Abu Kishk: We achieved financial stability and built partnerships, programs and agreements with international institutes and universities (Al Jazeera)
Occupied Jerusalem -
The establishment of Al-Quds University is a rare story in Palestinian history, as the idea of establishing it was put forward in the only meeting held by the heads of the Islamic world for the first and last time in the city of Jerusalem in 1931 during the British Mandate.
The sixth item of the meeting’s outcomes stipulated the decision to establish the first university in Jerusalem so that the city would remain a beacon of science and knowledge, but this item was achieved after more than 4 decades, because the British rule prevented its implementation in the 1930s of the last century.
Al Jazeera Net conducted a special and comprehensive interview about the university with the President of Al-Quds University, Dr. Imad Abu Kishk, in which he revealed the financial and academic situation of the university and an initiative to teach university students in Gaza remotely for free until their destroyed universities are reconstructed.
He pointed to the qualitative leaps that the university has achieved and continues to achieve despite the restrictions and difficulties it faces due to its sensitive location in the town of Abu Dis, east of Jerusalem, its being isolated by the wall from the heart of the city, and the continued Israeli restrictions on it to force it to leave the city.
The following is the text of the interview..
Al-Quds University campus in the town of Abu Dis, east of Jerusalem, and its students are studying remotely due to the war (Al-Jazeera)
First of all, who is Dr. Imad Abu Kishk, President of Al-Quds University? When did you hold this position?
I am a Palestinian refugee from the city of Jaffa, and my family was displaced from there in 1948 to the city of Tulkarm in the West Bank.
I studied electronic engineering at Al-Quds University, specializing in electronic engineering. Then I found that there was no structure in Palestine for this specialization in the way I aspire to, so I obtained a master’s degree in political science from Al-Quds University as well, then I obtained a doctorate in public policy from Northeastern University in the state. Boston in America, a specialty that was not common in the Arab world.
I assumed the position of president of the university in 2014, but I had the honor of serving there from the beginning of my career, as I worked as a research and teaching assistant, then I became a public relations officer, then vice president for administrative and financial affairs, then CEO, and then I became president of the university.
Let's start from the current circumstances. How has the war in Gaza affected and is affecting the course of the educational process at Al-Quds University?
Al-Quds University is suffering like other institutions of higher education in Palestine, but certainly less than what higher education is suffering from in Gaza and the comprehensive destruction of universities there.
What helped us deal smoothly with the current circumstances is our distinctive experience in investing in a strong infrastructure for teaching through lectures and halls, in addition to discussions with teachers through the “iClass” program.
When the Corona pandemic arrived, we were the first university in the Arab world to move to distance education easily as a result of the existing infrastructure, and with the same smoothness we moved to distance education since the outbreak of the current war out of concern for the safety of our students, especially since settler attacks affected large areas in the West Bank.
Al-Quds University has 10 institutes and educational centers within the city (Al-Jazeera)
To what extent did the war affect the university's financial situation?
The economic situation of the Palestinian family deteriorated during the war. All families that depended for their support on the head of the family who works in Israel collapsed economically as a result of preventing workers from entering from areas of the West Bank. The same applies to families whose members depend on government employment in the Palestinian Authority in light of the withholding of funds. Clearing.
The private sector has also deteriorated, and many employees have been suspended from work, and thus there is no healthy economic life in Palestine.
We, as a university, deal with all of these cases and classify them in order to make it easier for the Palestinian student and help him register for the new semester comfortably and in a way that suits his family’s capabilities.
The location of the university - specifically the main Abu Dis campus - is private, as the wall isolated it outside the city. What impact does this have, both positively and negatively?
On a positive level, we are the first Arab university located in Jerusalem, and the Abu Dis campus is only two kilometers away from Al-Aqsa Mosque. We also have 10 institutes and centers concerned with serving Jerusalemites within the Old City of Jerusalem, because we play an essential role in establishing the Jerusalemite presence on the one hand. Empowering the Jerusalemite family by opening horizons of education and development on the other hand.
