Gaza government condemns UNRWA for excluding religion from digital learning platform

The Palestinian Ministry of Religious Endowments in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday condemned the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)’s exclusion of religion from its digital education platform dedicated to Palestinian refugee students.

In a statement, the Endowments Ministry described this measure as “dangerous” and “targeting the Islamic identity” of the Palestinian refugees.

The ministry called on the Palestinian leadership to pressure UNRWA to upload religious and other omitted materials to the new digital education platform.

On Monday, UNRWA announced that it had launched a new centralised digital education platform designed to improve education access for more than 540,000 refugee students in 711 schools across the Middle East.

In a statement, a copy of which was sent to MEMO, UNRWA announced: “In emergency situations  – such as the COVID-19 pandemic or periods of armed conflict – Palestine refugee children are often unable to physically access their regular schools, risking interruption of their education.”

The organisation added: “In order to ensure learning continuity, the Digital Learning Platform (DLP) was developed to provide UNRWA students (and their parents) with access to age-appropriate, relevant, and safe self-learning material that is in line with UN values and humanitarian principles.”

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