This podcast explores how learning communities are reshaping education as a form of resilience and collective action in Palestine. In this episode, Refat Sabah, Director of the Teacher Creativity Center in Palestine and President of the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), unpack the Palestinian Education Coalition’s shift from a traditional, institution-based structure to open, community-led learning spaces that move from consuming knowledge to producing it.
The conversation traces how these learning communities bring together teachers, retired educators, activists, journalists, researchers, and local institutions to address urgent issues such as education in emergencies, disability and inclusion, gender, learning loss, and neglected schools in remote or marginalised areas. Refat explains how these voluntary spaces nurture critical thinking, local advocacy, and research, illustrated by dozens of new studies on education and development, while remaining independent from partisan polarisation and aligned with a shared vision for the right to education.
He also reflects on the deep crisis facing Palestinian education amid destruction, insecurity, and prolonged emergency, and discusses how learning communities seek to transform this reality by generating practical solutions, influencing policy, and strengthening the relationship between schools and their communities. The episode highlights the role of the Ministry of Education as a partner, the need for stronger media engagement with substantive education issues, and the importance of nurturing hope, maturity, and collective responsibility to sustain education justice in Palestine.
The podcast is in Arabic. You can view the English transcription HERE.