on learning.”

“As well as planning for how we rebuild Gaza’s shattered education system, there is an urgent need to get educational support for children now. Education is a right for all young people. We have a collective responsibility to protect it.”

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 10,600 children and 400 teachers had been killed in Israeli military operations by August 2024, and more than 15,300 students and 2,400 teachers injured. Hundreds of thousands of young people have been displaced and are living in shelters.

Satellite images analysed by the Occupied Palestinian Territory Education Cluster have verified that over 90 per cent of schools have been damaged, many beyond repair. Since August, UNRWA has provided education in the shelters, reaching about 8,000 children, but the study warns that much more is needed to mitigate lost learning, which was already considerable following COVID-19.

The researchers calculate that 14 months of lost schooling so far have increased ‘learning poverty’ – the proportion of children unable to read a basic text by age 10 – by at least 20 percentage points. The accurate figure may be even higher, as the calculation does not account for the wider impacts of the war on children and teachers.

The study draws together information from different sources and includes a comprehensive involvement of the Education Cluster and Cluster partners sharing their inputs, challenges and progress to enrich the report. The report provides a comprehensive overview of those broader effects. It highlights the devastating psychological consequences for Palestinian children who were already living ‘in constant fear and lack of hope’ after 17 years of blockade, according to a 2022 report by Save The Children.

Professor Maha Shuayb, Director of the Centre for Lebanese Studies, said: “Young people’s prospects in Gaza are being extinguished and our findings show that with it they are losing hope. Education is central to stabilising that spiral of decline. If it is simply erased, the consequences will be far-reaching.”

Save The Children has estimated that more than 10 children per day have lost limbs since the war began. The report warns of rising numbers of less visible disabilities, which will put further strain on an education system ill-equipped to support children with special needs.

The study suggests that continuous shock and suffering are now shaping children’s outlook and world views. Interviewees reported some children questioning values such as equality, human rights and tolerance when these are taught in the shelters. “This is a full generation of trauma,” one humanitarian aid official said; “it will take a generation to overcome it.”

The report highlights the immense suffering teachers and counsellors have endured physically and mentally. The killings, displacement and daily realities of life during war have taken a tremendous toll on their ability to engage meaningfully in education and will, it says, adversely affect reconstruction efforts.

Professor Yusuf Sayed, from the University of Cambridge, said: “It is important to recognise teachers and counsellors have, like the rest of the population, suffered immensely. There is evidence of extraordinary commitment from educators striving to maintain learning, but inevitably the deprivation, killings and hardship are affecting their ability to do so.”

Despite a flash appeal from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the analysis shows that just 3.5 per cent of aid for Gaza has been invested in education. Major donors like the US and Germany have neglected education in their aid packages, and blockades continue to hinder the delivery of resources on the ground.

Without more funding and access to learning, structured play and other forms of support, the report warns, the long-term repercussions for Gaza’s next generation will only worsen.

It calls for immediate steps focusing on the resumption of education, which include providing counselling, safe learning spaces, and support for students and educators with disabilities. It also calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and an end to occupation, in line with the International Court of Justice advisory opinion and UN recently-adopted resolution, as only then can Gaza’s education system be rebuilt. This will require a focus on recruiting more teachers and counsellors to cope with the scale of learning loss and trauma suffered by children and young people.

“Education is the only asset the Palestinian people have not been dispossessed of. They have proudly invested in the education of their children in the hope for a better future. Today, more than 625,000 deeply traumatised school-aged children are living in the rubble in Gaza. Bringing them back to learning should be our collective priority. Failing to do that will not only lead to a lost generation but also sow the seeds for more extremism, hatred and violence”, said Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA Commissioner General.

The study also stresses that Palestinians themselves must lead the education recovery. “A ceasefire is the key for the success of any human development activity in Gaza, including education,” the authors write. “Children have seen that the international community will sit idly by as they are killed. This has left them with questions about values that schools and learning aim to instil around humanitarian principles that teachers will have to navigate.”

The full report, Palestinian Education Under Attack in Gaza: Restoration, Recovery, Rights and Responsibilities in and through Education, is now available online.