UNRWA has sacked 17 teachers from its schools in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, Safa news agency reported yesterday.
UNRWA claimed that the teachers were surplus to necessity. However, the human rights group, Shahed, said that the UN agency has recently taken drastic measures, due to its budget deficit.
Defunding UNRWA: Trump’s Legal Sleight of Hand – Palestine Chronicle https://t.co/CFtp6ZHOs7 pic.twitter.com/DI4xMFRk8g
— Therese (@Th2shay) May 26, 2019
The rights group said that the UNRWA increased the number of classes each teacher has to cover and the number of students in them to over 50. It also forced teachers to teach subjects which were not their areas of expertise or qualification.
Unfortunately, this means that education standards are dropping in the refugee camps.
UNRWA: No One Has the Power to Change the Nature of the Agency’s Work – Palestine Chronicle https://t.co/EohSxUaiXY pic.twitter.com/lvQZdsnjCh
— Therese (@Th2shay) August 27, 2018
UNRWA has faced a budget deficit since 2018 when the US State Department said Washington would “no longer commit funding” it.
The US had been UNRWA’s largest contributor by far, providing it with $350 million annually — roughly a quarter of the agency’s overall budget.
UNRWA was established in December 1949 per UN General Assembly Resolution 302. It began its operations in the aid of nearly one million Palestinian refugees on May 1, 1950. Since then, its responsibility has grown to cover the needs of over 5 million Palestinian refugees scattered across Palestine and the Middle East.
(Palestine Chronicle, PC, Social Media)
