Supporting Inclusive Education During Covid 19

Palestine has a high literacy rate (a little over 97%) and education is considered a national and personal asset. After the break out of the Covid 10 pandemic, the whole educational process was interrupted as the country went into a lock down with limited readiness for online or distant education. The complexity of the issue was threefold: no digital content was available, both teachers and students lacked technical skills and there was a clear digital gap in terms of infrastructure and equipment. The problem was even worse for the marginalized groups and areas as the stress on financial resources added extra hardship. The Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology carried out several interventions to enable the continuation of the educational process by addressing the main issues. In collaboration with the Ministry of Education and private sector, a training program was organized for school teachers who teach the technology topic. Over 170 teachers were trained in online (digital) educational content creation, management and online teaching practices. These teachers, in turn, were trainers at their schools and districts. Digital inclusion was another intervention. The Ministry partnered with the private sector and the Ministry of Education to enable schools in marginalized areas to have access to the Internet using wireless or microwave services. Some schools benefited from free Internet access and computer equipment. The Ministry arranged from free access to educational resources, a no-cost increase in the speed of the Internet and deferred payments for the benefit of the educational sector. This also included higher education where professors were provided with free equipment in some cases and several Internet wireless providers were licensed to meet the increasing demand. The overall impact was keeping education accessible by all walks of the society in a safe and equitable fashion.