In Jerusalem, we have the College of Arts for Girls, which is represented by the Hind Al-Husseini Campus in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, and we have two colleges in the town of Beit Hanina, namely Law and Business Administration, in addition to our establishment on Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi Street, the largest entrepreneurial business incubator for Jerusalemites, through which we ensure that any Jerusalemite learns at our university or He can go to another university inside or outside the country to this incubator to present his pioneering project, for which we have created a fund to finance it after his studies.
In terms of negatives, we are geopolitically present in Jerusalem and its suburbs, and we pay high prices for that in terms of harassment, starting with the taxes imposed on the university, the pressures it is exposed to to force it to leave Jerusalem, its proximity to the separation wall, and the daily contact with the presence of the occupation.
This university is not like any other Palestinian university located in areas classified as “A” under Palestinian control. Rather, its distinctive geographical location makes us work in an area that has a kind of sensitivity. As Palestinians, with every stone we build here, we feel that our conscience is clear, but our presence, survival, and development here have not It was never an easy process.
How many students are at Al-Quds University? What is the percentage of Jerusalemite students out of the total number?
About 13,000 male and female students in 15 colleges study at Al-Quds University, and the percentage of Jerusalemite students is estimated at 50%. In recent years, students from the Palestinian interior (48) have joined our university, and their number has increased significantly.
Why do Palestinian students choose to learn at your university despite the geographical distance?
The lack of recognition of the certificates of our graduates in Israel - especially those who need to take the professional practice exam - was a major obstacle before us. In this regard, we went to the Israeli Supreme Court 14 years ago and extracted a decision from it to recognize all the certificates of our graduates from the colleges of the health complex after their success rate was for 5 consecutive years. In the Israeli exam to practice medicine, 100%, dentistry, 100%, and pharmacy, 98%.
The judges were shocked by the results of our university, whose degree is not recognized because it is located in this geographical area only. They asked about statistics related to Israeli graduates who studied medicine in Western Europe. The success rate in the exam was 70%, and in Eastern Europe the success rate did not exceed 25%.
From here, the university’s reputation spread and the influx of students from inside Palestine increased, and when hiring, students from Al-Quds University specializing in medicine had the lion’s share.
A historical return to the founding of Al-Quds University. When was it founded? And how?
The story of the founding of Al-Quds University is rare in Palestinian history, because the leaders of the Islamic world met for the first and last time in Jerusalem in 1931, and in the sixth item of the outcomes of their meeting they decided to establish the first Arab university in Jerusalem, but this was not achieved due to the refusal of the British Mandate Authority to do so.
Later, individual initiatives emerged by establishing colleges such as Hind Al-Husseini, which became the College of Arts for Girls. Then, on the initiative of the Jordanian government, the College of Da’wah and Fundamentals of Religion for Sharia Education was established in Beit Hanina in order to provide Al-Aqsa Mosque with Islamic thinkers. The Arab College of Health Professions was also established due to the hospitals’ need for many Specialties, such as laboratory medicine, nursing, and physical therapy.
The Kuwaitis established the Kuwaiti Arab Institute in Abu Dis as a school for male orphans, and another school for female orphans in Sheikh Jarrah.
When these colleges requested recognition of the certificates they requested from the Association of Arab Universities, they were told: If you unite under the name of Al-Quds University, we will grant you recognition. This was in 1977, and then the sixth item of the 1931 meeting was fulfilled.
The scattered colleges united under the name of the university and developed, and Al-Quds University has now proven that it is not only competitive at the level of Palestine and the region, but also at the level of the world.
What distinguishes Al-Quds University from other Palestinian universities?
We seek to change the traditional concept of universities that was established 250 years ago by giving knowledge and some skills and then leaving the student alone to look for a job.
We want to be a productive university, so we established a business incubator on the Abu Dis campus, in the Old City of Jerusalem, Beit Hanina, and Ramallah. These incubators receive anyone who comes with entrepreneurial ideas so that we can study them and then create a fund to finance these ideas so that the person can create his own job while going through the education process at the university.
