MIFTAH
Friday, 29 March. 2024
 
Your Key to Palestine
The Palestinian Initiatives for The Promotoion of Global Dialogue and Democracy
 
 
 

Ramallah -Late last month, MIFTAH organized a two-day training workshop on "developing the citizen's card". This comes after a joint framework was signed between MIFTAH and Ministry of Education's general directorate for student’s activities and social work participating in the Tajaawob program "Reviving parent councils". The project is aimed at developing mechanisms for social accountability and developing an advocacy and lobbying plan as part of the advocacy campaign led by the targeted parent councils.

Project coordinator Abeer Zaghari said the goal of the training was to enable parents' councils and student activities departments in the targeted areas to develop a mechanism for accountability on the quality of educational services in these areas. This is in order to improve the process of providing educational services to communities through developing the citizen's card. Information and data on education was gathered from the targeted communities and areas in the project: Qalqilya city; Azzoun and Habla in the Qalqilya district; Froush Beit Djan in the Jordan Valley; Um Salamouna in the Bethlehem district and Abu Dis and Ezzariyeh, in the Jerusalem area.

Zaghari said the advocacy campaign being conducted by the parent councils is part of Tajaawob's project, carried out by a consortium including MIFTAH, AMAN, Ruya, OXFAM and British Media Action under the administration of the British Council and funded by DFID.

Principal of the Froush Beit Djan high school Tawfiq Haj Mohammed, said the workshop enabled them to further their information on how to deal with parent councils. He explained how weak academic achievement was diagnosed and how parents were absent from school activities and involvement in their children's progress and grades. He accredited these things to a number of reasons: high school dropouts, irregular attendance in schools and the economic factor, which plays a significant role in a student's academic achievement. In addition to this, he says the parents themselves are often too preoccupied with their own jobs and responsibilities.

On his expectations from the workshop, Haj Mohammed said: "We want to pinpoint the reasons behind the low scores of our students and why parents are not involved enough in school or parent council activities so that we can find solutions to these two problems."

Haj Mohammed believes the activities department in education directorates must play a role in creating activities for students that will better mold their personalities and develop their skills and capabilities, thereby enriching the curriculum and raising students' academic achievement. He says the reason for these two problems is higher educational policies and the lack of awareness among parents of their role towards schools and students.

One parent council member in the workshop Qassem Abu Jaish said the training offered him more awareness, understanding and information on the weak academic achievements of students and the absence of parents' involvement. "During the workshop we were introduced to ways on how to face these two problems and how they compound the already existing problems. In the past, we did not have the awareness or enough knowledge on the role of parents' councils. Now we are much more aware of their role," he said.

Abu Jaish called on the educational activities department to carry out more extracurricular activities to improve academic achievement and increase the participation of parents.

Samar Qadah, head of the activities department in the Nablus directorate, said her participation in the workshop was aimed at getting parents to understand their roles and promote their participation in the educational process. "It was a very important workshop even though parent participation was affected because it was held during mid-term exams. Still, those who did participate benefited from it a lot, which means all those in their vicinity will benefit as well and parent councils will be more active."

Qadah recommended that the training workshop be conducted in more than one area and for broader participation by parent councils. She also said the workshops should be held on a periodic basis so that all could benefit from them.

Qadah explained that the recommendations would be presented to the education ministry for review so that an agreement could be reached that would serve the goal for which the workshop was organized.

 
 
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