Education Wherever You Are: Palestinian Prisoners in Israel Earn College Degrees

It does not matter where you are located. If you have a chance to continue your education, then why not grab it? This is the case of the Palestinian prisoners inside jails in Israel. They earn their college degrees while serving their prison sentences, preparing them for a better life once they have served their time. Jamal Abu Muhsin is one of the lucky ones that availed of the program, and he is now a free man. He is preparing for a new chapter in his life. He earned two college degrees while in jail.

Higher education system

Jamal Abu Muhsin is just one of the more than 100 Palestinian prisoners in Israel that earned their college diplomas while still in prison. The education program was supported by the prison system in Israel for 20 years. It was a pity that it was cut in 2011 when sanctions against prisoners were imposed due to the continued imprisonment of Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier. However, they were still able to continue their education, with the prisoners organizing their own courses, with support from universities in Gaza and the West Bank, according to Palestinian officials.

Opposition leader and one of the most popular Palestinian prisoners, Marwan Barghouti is a master’s degree teacher in Israel Studies. Abu Mushin was his student. He received his doctorate from a university in Egypt in 2010 that is why he is able to teach university-level courses.

Abu Mushin, 42, spent 23 years behind bars. He was only a first year university student when he got incarcerated. Now back in Tubas, his hometown in the West Bank, he said that studying was the thing that got him through his prison stay. He first studied history then writing and languages before he studied economics and sciences. He later earned his bachelor’s degree in political science through long-distance learning from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the second oldest university in Israel. He did not stop at just having a bachelor’s degree. He took a master’s degree program from the Al-Quds University of Palestine.

Start of the education program

It was in the early 1990s when Israel started offering the university courses. Up until now there are still hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli prisons that are continuing their studies. Although the conditions inside the prison are tough, it is said that Israel is the most lenient and practices humane approach to those that were placed behind bars for various offenses, including against religion and politics. Israel still wanted to uphold their rights as human beings.

Positive effects of the program

In the early 2000s the prisoners studied subjects in Hebrew so that the learning materials they used could be easily monitored. Political nationalism, chemistry and physics were deemed dangerous at that time. The prisoners became fluent speakers of the Hebrew language and gained in-depth knowledge of Israeli society. They later held powerful political positions in Palestine when they returned to civilian life, and were able to help in the negotiations for peace in the region.

Access to education is a basic right. For the Palestinians who are serving long sentences in Israeli prison, education became their hope for the future, for their life after they were released. They found that a negative situation could be turned into something positive and worthwhile.

Photo credit: Taken by Meronim under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.