Education, Empowerment, and Control: The Case of the Arabs in Israel

Education in the Ottoman and the Mandatory Periods

2 Education in the Ottoman and the Mandatory Periods The Ottoman Period The Ottoman government assumed, for the first time, responsibility over educational services in the empire in 1846, when a special law was issued to institutionalize free education and the employment of professional secular teachers in addition to the religious teachers. Moreover, while formerly the educational system had been restricted mainly to religious studies, the new system included subjects such as reading, writing, grammar, mathematics , geography, and history (Seraj-Eddin 1951). Another important step forward was made in 1869, when a special law was issued for elementary and secondary education (Yousuf 1956, 93). Secondary schools and senior classes in the elementary schools in the provinces of the empire now came under the direction of each vilayet and an imperial officer who employed relatively better qualified inspectors (ibid.). The lower elementary schools in villages and towns were directed by local committees, which received some support from the Ottoman government. The formal duration of education in these schools was four years, during which religious instruction was provided. The medium of instruction was Turkish with Arabic as a second language (Mari 1978,9; Bowman 1942). Schools for higher education existed only in the capital of the empire and were military oriented (Szyliowitz 1973). 37 38 EDUCATION, EMPOWERMENT, AND CONTROL In 1882, the educational system reCl~ived a further impetus when the government issued a special ICIW stipulating that the income from the waqf (religious foundation for charity) should go to the development of all schools. A special tax was issued for the same purpose (AI-Khalidi 1925). By the tum of the twentieth century, the Ottoman educational system had witnessed major changes, of which the most significant was the Compulsory Primary Educational Law passed in 1913 (Szyliowitz 1973, 167). Another step 1towllfd secularization of the educational system was made when religious schools were placed directly under the Ministry of EduCCltion (ibid.). Curriculum The curriculum in the Ottoman public schools originally was French oriented (Szyliowitz 1973). Having! no curriculum of their own, the Ottomans simply followed the French model, which meant that French textbooks were translated into Turkish and that French standards were adopted (Yousuf 19.56,92). Until 1908, a uniform curriculum existed for all schools in the empire. It was imposed from above by the D«~partment of Education in Istanbul. Once a year, modifications in it were published in Turkish in the annual governmental book Maarif Aumumiah Nazarati. From the beginning, the use of Turkish as a medium of instruction met with opposition from the Arab educated elite in Palestine, who demanded an Arabic curriculum for the Arab schools. This strife was accelerated at the tum of the century, but no tangible changes were achieved until mass demonstrations erupted in Damascus and Beirut, accompanied by general strikes in different Arab regions in the Ottoman Empire, including Palestine . Eventually, in 1913, the Ottoman government agreed to farreaching modifications in the curriculum of the Arab schools, among them the use of Arabic as the medilum of instruction in the elementary schools provided that Turkish formed a second language and the establishment of new secondary schools in which the medium of instruction was to be Arabic while in the existing schools the formal language remained Turkish. In order to carry out the terms of this agreement, the Ottoman government formed a special committee, which saw to it that the formal curriculum was immediately translated into Arabic . Some of the textbooks were brought from other Arab countries The Ottoman and the Mandatory Periods 39 in order to meet the schools' needs. However, the outbreak of the First World War put a temporary halt to these reforms. During the war, Turkish continued to be used in all Ottoman regions until the break-up of the Ottoman Empire (AI-Hussari 1946, 10). Even toward the end of the Ottoman period (1914-1917) the level of education was relatively low. Most schools lacked adequate buildings, equipment, and qualified teachers, though some regions were found to have relatively good schools and could show considerable educational achievements. This fact is reflected in a report by Muhammad Rafiq and Muhammad Bahjat (1917), who toured Arab schools in several parts of Palestine: There were 53 schools for males in the Nablus region with 712 pupils. In addition there were 30 schools for girls with some 400 pupils. The investigation we conducted revealed that some 20 percent of the registered...