Press House conduct a conference to launch the media campaign for "A Step towards Better Education" project

On Monday, 30/07/2018, the Press House organized a conference to launch the media campaign for "A Step towards Better Education" project.

The conference was attended by Mrs. Ota and Doha EL-Msadar, the director of her office in Gaza, as representatives of the German Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. In addition to more than 100 specialists in education and media sectors and activist in civil society in Gaza Strip.

The conference aimed to introduce the project media campaign represented by a group of activities including a tweeting campaign, which was launched in conjunction with the launch of the conference. Twenty social media leaders participated in this conference, five awareness workshops were held in different governorates of Gaza Strip and radio spots were published along with 20 newspaper articles.

These activities seek to enhance primary education in Gaza Strip and raise awareness of emancipatory education among all categories of society and those working in education and media in particular.

Samar Al-Malfouh, program director at Press House, opened the conference with a word, where she talked about the role played by the foundation in supporting journalists and enhancing their role in serving and advocating all social and educational issues.

She pointed to the project's goal that highlights education problems in Gaza Strip by involving various groups of society in order to develop solutions and suggestions for improving education and enhancing emancipatory education.

She also tackled the methodology and the project phases, which consisted of training a group of journalists on preparing research papers and identifying the needs then preparing five pieces of research that were distributed to attendees at the conference.

The results of data analysis and proposals that were concluded by the group of participants in the study were presented at all governorates of Gaza Strip. In addition to preparing a comparison between education in Palestine and in Finland.

She stated a set of recommendations made during the roundtable meeting that held during the second phase of the project with decision makers. The most important of which is the development of curricula and the educational environment, enhancing the role of the student in education and its effective participation, in addition to the importance of adopting the liberal approach in primary education.

The conference included a speech by "A Step towards Better Education" project team presented by Ahmed Al-Batah as its representative. Where he referred to the impact of media on them as graduates in expanding their trends and interests through their work to become aware and convinced of the importance of promoting emancipatory education, which is considered an urgent and important approach especially under our educational reality.

"This approach, which we hope will be taken seriously, seeks to build a generation that is educated and aware of its reality and requirements by promoting learning activities in school and home based on participation, discussion, equality, creativity and critical thinking," he said.

"We are now working with our media tools and skills and we will continue to highlight this approach and support it. As well as to informing society and decision-makers of the needs and challenges facing education in Gaza Strip in order to find ways to develop its future strategies" he added.

The conference concluded with an extensive discussion between the attendees and the coordinator of the project and its educational advisor on the results of researches and studies that expressed the reality of education and ways to develop them. The means of promoting liberal education were presented from the participants' point of view and how to apply it in activities inside or outside school through community and institutional initiatives.

On the sidelines of the conference, the representative of Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Mrs. Ota, and the director of her office in Gaza met the project staff and its youth team at the Press House.

During the meeting, there was a discussion with the team about how the results of their participation in the project affected their knowledge and experience.

The team agreed that they got benefits from the project in developing their research skills and community participation in the subject of education.

Launching the media campaign is one activity of "A Step towards Better Education" project carried out by the Press House in partnership with Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, which seeks to highlight the most important challenges facing primary education in Gaza Strip in addition to raising awareness of the promotion of liberal education.