English study an escape for Gazans
Attendance in English teaching centers in Gaza is on the rise, with the youth increasingly aware that learning the language increases their chances of finding better jobs and studying abroad.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — More and more young Gazans are determined to master the English language — the key, they say, to getting jobs, studying abroad and conveying the Palestinians’ suffering to the world.
Huda Droll, an American teacher at Amideast in Gaza — the area’s most famous English-language teaching center — told Al-Monitor, “There is a remarkable and constant rise in demand for English learning among Palestinians, in an effort to get a scholarship to study abroad, get a job or to discuss with the people of the world the atrocities committed by Israel against them.”
Haitham Khoudari, 23, who studied electrical engineering at university, recently finished a three-month English course at a local school, al-Salam Center. The course cost 550 shekels ($142), which he borrowed from a relative.
Khoudari told Al-Monitor, “Most of the jobs [in Palestine] require excellent English reading and writing skills for admission. [English] is difficult to master at elementary school or university.”
