Notes on the Application of the Open Education System in Primary Schools

Open education is the art of guiding and utilizing learning resources and enrichment activities in schools to improve the quality of education and motivate students.

There are many questions that weigh heavily on me and on many interested individuals who have expressed their observations in newspapers and on social media. These are questions for reflection:

1-What are the justifications for applying open education in the early grades?

2-Is it possible to rely on the results of a single study and generalize its findings to schools, knowing that in scientific research, if one variable changes, the results change?

3-Have rooms, educational resources, and learning corners been equipped for each specialization, such as an English language corner, an Arabic language corner, a mathematics corner, a science corner, an arts corner, and a sports corner?

4-All open education platforms are in English, so how can they be utilized?

5-Do the conditions experienced by Palestinian families and schools help in adopting open education?

6-What is the opinion of the Scientific Research Council?

7-In all Palestinian universities, there are hundreds of scientific research papers published in reliable journals on curricula, teacher preparation, educational supervision, leadership, evaluation, entrepreneurship, and critical thinking. Have they been utilized?

8-Many doctoral and master's theses have been conducted in Palestinian universities on active learning, cooperative learning, inquiry-based learning, curricula, educational leadership, critical thinking, evaluation, and many experimental studies. Have they been utilized?

9-If the student does not read, how will they understand mathematics and science?

10-Have the participating teachers been trained to use open education daily?

11-Do the large numbers of students in classes help in applying open education and digitalization?

There is a study at the level of Arab universities that states that in 2025, 2500 doctoral theses were discussed on various topics, but they were not utilized or applied.

Why did the Netherlands, two months ago, ban students under 16 from using mobile phones in schools and called for a return to pen, book, and paper?

And why did Britain, a few months ago, enact mandatory legislation for all schools to prohibit the introduction of mobile phones into schools, as well as obliging schools to provide enrichment activities for all subjects?

We are a generation that learned Arabic from the book of the late Khalil Al-Sakakini (Dar Door Ras Roos). It would be good to go back a little and benefit from it. We are not against digitalization because it provides an opportunity to look at education from new angles, but the move towards digitalization under economic and social conditions and difficulty of movement imposes on families to provide the requirements of digitalization such as devices and internet access, which will widen the gap between those who can and those who cannot.

In addition to that, schools, are all schools able to provide what is required for digitalization? There are capable schools and incapable schools.

Finally, I say, we, the educational interlocutors who have understood everything, need a second globe to plant in it the spirit of ethics, education, upbringing, and humility. We are the awakened ones, the compass holders, we make the compass for the next day and do not wait for it.