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Eastern Jerusalem Schools Swap Palestinian Curriculum for Israeli Program
(Ha'aretz) Nir Hasson - All newly opened grades in public schools in Palestinian-majority eastern Jerusalem will use the Israeli curriculum as the school year begins Tuesday. After Israel annexed eastern Jerusalem in 1967, the education system in the Palestinian areas of the city taught the Jordanian curriculum, which was later replaced by the Palestinian curriculum. This year - after a long process that began at the initiative of parents, followed by Israeli government pressure on school principals in the city - all new first grade and seventh grade classes opening in the state education system in eastern Jerusalem will use the Israeli curriculum. This means 45,000 students (38%) of a total of 120,000 Palestinian students in eastern Jerusalem will study the Israeli curriculum. In 2020, 13,000 students studied the Israeli curriculum, while in 2025 the number had risen to 30,000. After the construction of the security barrier in the early 2000s, which separated Israel and most of eastern Jerusalem from the West Bank, increasing numbers of Jerusalem Palestinians looked for jobs in the Israeli labor market. Demand for the Israeli curriculum and Hebrew language studies increased as a path toward integration into Israeli higher education and the Israeli job market. For many years, parent committees and Palestinian activists in the city opposed the introduction of the Israeli curriculum, but opposition gradually waned as demand for it grew. According to sources in the Jerusalem Municipality, in contrast with prior years, this school year there is no significant opposition to the Israelization process among Palestinians in the city.