Gaza students take high school exams by phone amid displacement

Thousands of Palestinian high school students in Gaza are taking graduation exams online because schools have been destroyed or turned into shelters during the war, Al Jazeera reported. For 18-year-old Dana Shabat, the tawjihi exams that could shape her university prospects now depend on a charged phone, a working internet connection and a cafe seat in Deir el-Balah.

Dana, 18, grew up in Beit Hanoon in northern Gaza, an area Al Jazeera reported has been largely razed by Israeli forces. She now lives with her surviving family in a tent in central Gaza, studying by flashlight and walking about an hour before dawn to reach a cafe where she can sit her exams.

Al Jazeera reported that Dana has kept an average grade of at least 99 percent. She told the outlet she is considering medicine, finance or business administration, and hopes her results can help her win a scholarship abroad.

Exams without classrooms

Dana is one of 37,000 Palestinian students taking the tawjihi exams, according to Al Jazeera. The outlet reported that this is the first time since the war began that the exams have been held in coordination with Palestinian authorities in the West Bank.

The arrangements differ sharply by location. Al Jazeera reported that students in the West Bank are taking the exams in schools and examination halls, while students in Gaza are taking them online.

On the day Al Jazeera followed Dana, she was sitting for physics, a subject she said she had studied largely by herself with help from a few private tutoring sessions and YouTube videos. At 9am, students in the cafe sat close together, unlocked their phones and waited for the exam portal to open.

Each student checked the internet connection, while Dana’s father, Muhanna Shabat, confirmed with the cafe owner that the electricity was working, Al Jazeera reported. He then waited outside with other parents.

Muhanna, who worked as a chemistry teacher before the war, told Al Jazeera he had used every financial resource he could to help Dana through the year. He said he paid for private tutors even as the family faced severe shortages in daily life.

A family changed by war

Dana survived an Israeli strike in May last year, Al Jazeera reported. Her mother, Lina, was killed in the attack, and her youngest sister, Alma, who is three, lost her right eye.

Al Jazeera reported that more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023. The war also forced Dana’s family from their home and left her and her older sister Hala, a first-year medical student, helping care for their younger sisters Rama, Sarah and Alma.

Muhanna told Al Jazeera that before the war, the family had a stable home and that he and his wife focused on giving their daughters what they needed for school. He said Lina valued education and wanted her daughters to devote their energy to learning.

After two hours, Dana left the cafe and told her father the physics exam had gone well. She said the questions were fair and that the internet connection had held, unlike during a previous exam, Al Jazeera reported.

Back at the family’s tent, her sisters, neighbours and relatives asked about the exam. Before resting, Dana sent her phone and her father’s phone to a charging station so she would be ready for the next test.

Al Jazeera reported that electricity remains a major obstacle for Gaza residents, and that reconstruction still appears distant eight months after a ceasefire with Israel while Israeli attacks continue periodically. Dana told the outlet she does not know when she will return to Beit Hanoon, or how long her family will remain in a tent.

She said she wants to become a community leader, learn languages and succeed in whichever field she chooses. Dana told Al Jazeera she hopes life in the tents ends and that she becomes the person her mother wanted her to be.

This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.