Curriculum Development and Guidance: Music and Graphic Design Palestinian Technical College

Background

The cooperation with PTC started in 2007 after the union's delegation was introduced to the College by the Director General from Ministry of Education and Higher Education. The reason for entering this cooperation was to exchange knowledge and experiences in the educational and cultural sector (music)and to support women's access to the labour market and women's education. The college is only for women students. A few years later the college asked the union to help establish a graphic design section in the college, which was accepted. In fall 2000 the second Intifada started and this affected the college both physically since it was more times hidden and destroyed by bombs and the communication and transportation situation for the students was in periods very risky.

The evaluation touches this situation, and also the fact that the union in Norway merged from 2002 and started to develop its international solidarity profile, visits to the areas were rare and the troublesome political situation in Palestine combined with the kind of educational certificate a technical college provides turned out to influence the cooperation and the success of the study programs.

Purpose/objective

"A review of the status of the two study programmes according to the requirements of the Palestinian society when it comes to education policy, women's participation in the working life and women's liberation. The study should provide useful information to PTC in it's constantly work to improve the study programmes and to both PTC and UEN when it comes to developing strategies for future cooperation"

Methodology

A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods is being used.
The quantitative part is especially linked to number of students enrolled, passed and dropped out, records of the students' averages (marks) and number of graduates employed. Statistical calculates were made for some points in the standard questionnaires used for students and teachers. The statistics in the report are meant to illustrate some trends, but the selection of students is too small to predict any definite answers.
The qualitative part of the evaluation was mainly in-depth interviews with key people in the project both in Norway and the West Bank. Both Norwegian and Arabic were used. Most interviews were done face-to-face, and the main interviews were written out in English and sent to those concerned for reviewing. This should decrease the chances for misunderstandings and misinterpretation of information. The questionnaires were open-ended.
The main sources of information were the students, teachers, the administration, various departments in the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, principals in schools that employ graduates as music of arts teachers, professionals in same fields, sometimes competing. For the graphic design, people in the local community and in the local markets were informants. In Norway much time was spent on reviewing documents, files and financial records.

Key findings

Main findings targetted the ongoing work on developing the newly merged union's solidarity work profile; Focus was on human dimensions by the cooperation, lack of regular communication, especially rare visits to the area. On the other hand the lack of written agreements and the mainly oral reports were also obvious and affected the cooperation. UEN was criticized for not giving exact information about Norad and financial routines.

Music: fewer students each year, lack of status for music education, lack of motivation, curriculum too theoretical, too little focus on Palestinian heritage and culture, high turn over among teachers, teachers have little influence on decisions.

Graphic design: fewer students for each year, graduates have good average remarks, GD is gradually gaining prestige, low access to computers gives little training, Palestinian heritage focussed in the curriculum. High turn over of teachers, little influence given teachers, only 5 out of 29 unemployed, mostly working as art teachers or in private companies.

Recommendations

The overall recommendation for all three partners (MoHE, UEN and PTC) was to strengthen the dialogue and increase the level of contact with each other, establishing a project group, develop a contract with specific deadlines etc. and if necessary hire a local person to follow up on this. The MoHE was recommended to see if the diploma system at PTC could be developed into a modular system, upgrade the teachers competence into PhD and help to make it possible for the talented students to study abroad, for instance in Norway. UEN was also recommended to look into ways of integrating its policy of supporting teachers trade unions into the project at PTC. The administration at PTC should trust the teachers and make short interim reports to avoid reimbursing funds for Norad.

There were also given recommendations for both study programs.

Comments from the organisation

The lack of written agreements and reports are partly right. The UEN used to have regular visits to the area and then seek information to make their own reports and recommendations for next year's needs. The lack of communication and visits affected the cooperation from two sides: the merger and the intifada.
The concrete critics about when transferring funds and Norad's financial routines, the UEN consider as the sayings of the partner, and we agree that it needed to be improved. But we underline that this is a two sided issue, and both partners have to relate to this.