This is just a big goal and it has consequences, such as how to adapt the entire university system to serve this goal, giving courses to students and extracurricular activities, bringing international courses and raising students’ proficiency in the English language that the global market deals with, and we seek to have an impact in the local and global markets.
Bard College and the Dual Studies Program are among the success stories of Al-Quds University, which is referred to as Lebanon. If you could explain more about them to us.
Because we do not want to be a traditional university, we signed an agreement with Bard College in New York regarding liberal education that integrates sciences with the humanities, which is not common in the Middle East.
In the first academic year, the student learns sciences and humanities, and in the second year political sciences. He prepares research papers that enable him to know his strengths, and thus determines his choices and the skills he wants to acquire in the last two academic years.
These students differ from others in terms of way of thinking, abilities, self-confidence, and strong English language, and 98% of them did not face problems in their employment as a result of the scarcity of outputs that the labor market receives smoothly.
As for the dual studies program, we introduced it to our university because of the problem in the Palestinian market whose economy is built on services only, such as communications, banks, restaurants, etc., and there is no advanced technology, agriculture, and food manufacturing sector. This can only be achieved by integrating the student into the market from the beginning of his entry into the university so that he can understand it and be aware of its problems. He has the potential to develop it.
In dual studies, the student studies at the university for 3 months and works in a factory or company for another 3 months and so on until he graduates. This allows him to sense problems and introduce companies and factories to his abilities so that he solves problems and proposes pioneering ideas to establish his own factory or company.
What are your priorities? Where is Al-Quds University in terms of scientific research?
One of our priorities is to develop the appropriate research environment by building an integrated system that serves the idea of scientific research. To achieve this, we do not grant a natural increase in the salaries of academics at our university unless they work on preparing at least one research paper during the academic year.
During the past year, our students participated in 40% of the university’s research production, and this produces pioneering ideas through which we will develop the Palestinian markets, and this is what we aspire to.
What about the students of Gaza.. How have you dealt with them since the start of the war?
Our university has a building in Gaza where students study “public health” and obtain a master’s degree in it. We are proud that the responsible health leadership in Gaza are graduates of Al-Quds University as a result of this program that we established in 1994.
We also have a Master's program in Regional Studies in cooperation with the University of Palestine, which was also destroyed.
I contacted the Palestine representative in the League of Arab States due to the inability to communicate with university officials in Gaza currently, and I presented an initiative requiring Al-Quds University staff to teach Gaza university students remotely for free until the universities are reconstructed, and I proposed to the Arab League to provide salaries for workers in Gaza’s universities until the reconstruction of the universities. Reconstructing it so that talents and elites do not migrate from the sector due to the destruction of universities.
To what extent does the university enjoy Arab and Islamic support?
We sought and seek to have the leaders of the Arab and Islamic worlds contribute to this university, located in the city of Jerusalem, because it was established from the beginning by an Arab and Islamic decision, and therefore in order to develop and preserve it as a scientific beacon and knowledge production that benefits all of humanity, there must be an Arab and Islamic contribution to embrace it, stand with it, and strive to support it from In order to develop and achieve global ambition.
Where do you see Al-Quds University 5 years from now?
The university made rapid qualitative leaps at various levels, as we achieved financial stability and built partnerships, programs, and agreements with institutes and universities in China, Germany, Britain, France, Turkey, America, Italy, Spain, Morocco, and others.
These partnerships reflect two things: the first is raising the efficiency of education, and the other is linking researchers with each other through academic and student exchange. We have about 300 students who go annually to Europe, America, and Turkey to learn about other experiences and cultures.
We are building partnerships to create endowments for the university all over the world so that we can cover our expenses, and from these endowments we can later select the student who will join Al-Quds University to achieve the vision that whoever will study at this university must be creative to come up with pioneering ideas that achieve something tangible and distinctive in the market.
I believe that in 5 years Al-Quds University will no longer be a Palestinian or regional competitor, but will be viewed differently at the global level.
Source: Al Jazeera