On July 27, the Palestinian Ministry of Training launched the outcomes of the secondary training certificates exams, often known as tawjihi. Like yearly, households sat collectively, eyes mounted on telephone screens, hearts pounding, everybody hoping to be the primary to entry the ministry’s web site and break the information with a jubilant shout. There have been joyful tears and celebrations.
Hundreds of scholars, who had endured months of stress, sleepless nights and fragile hope, had the examination ends in their fingers that may decide whether or not and the place they might proceed their training.
However hundreds of others – these in Gaza – had been sitting of their tents and ruined properties in despair. I’m considered one of them. That is the second yr I, together with 31,000 different Palestinians born in 2006, was unable to take the tawjihi. For one more yr, we now have been stripped of our proper to proceed our training and of the hope to construct a future past the ruins. Now, we’re joined by virtually 40,000 college students born in 2007, who’re additionally caught on this dreadful limbo.
Final yr, when the tawjihi outcomes had been introduced, I used to be huddled in entrance of a crackling hearth close to a tattered tent, far too small to carry my huge desires. The deep frustration I felt didn’t fade – it settled in my thoughts and stayed. All I might take into consideration was how all my sacrifices, tears, and relentless effort throughout a full yr of learning underneath troublesome circumstances had been for nothing.
This yr, it feels even worse. Not solely are my desires of training crushed, now I wrestle to maintain myself and my household alive, as Gaza is ravenous to loss of life.
In these two years, I’ve watched our training system destroyed, classroom by classroom. My college, Shohada al-Nusierat, as soon as a spot of studying and desires, first turned a shelter housing displaced households after which a goal for Israeli bombing. My schoolbag – as soon as crammed with notebooks and examine supplies – now carries important paperwork and a change of garments, at all times packed and prepared in case we’re pressured to flee our house once more. The tutorial calendar, with all its essential dates, has been changed by a grim schedule of air strikes, displacement, and lack of associates and family members.
Amid this devastation, the Training Ministry has struggled to maintain an academic course of going. Wanting to offer Gaza’s kids and youth hope, it has undertaken numerous initiatives to attempt to maintain college students motivated. Makeshift colleges have been organised wherever attainable, whereas some college college students have been in a position to proceed their training on-line.
For us, the tawjihi college students, efforts had been repeatedly made to arrange our exams. Final yr, the ministry introduced it will conduct the exams in February. I stored learning, regardless of the tough actuality and the collapse of all the pieces round me, believing this was my likelihood to maneuver ahead.
February handed, and nothing occurred. The ministry then introduced that the exams could be held in April. However as soon as once more, they had been postponed as a result of unsafe situations. Then, in June, the ministry scheduled an internet examination for July for college kids born in 2005 who had both failed their tawjihi or missed a few of its exams; they had been presupposed to have achieved this examination in December 2023. Some 1,500 college students had been in a position to take the assessments on-line.
This gave me a little bit of hope that my flip would additionally come, however that shortly pale. The Ministry of Training hasn’t given us any updates on the method, and it looks like we’ve been utterly forgotten within the shadow of warfare and hunger.
Some readers could ask themselves, why amid a genocide are Palestinians so preoccupied with an examination?
You must perceive, tawjihi is a milestone in each Palestinian’s life – a decisive second that shapes future paths for at the very least the subsequent 5 years. It determines whether or not we will pursue our training within the discipline we want and achieve admission to high universities.
However past lecturers, tawjihi carries a a lot deeper cultural and emotional weight. It isn’t simply an academic part – it’s a part of our id, a logo of perseverance. In a spot the place the occupation closes almost each door, training is ready to maintain just a few doorways nonetheless open.
That’s why we have fun it like a nationwide vacation; the day tawjihi outcomes are launched looks like a 3rd Eid for Palestinians. It offers households hope, brings satisfaction to total neighbourhoods, and retains alive the dream of a greater future.
Over the various months I waited for the tawjihi, I held on to my dream to check drugs at a prestigious college overseas. I stored making use of for scholarships and sending emails to universities throughout the US, the UK and Europe, hoping for particular consideration as a scholar affected by warfare. I pleaded with college directors to waive the tawjihi certificates requirement.
However the responses had been painfully constant: “Sadly, we can not contemplate your utility until you present your closing diploma.”
As we speak, despair and helplessness usually are not the one undesirable guests I’ve. Starvation is one other one. The hunger has destroyed not solely my physique but in addition my psychological well being.
Most days, we handle to have one meal. We survive totally on canned beans, dry bread, or rice with none greens or protein. Our our bodies are weak, our faces pale, and our vitality virtually nonexistent. The consequences transcend the bodily. Starvation fogs the mind, dulls reminiscence and crushes motivation. It turns into almost unattainable to focus, not to mention examine for a life-changing examination just like the tawjihi. How can I put together for a very powerful examination of my life when my abdomen is empty and my thoughts clouded by fatigue and fear?
It feels as if my youth has been stolen earlier than my eyes, and I can do nothing however watch. Whereas my friends around the globe are constructing their futures, I stay caught in a spot of overwhelming ache and loss.
As a tawjihi scholar trapped in a warzone, I urgently name on academic authorities and worldwide establishments to step in and implement rapid options to make sure our proper to training shouldn’t be buried underneath the rubble of warfare.
We’re not asking for a lot. Giving us an opportunity to complete our secondary training in Gaza isn’t just a matter of logistics, however a matter of justice and future survival.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.