Making the Grade: The State of Education in Palestine

Defying occupation, poverty and rampant fear of Israeli violence, Palestinians have a 99 percent literacy rate, the highest in the Arab world.

But getting educated comes at a cost for students and their teachers who must contend with more than 1,100 Israeli Military Orders that regulate everything from curfews to what can and cannot be studied in school. They face random school closures, harassment by Israeli residents of illegal colonial settlements and by IDF soldiers at checkpoints on the roadways and at the Apartheid Wall. Teachers report massive vandalism at the hands of IDF troops, children as young as 12 can be held in administrative detention indefinitely and even toddlers 4 and younger can suffer at the hands of a cruel, overzealous Israeli soldier.