Launch of Palestinian education pilot programme, 18 August 2025

This week Forward Thinking in coordination with SHAF, Queen’s University Belfast and St Mary’s University College Belfast, launched our week-long pilot programme in Cairo. This project emerged at the request of the Palestinian Minister of Education in Ramallah during discussions at our Cairo conference hosted under the auspices of the Arab League earlier this year. This conference was aimed at restoring Gaza’s social fabric.

Queen’s University Belfast deliver sessions in Cairo

Meeting with the Deputy Education Minister in Ramallah

Under the Ministry’s guidance, we engaged Queen’s University Belfast and St Mary’s University to help deliver the programme in Cairo this week. The Minister for Education nominated 25 Palestinian teachers who had been evacuated from Gaza to Egypt to participate in the course. Topics covered this week have included trauma-informed pedagogy, education in conflict-affected societies, education structures and curriculum design.

Over the past two years, childhood in Gaza has all but disappeared. Nearly all of Gaza’s 1.1 million children require urgent mental health and psychosocial support. More than 95% of schools have been damaged or destroyed, and most children have been out of school for nearly two academic years. Some schools now serve as makeshift shelters; others have been struck during the fighting. The devastation extends beyond physical infrastructure. With teachers displaced, traumatised, and in many cases killed, Gaza’s education system will require not just rebuilding, but renewal.