Without Gaza.. Without Salaries.. Palestinian Girls Create a New Glory

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Author: Dr. M. Islam Amro

The title of this article is not a literary metaphor, but rather a summary of three facts that have come together in one report, presenting a highly complex picture of the reality of Palestinian education.

The Palestinian sample in the PISA 2025 tests did not include the schools most affected by the conflict, including the Gaza Strip, while the test took place under extremely difficult educational, economic, and political conditions. Nevertheless, the results reveal notable indicators that deserve attention, foremost among them the superiority of Palestinian girls over boys in the fields of reading, science, and mathematics.

Here lies the most important paradox: at a time when the Palestinian educational system faces exceptional circumstances, and when both teachers and students suffer from the effects of the ongoing crisis, indicators of resilience, equity, and the ability of certain groups to achieve better results than what the surrounding conditions might suggest emerge within the results themselves.

The results of PISA 2025 were released on September 8, 2026, by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This is the second time Palestine has participated in this international assessment after its first participation in 2022. The latest round included 9,648 Palestinian students from 319 schools, representing about 50,400 students aged fifteen.

First: The Palestinian girl saves the educational scene.

What stands out most in reading the Palestinian results is the performance of girls compared to boys. Palestinian female students outperformed male students in the three core subjects measured by the test: reading, science, and mathematics.

This result is particularly significant in mathematics, where the gap in many educational systems still tends to favor boys.

In the Palestinian case, the educational problem does not manifest with the same severity among all students; the gap between boys and girls indicates that there is a need for a more precise reading of the weaknesses, rather than treating the results as a general and homogeneous educational crisis.

The PISA data also reveals a clear disparity in the percentages of students who reach the minimum educational proficiency, which makes the issue of boys, especially in basic skills, one of the issues that deserves more focused educational intervention.

The superiority of girls should not be read as just a passing number, but rather as an indicator that the Palestinian educational system has internal elements capable of resilience and achieving better results, even in a very challenging environment.

Secondly: the numbers tell the whole truth.

When moving from internal gaps to national averages, the picture becomes more difficult. The average performance of Palestinian students in science was 359 points, in reading 350 points, and in mathematics 354 points, which are results lower than the OECD average.

In computer problem-solving, Palestine's average was 393 points, which is also below the organization's average of 500 points. What is even more concerning is that the percentage of students who reach the minimum proficiency is very low; those who achieved level two or higher were 24% in science, 17% in mathematics, and 22% in reading, according to OECD data.

This means that the majority of students have not yet reached the level that PISA considers a minimum threshold of proficiency in these areas.

As for the higher levels of excellence, the number of Palestinian students reaching levels five and six is almost nonexistent, which poses a real challenge to building a broad base of students capable of leading the knowledge economy and scientific and technological research in the future.

Third: Not all news is bad.

Despite the harsh numbers, a careful reading of the results reveals a set of indicators that are worth building upon. The first of these indicators is the relative resilience in reading. According to OECD, the performance of Palestinian students in reading remained close to its level in 2022, while mathematics and science saw a decline.

The second is that the educational gap related to economic and social status appears to be less pronounced in Palestine compared to the average of the OECD countries; the difference in science between the most privileged Palestinian students and the most socially and economically deprived is 43 points, compared to an average of 85 points in OECD countries. Additionally, social and economic status explains about 5% of the variance in science performance among Palestinian students, compared to 12% in the average of OECD countries, highlighting an important concept that should not be overlooked: academic resilience.

About 18% of economically and socially disadvantaged Palestinian students were able to reach the top quartile of performance in science within Palestine, a percentage higher than the OECD average of 12%.

This result says something important: difficult circumstances do not solely determine the future of the Palestinian student, and the school, the teacher, and the educational environment are still capable, in many cases, of compensating for part of the impact of social and economic conditions.

Fourth: Occupation and coercive conditions are part of the education equation.

The results of Palestinian education cannot be read in isolation from the environment in which the educational system operates. OECD data itself indicates that the PISA 2025 results in Palestine do not include the schools most affected by the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, which is very important when interpreting the results, as the sample does not represent the entire educational reality in Palestine in the most affected areas.

