According to UNICEF representative James Elder, the situation in the sector remains critical: 60 percent of school-age children are unable to learn in person, more than 90 percent of schools are damaged or destroyed, and more than 335,000 children under five are at risk of serious developmental delays due to the collapse of services.
Progress has come to a halt
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Elder emphasized that before the war, Gaza had a high literacy rate, with education serving as a key element for sustainability and development. Today, schools, universities and libraries have been destroyed, and many years of progress have virtually come to naught.
“Every child deprived of the opportunity to learn is a potential engineer, doctor or teacher whom we lose before they can change their world,” Elder said.
How the program works
Together with the Palestinian Ministry of Education, the United Nations Relief Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and other partners, UNICEF is developing a network of multifunctional training centers. Children will receive basic reading, writing and math skills, psychosocial and mental health support, and access to health, nutrition and protection services.
UNICEF now supports more than 100 such centers, but demand far outstrips capacity: everywhere there are long waiting lists and families are setting up makeshift classrooms in tents and collapsed buildings.
“Learning saves lives”
James Elder noted that education in Gaza is not a secondary issue, even amid shortages of water, food and shelter. Training centers provide security and access to vital information, making them part of the humanitarian response.
UNICEF is also continuing to supply winter clothing and thermal blankets to Gaza, and is working to restore water treatment systems and reopen nutrition centers.
“Hope Becomes Reality”
Almost half of Gaza’s population are children. To provide education to 336 thousand schoolchildren by the end of the year, UNICEF needs $86 million. “That’s about what the world spends on coffee for an hour or two,” Elder said.
He emphasized that the “Return to Learning” program is a bridge to the restoration of a full-fledged education system, and not a replacement for it: “Our task now is to return elements of normal life to children and show them the direction of development. Hope becomes reality.”
