Distribution of Schools in Palestine’s Northern Governorates

"Distribution of Schools in the Northern Governorates" in Palestine

1-   Weak effectiveness of the procedures followed by the Ministry of Education in determining the actual need for buildings, as the following was found:

·      The relevant General Directorate in the ministry, the local community, the local councils and the parents' councils did not participate in forming the committees responsible for distributing schools or even coordinate with them to determine the need!

·      The decision to form the committees did not include specific and clear dates for the committee’s work and the periodic submission of results..!

·      There are large discrepancies between what is actually required by the directorates and what was approved by the General Directorate of Buildings..!

·      The Planning Section did not schedule regular field visits to monitor the development of the school network and to participate in providing options for school building sites..!

2-   Absence of the necessary procedures to ensure the implementation of the approved priorities in the process of determining the need...!

·      The ministry did not take any measures... to ensure that the determination of need is carried out according to proper procedures and in a way that ensures the fair distribution of schools, and no role appeared for any entity inside or outside the ministry in overseeing the determination of need..!

·      It did not appear that the ministry conducted studies to measure the impact resulting from the fairness of distribution and the provision of suitable facilities..!

·      The absence of the internal audit unit’s role in the ministry in overseeing the determination of need was a reason for the weakness of those procedures..!

·      The administrative department in the Directorates of Education did not perform its role in supervising the process of determining the need for school buildings..!

·      Neglecting to rely on the ESS system, which contains complete data about each school and the percentage of need..!

3-   There is no adherence to the indicators specified by the ministry in determining the priorities for the need for school buildings..!

·      The Ministry of Education did not adhere to the priority system in determining the directorates’ needs for schools, which led to deficiencies in the fair distribution of schools..!

·      87% of schools have an area of less than 5,000 square meters, which is the standard adopted by the ministry,

·      Disparity in the distribution of student numbers across schools in the northern governorates

·      24% of government schools suffer from overcrowding in classrooms, as it was shown that the approved criteria for ranking priorities were not applied, reflecting on the fairness in determining the need for school buildings...!

·      25% of government schools are mixed-gender schools, and no clear and applied mechanism and criteria were found on which to base the ranking of priorities, affecting fairness in determining the need for school buildings

·      18% of schools have severe wear and deep cracks and pits in the yards and playgrounds, which may pose a danger to students..!

·      8% of schools have worn or settled tiling in the classrooms..!

4-  Conclusions of the State Audit and Administrative Control Bureau (SAACB)

·      The planning process regarding schools is not based on scientific foundations, according to standards linked to a timetable and with a clear definition of roles and responsibilities, which was reflected in the absence of fairness in the distribution of schools..!

·      The General Directorate of Buildings did not take the necessary measures to obligate all directorates to apply the priority system in determining the need for school buildings, and thus this was reflected in the absence of fairness in the distribution of schools..!

·      The absence of procedures and supervisory controls from senior management, the directorates and the internal audit unit over the measures taken in determining the actual need for schools was reflected in the lack of fairness in the distribution of schools...!

·      The Ministry of Education did not take the necessary measures regarding the collection of the education tax and the development fund in the directorates to provide the necessary resources to provide as many schools as possible, in a way that ensures the fair distribution of school buildings..!

·      Difficulty in providing school land due to the presence of many residential clusters under Israeli occupation control, in addition to the fact that most of the lands allocated for school buildings are donated by the local community and do not comply with school building standards in terms of their distance from residential clusters...!

5-   The general conclusion by the Bureau

·      The procedures applied by the Ministry of Education on the matter of auditing did not convince the Bureau of the fair distribution of school buildings in the northern governorates..!

·      The response from the Ministry of Education came after the legal period, and the entity did not reinforce its response with the required documents and records..!