Protecting learning time in a fragile educational system - three days for the teacher... and five days for the student

Writer: Tharwat Zaid Al-Kilani

Time determines a school's ability to teach, nurture, and respond; Learning requires time to practice, make mistakes, correct, read, question, and interact, and the student needs a space in which he can find someone to support him when he stumbles. As the time space available to the school narrows, educational functions become crowded within a limited space, and its ability to take into account individual differences, address learning gaps, provide guidance and activities, and build gradual and stable learning declines.

This issue is increasingly important in Palestinian education, which operates under the pressure of the occupation and in light of prolonged crises in which economic, social and institutional conditions intersect with the challenges of learning. Hence, protecting learning time becomes part of protecting the system’s ability to withstand and continue, and an educational issue directly related to the student’s right to learn, not just arranging working days. Therefore, reorganizing the school week should start from a fundamental question: How do we protect the student’s learning time under the exceptional circumstances in which the educational system operates?

Five days for school and three days for teacher

When school operates three days a week, the time available for learning is a severely limited resource. Even if the school day reaches a maximum of seven classes, the student’s actual class remains in the range of 18-21 classes per week, depending on the school’s organization and program.

The problem goes beyond the number of classes; Learning requires regularity, progression, practice, review, and feedback. It also requires time to correct stumbles and provide additional opportunities for students whose pace of learning varies. As the week becomes more compressed, the space available for reading, arts, sports, projects, life skills, guidance and enrichment, and supporting students in filling learning gaps narrows, making it more difficult to make up for existing losses and respond to students’ diverse needs.

This requires reorganizing the school week in a way that expands learning time without compromising teachers’ rights and working conditions. The teacher works three days, while the school needs more time to organize learning and serve students. The essence of the proposal is the separation between the school’s working time and the teacher’s attendance pattern: the school works five days to protect the continuity of learning, while each teacher maintains three working days, distributed according to the school’s need, available classes, and his specialization.

The number of classes and available classes for each specialty determines the nature of this distribution, so that the teacher’s attendance is reorganized chronologically within the week according to the available classes and the needs of the school and students. In the current situation, the practical formula is: school is five days, students are five days, and each teacher is three days. This does not require a unified schedule; Teacher days can be distributed consecutively or spaced, according to the specificity of the school, the specializations of its employees, the number of classes and classes, and the needs of the students. The principle is national, scheduling is school-based, and flexibility is governed by standards.

How does the school week change?

Five days for the school and the students: The school operates and the students attend five days instead of three, which extends the learning time and gives it greater regularity, while each teacher’s work remains three days a week under the current conditions related to salaries.

Three days for each teacher within the five-week week: The school program clearly indicates each teacher’s working days, so that he has three working days within the five school days. These days are distributed according to specialization, classes, student needs, and school organization, instead of all teachers attending on the same three days. Thus, the distribution of teachers becomes more closely linked to the actual program, and the investment of available human resources improves.

Time Capacity and Actual Classes: An extended week provides more school time capacity. If the school day has a maximum of seven classes, the theoretical time capacity is 35 classes per week. As for the classes that the student actually receives, they are determined by the study plan and school schedule, and currently amount to about 18-21 classes per week. The goal is to provide more regular time for learning, practice, review, processing, and enrichment, not to divert all time energy into class sessions.

Guidance and management: The counselor works three days distributed within the week according to the needs of the students and his guidance program, which enhances follow-up, support, communication with the family, and prevention of interruption in learning. The administration and administrative workers also distribute their attendance to ensure the continuation of basic services throughout the week.

Activities and the community of experience: The broader week provides more space for activities and participation of the community of experience, through writers, artists, athletes, professionals, parents, universities, and community institutions, in the fields of reading, arts, sports, volunteering, initiatives, life skills, and learning about professions, the environment, and society, within clear goals, quality standards, and specific school responsibility. Thus the teacher leads academic learning, the mentor supports the student's path, and the community of experience expands his connection to life.

A school program that responds to the reality of each school: The application does not start from a unified schedule, but rather from the reality of each school, including the number of students, classes, teachers, specializations, available classes, attendance, learning gaps, guidance needs, and available resources. Based on this data, the school designs its weekly program, and the program clearly indicates each teacher’s working days and the distribution of classes, activities, and services.

Measuring impact and continuous improvement: The school tracks the impact of the organization through clear indicators that include actual learning time, regularity of classes, implementation of the curriculum, student attendance, efficiency of teacher distribution, addressing learning gaps, guidance and activities. It moves in a continuous cycle of planning, implementing, measuring, reviewing, improving and re-planning. Gradual means improving and reviewing the application over time, correcting schedules and practices in light of data and experience, while applying the principle at the system level.

Teacher rights and student rights: The model is based on a balance between the teacher’s rights and duties and the student’s right to learn. The teacher’s shift three days a week here is a transitional arrangement imposed by the current circumstances related to salaries, and it is not a permanent formula for organizing the teaching profession. During this stage, the school program clearly defines each teacher’s working days and tasks, taking into account his rights, working conditions, and professional duties, while at the same time ensuring that the five days of school are used to expand students’ learning time and its regularity. Thus, the model maintains a balance between the reality of the teacher, the requirements of the school, and the student’s right to learn, until circumstances allow a return to a more stable and sustainable organization of teachers’ attendance.

An action for the present and a path for the future

Organizing the week addresses a specific imbalance represented by the erosion of learning time. It alone does not provide a solution to the Palestinian education crisis, nor does it address the sources of the system’s fragility accumulated under occupation and protracted crises. Its value lies in being a practical measure that protects what can be protected now, in parallel with work to rebuild the educational system on more steadfast and sustainable foundations.

This broader path requires reorganizing the roles of the school, the teacher, management, and supervision, protecting the sovereignty of educational and cognitive decision-making, building a national system for data, measurement, and research, addressing learning gaps, reconsidering curricula, evaluation, and resources, ensuring teachers’ rights and empowering them professionally, and building sustainable financing and governance.

A class can be replaced, a program rearranged, and material modified; As for the time that passes in a child’s life without adequate learning, it is more difficult to regain it. Therefore, protecting learning time becomes an educational and national priority, because it protects the school’s ability to fulfill its mission, and preserves for the student a right that cannot be postponed.

The proposed formula remains a response to an exceptional circumstance, not a permanent regulation of the teaching profession: three days for the teacher as a transitional arrangement, five days for the school as an educational necessity, and five days for the student to protect his right to learn.

However, this measure does not replace a comprehensive national plan to rebuild the Palestinian education system on more sustainable and resilient foundations, in which state institutions and the educational, academic, economic, cultural and societal sectors participate, which places quality at its center, responds to the needs and priorities of Palestinian society, and anticipates technological and cognitive transformations and artificial intelligence and the new questions they pose to the school, the teacher, the curricula and the sources of knowledge.

In this sense, organizing the week becomes a practical step in a broader path to building more quality and responsive Palestinian education. Education that protects the student’s time and the teacher’s rights, prepares the school for future challenges, and preserves the sovereignty of educational and cognitive decision-making and the privacy of Palestinian society.