Education Research and Development Programme (ERDP)

The Educational Research and Development Programme (ERDP) team worked on developing plans for upcoming years in light of the strategic plan and decisions taken by the Board of Trustees. This required making critical decisions towards a fundamental transformation of the valuable experiment undertaken by the programme in the past two decades, and rethinking the general structure of the ERDP, not as an independent unit, but as a vital component of the overall structure of A.M. Qattan Foundation.

During this reporting period, the ERDP provided special educational resources through its Publication and Translation track, the two branches of the library in Ramallah and the Gaza Strip, and through its new spaces at the new cultural centre, such as the Experimental Classroom.The Publishing and Translation track published Arabic translations of Who Needs Examinations?: A Story of Climbing Ladders and Dodging Snakes by John White translated by Walid al-Swirki; Starting Teaching Drama by Mike Fleming translated by Issa Bishara; The Book of Science and Museums: Hand of Learning and the Experience of Imagination with contributions by several authors translated by Walid al-Swirki and finally, Reading the World: What Young Children Learn From Literature by Sandra Smidt, translated by Sirin Hleileh and Abdullah Bayyari. The ERDP has also given rights to a third edition of Ziad Khaddash’s book entitled Beautiful Times for Our Succulent Mistakes to Darat al-Maha in Nazareth.

The Leila Miqdadi al-Qattan Library opened its doors to visitors on 20 March 2019 and began lending books on 1 April. Within two months -from the beginning of April until the end of May- the number of visitors reached more than 4000 people including children, adults, and students.

The reporting period saw the creation of the Childhood Forum as a lab for planning and exchanging experiences, through developing and reflecting on new plans and applying them to kindergartens. Early childhood educators participated in the Science Days Festival, while some of them worked as facilitators in the new educators' group.  

In January, winter courses were held in Jericho with the participation of 120 teachers from Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The 2019 Summer School took place for the 13^th consecutive year in the city of Jarash in Jordan. 101 teachers from Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Sudan joined for a period of 10 days (3-13 July 2019).

Within the framework of science education, a course entitled Thinking Science Differently: Sciences through Exhibitions, Arts and Inquiry was offered. The course was led by Nader Wahbeh alongside a group of researchers and exhibit developers, targeting 25 new science teachers. During the 2019 Science Festival entitled “Network of Life”, a summer course involved 52 new teachers who wanted to take part in the Science Festival. The programme also organized courses, meetings to develop theme-related scientific activities with the supporting teachers, workshops and visits to the areas where the festival would be held. 21 teachers have also participated in a course on using science fiction in education.  A workshop on reflective writing for developing teachers’ writings was held, resulting in five reflective texts produced during the festival which were later featured in the 59-60 issue of Ruá Tarbawiyya. 

In animation, a group of female students were trained in editing and filming in Beit al-Nisa’s Centre in Anabta, after they produced a film entitled The Rooster Who went to his Uncle’s Wedding. The ERDP has also collaborated with the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music (ESNCM) to produce the soundtrack of the film. In the Teacher’s Forum, teachers initiated various activities and events in different areas in partnership with civil society institutions and schools. The Cinema in Education programme intersected with the rest of Research Programme projects, implementing several workshops within the various Professional Development programmes.

During this reporting period, the Science Studio organized the “Echo” exhibition; an interactive scientific exhibition on sound and its phenomena and on soundscapes related to nature and the environment. Sada also featured exhibits representing sound in musicology and musical instruments. The Science Studio has also developed subprogrammes as part of its general educational programme targeting the public, an open visits programme for families and another for schools. During the exhibition period, 15 visits by 10 different schools were registered from the cities and villages of Hebron, Tulkarem, Nablus, Jericho, Jerusalem and Ramallah. The Science Studio also developed programmes such as Wamdat explored scientific topics and themes through playing, experimenting and capacity-building; the create-animate-film programme which includes a variety of activities on how to create animations using raw materials and simple programmes; the Cinema Studio programme which aims to screen a series of films followed by discussion sessions and other relevant activities; An Hour of Tinkering which is a crafts workshop aiming to create contexts for craft making including storytelling to encourage kids to imagine and create a variety of objects inspired by different stories and contexts. 350 children have participated in these activities with their families throughout the year.

Science Days Palestine Festival 2019 was held in the Foundation’s headquarters as part of the “Network of Life: Inspirations by Scientist Alexander Von Humboldt” theme and explored the relationship of human beings with nature. Works focussed on the theme of travelling in nature, the need to explore it, our relationship with other living beings through immersion in Palestinian nature. The activities of the festival took place from 8^th until the 10^th of November at the Child Centre in Gaza, the Teacher Centre in Ni’lin, the Research programme office in Gaza and in schools and kindergartens. The festival was attended by nearly 1400 children and their families, students and teachers, including 450 people as general audience and 540 students during 18 school visits.

Through the studio, the programme contributed to organising the 8^th edition of the Nuwwar Nisan Festival between 18-20 April in Ramallah and Jerusalem. The festival, entitled “The Daffodils and Poppies have blossomed”, attracted approximately 1300 children from different age groups.

In this project implemented by A.M. Qattan Foundation in partnership with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), three axes were pursued: first, completing work on sites and focussing on the production and treatment process (in Anabta, Ni’lin and Khan Yunis), taking a research-based and artistic approach to understand society and its transformations; second, a documentation and reflection phase of the project during which research seminars and dialogues took place starting September 2019. These seminars are considered the first step towards producing critical papers and research material on the project; third, building the project vision phase in its second cycle (2020-2023). The project vision was written during the second cycle, and the project was built with an action plan and a project budget over four years with the approval of SDC, given that implementation commences in January 2020.