Lessons from the Rubble: the attempted annihilation of higher education in Gaza
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
▪️ Time: Tuesday, 10 November, 17:00-19:00
▪️ Location: Sentralen, Gymsalen (floor 4+), Øvre Slottsgate 3, Oslo
▪️ The seminar is free and open to everyone. Light refreshments will be served. Please join us and register above.
ABOUT THE SEMINAR
Education is a lifeline and a foundation for Gaza’s reconstruction and renewal. That very foundation is now under existential threat. Universities and colleges across Gaza have been deliberately and extensively targeted, and all have been destroyed or severely damaged. Academics and students have been killed, displaced and deprived of their right to education.
Yet Palestinian academics, universities and civil society continue to work to sustain higher education and keep the doors to learning open.
Join us for a public seminar exploring Palestinian-led efforts to safeguard higher education in Gaza, the resilience of its academic community, and the responsibility of the international community to stand in solidarity and turn words into action.
Bringing together university leadership from Gaza, international experts and Norwegian representatives, the seminar will explore the destruction of Palestinian higher education – often referred to as scholasticide – and what can be done to support its survival, resilience and recovery. What does meaningful solidarity look like in practice? And what concrete steps can international academic institutions and actors in Norway take, both now and in the years ahead?
PROGRAMME
More details to come.
◾ KEYNOTE I: Before October - Building Palestinian Universities Under Occupation and Siege
Dr Nasseridin Elmezaini, Founding Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the Islamic University of Gaza and member of the Emergency Committee of Universities in Gaza.
Dr Elmezaini will share the powerful story about establishing the faculty under occupation.
◾ Key Findings from the Friends of Palestinian Universities (FPU) Report: Scholasticide in Gaza – The Systematic Destruction of Palestinian Higher Education and the Continuation of Collective Resilience
Omar Shweiki, Director of Friends of Palestinian Universities (FPU).
◾ KEYNOTE II: Scholasticide and Institutional Resilience: Sustaining Higher Education in Gaza
Dr Tareq Emtairah, Director General of Taawon (Welfare Association).
How can universities survive when their campuses are destroyed? This keynote will explore the crisis facing Gaza’s universities not only in terms of the scale of destruction, but also the urgent challenge of institutional survival. A university is more than its buildings. But for a university to survive the destruction of its campus, its students, academics and institutional capacity must also be sustained.
Dr Emtairah will also present the ISNAD programme, which supports university students in Gaza in resuming their education.
◾ PANEL DISCUSSION: From Knowledge to Action
How can we best stand in solidarity with the Palestinian higher education community? What responsibility does the international community – and the international academic community in particular – have in the face of genocide and scholasticide? And what concrete steps can institutions and other actors in Norway take today and in the months and years ahead?
Panellists: To be announced
ORGANISERS
This seminar is organised by Ingeniører Uten Grenser Norge, SAIH – Studentenes og Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond, Norsk PEN og Fakultet for samfunnsvitenskap - OsloMet.
