Gaza students sit exams in tents as nearly all schools lie in ruins

By Mohammed Nashbat

Hundreds of thousands of students in Gaza are preparing to sit secondary school exams next month in tents, partially destroyed buildings and displacement centres, at a time when nearly all of the territory's educational facilities have been rendered inoperable.

The Tawjihi — the official secondary school examination taken across the Palestinian territories and Jordan — is scheduled to run from 20 June to 8 July. Around 658,000 school-age children have been without in-person education for more than two consecutive years.

UNICEF estimates that 91.8% of educational facilities in Gaza now require complete reconstruction or major rehabilitation. More than 740 schools are entirely out of service while hundreds more have been converted into shelters for displaced people.

Mohammed Hamdan, director of education in central Gaza, told Euronews preparations were being made under conditions he had never encountered before.