“Similarly, the percentage of students enrolled in higher education programs in the Gaza Strip for the academic year 2022/2023 reached 44.3 percent of the total population aged 18 to 24 years, according Ministry of Higher Education statistics. This percentage is closely aligned with the national rate of higher education enrollment, which reached 46 percent during the same time period and for the same age group. It also represents a comparatively high percentage, as indicated by a World Bank report, when compared to the Arab region and the broader region.iv The number of students enrolled in higher education institutions in the academic year 2022/2023 thus reached 88,000, constituting approximately 5 percent of the total population in the Gaza Strip. They were distributed across 19 higher education institutions, including 7 universities and 12 colleges.
Furthermore, indicators underscore qualitative improvements in the education sector. Regional and international rankings of universities have highlighted the advanced levels achieved by some universities in Gaza. For instance, the Islamic University has attained a distinguished position among the top 100 Arab universities in the Arab University Ranking 2022 provided by Times Higher Education ranking. Moreover, the prestigious Dutch publishing company Elsevier acknowledged the high quality of the academic research published in Al-Isra University’s Journal of Applied Science by indexing it in its Scopus database.This underscores the positive achievements that resulted from the substantial investments that were made in the university’s infrastructure and its academic, scientific, and human resources. Furthermore, university students in Gaza have made substantial contributions to their community, whether by aiding in needs assessment and reconstruction efforts or by “actively participa[ting] in community outreach programs, health promotion initiatives, and public health campaigns.” – Excerpt from Education in Gaza by Basri Saleh, This Week in Palestine, Issue 310, February 2024
Here you will find information about the development of the higher education sector in Paelstine in general and in Gaza strip in particular. Further, we provide documented information about its delieberate destruction since 7 October 2024. Fort this, we invite those who can contribute to making the picture more clear to provide us with their studies, reports, interviews, testemonies, photos, and videos.
