Education in East Jerusalem The Directorate of Education: Establishment, Current Status, Realities, Achievements, and Challenges(1967-2025)

Abstract

This study analyzes the evolution of Palestinian education in East Jerusalem between 1967 and
2025, with particular attention to the role of the Directorate of Education as a key institutional
framework sustaining education under conditions of prolonged settler-colonial domination.
It examines the structural shifts that have shaped the education sector, from early forms of
collective refusal following the occupation, through the consolidation of community-based and
‘waqf educational institutions, to the more recent phase of direct administrative control and the
systematic intensification of Israelization policies, especially after 2019. The study investigates
Israeli modes of intervention in education, including conditional funding schemes, curricular
regulation, direct school management, and interference in the appointment of educational
leadership.

These mechanisms are analyzed as forms of soft structural coercion aimed at redefining the
purpose, content, and social function of education in East Jerusalem. At the same time, the
article highlights forms of educational resilience developed within the Jerusalemite community,
manifested in non-governmental schooling, community initiatives, and reflective pedagogical
practices sustained by teachers despite increasing institutional constraints. Methodologically,
the study adopts a historical-analytical approach drawing on United Nations and human rights
reports, as well as critical literature in the sociology of education and settler-colonial studies. It
argues that education in East Jerusalem remains a central site of contestation over identity and
political existence, and that its preservation requires a context-specific national educational
vision responsive to the city’s distinct legal and political conditions.