Educational Policy and Arab Nationalism in Mandatory Palestine

Abstract

Recent events in newly independent and still dependent territories in the Middle East and elsewhere have again demonstrated the close relation between national agitation and the schools. Movements of national independence and political agitation against foreign rulers or unpopular national governments in such territories often seek some support for their cause in the schools, occasionally and secretly among the teachers, but more frequently and openly among the students. The purpose of this paper is to examine such a situation in mandatory Palestine as a typical case 1. The mandatory regime proved to be a break with Ottoman educational practice. Thus the control by the Government of Palestine of the Arab educational system was direct and complete: all administrative and higher executive posts were placed in British hands, and such local education committees as survived the change of rulers became consultative only, strictly under official control. In their struggle for national independence the Arabs always maintained that in this particular respect the mandatory government usurped their municipal rights. This claim was made in a memorandum submitted in I925 to the Leage of Nations' Permanent Mandates Commission. 2 They argued that municipalities as organs of local government had fairly wide powers and duties with regard to education during the Turkish days. These powers were either completely assumed by the new govern-