The press conference, which was held at the Fatih Ali Emiri Wedding Hall earlier on Tuesday, was attended by Hind Almutawwa (Qatar), Chairman of the We Are All Maryam forum, Hitam Shade, the member of the Board of Directors of the forum and the representative for Lebanon, Ayşegül Bayıcı, the head of the forum’s Turkey branch, and some NGO representatives supporting the platform.

A press statement regarding the educational problems that Palestinian children face in Quds was read out in Turkish, Arabic, and English at the conference.

The full text of the English version of the statement is as follows:

Statement of the "My School in Al-Quds " campaign by We Are All Maryam international forum

Motivated by our responsibility in “We Are All Maryam” International Forum towards the people of Al-Quds woman and child, and our belief in the necessity of standing by the mothers who wait for their children to return from school with fear and anxiety due to the existence of security checkpoints, the apartheid wall, snipers and other obstacles that may let the mother meet her son while his blood is spilled on his books…

Since its occupation of Palestine in the Nakba in 1948, the Israeli authorities have sought to change the Palestinian landmarks in all, cultural, social, health and educational fields.

Some institutions were destroyed and others closed, and it continued to work to weaken the performance of the remaining ones by subjecting them to the occupation authority and its institutions, as part of a scheme that seeks to displace the residents of Al-Quds and empty it of its people in an effort to Judaize it, and since the education sector has a key role in raising a conscious generation that knows its rights..and belongs to its nation..and works to liberate its homeland.

Therefore, education was a target of the israeli occupation working to weaken and destroy it.

Based on the foregoing, we note that there are great challenges facing education in Al-Quds:

First: The absence of a unified reference:

1-Some schools are supervised by the Israeli Ministry of Education and Al-Quds Municipality.

2-Others are supervised by The Awqaf and UNRWA.

3-And the private schools that the occupation authorities exercise restrictions on to teach their distorted curriculum

Second: Curriculum:

People of Al-Quds are fighting a battle against the occupation authorities for not adopting the Israeli curriculum, which is based on distortion and falsification of history, and the deletion of everything related to the issues of the Palestinian right and the occupied land, in addition to deleting all the massacres and violations committed by the occupation against the Palestinians, their lands and their homes.

Third: Poor school infrastructure in Al-Quds:

This is due to the lack of the necessary capabilities to provide buildings and school equipments which leads to depriving a large number of students of educational opportunities.

Fourth: Shortage in teachers:

This is due to the difficulty of moving from outside the occupied Al-Quds to inside it, in light of the existence of the apartheid wall, and the occupation’s refusal to grant them the necessary permits, in addition to the severe racism at the occupation’s barriers such as deliberate humiliation and even physical violence; which leads to the cancellation of some classes or delays.

Fifth: The lack of teachers’ salaries in the Ministry of Awqaf compared to the salaries of the teachers of the Israeli Ministry of Education and the Al-Quds Municipality, which negatively affects the quality of education.

Sixth: School Dropouts because of:

1.Deliberate administrative negligence in schools supervised by the Israeli Ministry of Education and the Israeli occupation municipality.

2.Students need to work to support their families.

For example, the dropout rate in the ninth grade reached 10%, 20% in the tenth grade, 30% in the eleventh grade, 36% in the twelfth grade, and this affected the rate of those enrolled in university studies to reach only 50% of the number of students.

Based on the foregoing, education in Al-Quds requires support at all levels by working to strengthen the steadfastness of people of Al-Quds on their land and protecting their right to education as a way to preserve their identity and survival, and that is through:

1-Maintaining school buildings and paying teachers’ salaries, with the aim of dispensing with the conditional funding provided by the Ministry of Education and the occupation municipality in Al-Quds.

2-Raise people of Al-Quds awareness of the importance of refusing teaching their children the Israeli curricula.

3-Working to expose Israeli practices against education in Al-Quds through the media and social media networks.

4-The need to work on unifying the reference in educational institutions by the available legal methods.

5-Securing financial support for the families of Al-Quds; so that their children do not have to drop out to work to support them.

6-Training and qualifying teachers in Al-Quds to preserve the national identity and to resist the occupation and its Judaizing procedures.

7-Activating the role of the United Nations organizations to protect students while crossing the Israeli barriers to reach their schools.

In light of the challenges that are now facing the children of occupied Al-Quds and threatening their future, and as one of the goals of the We Are All Maryam International Forum is to preserve the rights of the people of Al-Quds, especially the right to education, the Forum undertakes several procedures that it launches through "My School in Al-Quds " campaign which are as follows:

1.Coordination with “We Are All Maryam” Forum teams in the world for field visits to schools to familiarize students with the problem of education in Al-Quds.

2.Launching a global online campaign on all social media networks to shed light on the reality of education in Al-Quds through the hashtag

 #Save_Education_in_Al-Quds.

3.Sponsorship of the following projects:

-school sponsorship in Al-Quds.

-support teachers of Al-Quds.

-support of Al-Quds Families.

4.Correspond with all humanitarian and human rights organizations and the United Nations organizations to carry out their duties towards the children of Al-Quds.

Al-Quds, with its strong people, its oppressed women, and children, will remain a symbol of steadfastness.

Share the campaign with us using the hashtag #Save_Education_in_Al-Quds                       (ILKHA)