In the Gaza Strip, the war has led to widespread destruction or disruption of the educational system, depriving hundreds of thousands of children of their regular education. In the West Bank and Jerusalem, students and teachers face movement restrictions, road closures, incursions, and assaults on educational institutions, in addition to demolition orders threatening several schools. These are not marginal conditions that can be placed in the margins of the report; they are factors that directly affect the regularity of the educational process, the ability of the student to reach school, and the ability of the teacher to reach their classroom. Therefore, comparing Palestinian results with those of stable countries should not be done in isolation from the context that produced these results.

Fifth: The Palestinian Teacher.. The Hero Who Does Not Appear in the Numbers

Behind every number in the PISA report is a Palestinian teacher. A teacher who enters the classroom under difficult financial conditions, working in schools that face a shortage of resources, and finds themselves required to achieve educational results in an environment that does not always provide the natural conditions for the educational process.

PISA 2025 data itself indicates that 42% of Palestinian students were in schools whose directors reported that a shortage of teaching staff hinders teaching, to some extent, while other reports indicated a lack of educational materials and infrastructure. Nevertheless, the Palestinian teacher continued to fulfill their mission.

The academic resilience demonstrated by the results, and the ability of some deprived students to excel, cannot be separated from the school and the teacher. Therefore, any real reform in education must start with the teacher: stabilizing their salary, scheduling their arrears, developing their capabilities, elevating their professional status, and linking continuous training to the actual needs of students and schools.

Sixth: From Diagnosing the Crisis to a Work Plan

Dealing with PISA results should not turn into an annual occasion for showcasing numbers, but rather into a decision-making tool. The results file has witnessed government interaction with the importance of drawing lessons from it, leading to programs aimed at addressing educational loss and accelerated learning. However, what is required is a shift from reaction to a long-term educational policy based on continuous measurement and early intervention.

From here, five practical priorities can be proposed

1. Announcing an annual national measurement figure: Conducting an annual national assessment of reading and mathematics in the early grades, and transparently announcing the results, so that we have a clear baseline from which to measure improvement or decline year after year.

2. Directing accelerated learning programs towards actual gaps: Utilizing PISA results to identify the groups most in need of intervention, with special attention given to boys in the early grades to address the noticeable gap between them and girls.

3. Activating the teacher's license and linking it to impact: It is not enough for a teacher to receive training; the training must be linked to measurable improvements in student learning, and teacher preparation programs in universities should evolve according to actual results within schools.

4. Establishing a national path for the gifted: We should not only look at students who are struggling, but also at those who demonstrate exceptional abilities, especially in the fields of technology and problem-solving. Here, universities and the Ministry of Education can collaborate to create laboratories, programs, and national Olympiads.

5. Approving a national protocol for education in emergencies: In light of the reality of closures and escalation, there should be clear rules for a rapid transition to available educational alternatives, with mechanisms to compensate for educational losses as soon as students return to schools.

Finally: We do not want to beautify the picture.. but to fix it. The results of PISA 2025 are neither a certificate of success nor a certificate of failure.

It is a mirror.

And the mirror says that Palestinian education suffers from deep gaps in science, mathematics, and reading, and that the rates of reaching the minimum adequacy remain very low, and that academic excellence represents a real challenge.

However, the mirror itself says that there is resilience, a relative fairness, and deprived students who managed to overcome their circumstances, along with teachers and female students who achieved remarkable results, and teachers who continued to work under the most difficult conditions.

Most importantly, these results give us a roadmap.

If the occupation, war, and financial crisis have imposed exceptional conditions on the Palestinian school, then the response cannot be to lower the expectations for the Palestinian student. On the contrary, we must raise the expectations, provide the student with tools, ensure stability for the teacher, supply resources for the school, and give the educational system the data it needs to make decisions.

As for the Palestinian girls who excelled in the three subjects, they do not need a fleeting celebration of their achievements as much as they need us to read their message well: when the will and the appropriate educational environment are available, the Palestinian student can make a difference, even when all circumstances are against them.