Palestinian refugee children’s opportunity to quality education

This discussion report is written in relation to the theme “Refugee children’s opportunity to quality education” at Workshop 1: “Promoting the Well-being of the Palestine refugee child”, at the UNRWA conference debating the future of humanitarian assistance for Palestine refugees, to be held in Geneva between 7-8 June 2004, where the overarching theme is ‘Meeting the Humanitarian Needs of the Palestine Refugees in the Near East—Building Partnerships in Support of UNRWA.’ The conference is hosted by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) on behalf of the Swiss government. Working Group 1 is chaired by Sweden and co-chaired by UNICEF. The present thematic report was written for—and with the assistance—of UNESCO, the official presenter for the sub-theme on quality education. It has benefited from the strong support of UNRWA, the Swedish Consulate/Jerusalem and from the dedicated workshop co-ordinator from the Olof Palme International Center in Stockholm. The author is responsible for the choice and the presentation of the facts contained in this documentation and for the opinions expressed therein, which are not necessarily those of UNESCO and do not commit the Organization. The paper sets out to examine the extent to which Palestine refugee children are receiving quality education in the schools managed by UNRWA in the five Fields in which it operates, namely the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. In so doing, it will identify the challenges that UNRWA has to face, provide an account of how such challenges are being addressed, and highlight what still needs to be done. First, however, it is essential to define what is being understood by ‘quality education’, as this will frame both the account of what was observed in the field, as well as the analysis and recommendations that follow. It is also important to provide a brief outline of the methodology used in the compilation of this study, in order to put the reader in a better position to evaluate the soundness of the data presented.peer-reviewe