Educational Policies and Questions of “Inclusion” in the Middle East: The Case of the Palestinian Refugees

Palestinian refugees are the only ethnically defined refugee group worldwide that has an UN organization dedicated exclusively at its needs: the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency), whose mandate originally was limited to a three year relief program for the 750 000 Palestinian refugees who in 1948 fled the territory of what is nowadays Israel. By now, UNRWA is catering to the third generation of those refugees, which, due to the demographic development, today comprise almost 5 Million persons.

Regarding questions of inclusion and educational policy, UNRWA represents a unique case: financed by Western governments, the agency has set up 700 schools in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, thereby providing free education to almost 500.000 children and youths – separated from the respective national school systems, and drawing on a staff of 22 000 teachers who are mainly refugees themselves. The international debate on inclusion has also had its repercussions in UNRWA, and in January 2013 the agency presented its own concept of inclusion. However, because UNRWA is officially an aid organization without a political mandate, the paper does not explicitly broach the issue of the social exclusion (and victimhood to violence) of their clients in the “host states”.

This presentation aims at depicting an outline of the paradoxes of UNRWA as an organization when it comes to “inclusion”; excerpts from interviews will illustrate the biographical relevance of UNRWA education and the exclusion of Palestinian refugees.