Private schools become a costly choice for struggling parents in Gaza
Gaza families face difficult choices: send children to schools in tents with few resources to pay for private school.
Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip — In their tent in central Gaza, Khadija Abu Qados gets her 11-year-old daughter, Jouri, ready for another day at school amid the ongoing Israeli air raids and crippling financial crisis.
The family has been living in a camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir el-Balah since their neighbourhood, Sheikh Radwan, in northern Gaza, was destroyed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza City last September.
Like their home, the classrooms for Jouri and her 14-year-old sister, Ritaj, at Elyaa’ School are also tents. There are few chairs or desks, so children usually sit on mattresses and carpets when they learn. There is no air conditioning or fans, so the heat makes it difficult for children to focus.
The situation in private schools is better than the voluntary centres, but the high costs make them affordable only to a minority of parents in Gaza.