The A. M. Qattan Foundation's Educational Programme develops alternative teaching and learning practices in Palestine. It starts from an understanding of learning as action and practice, not rote instruction, and invests in teachers and students as agents able to contribute to change in their schools and communities. Drawing on methodologies developed over years of fieldwork, the Programme organises its work around three areas of focus:
Professional Development for Teachers and Facilitators: This area offers training programmes and structured workshops for individual teachers and for schools wishing to develop community initiatives. It sees teachers not only as practitioners but as agents of change and community mobilisers, who lead projects with their students that begin in the classroom and extend into the wider community. Alongside this, self-organised teachers' forums across Palestine serve as spaces for peer learning, mentorship and shared reflection on educational practice, while giving teachers platforms to publish their own writing and experience. The Programme has also adopted drama-based pedagogies, most notably Dorothy Heathcote's Mantle of the Expert and process drama, developed with teachers over many years through its Drama in Education Summer School and related courses.
Non-Traditional Learning Tools: This area draws on drama, play, exploration and movement as ways of learning, and fosters dialogue, deconstruction and critical thinking through enquiry-based approaches in which students observe, research and question their way to understanding. Storytelling and the arts are also everyday tools for learning. At the Foundation's centre in Gaza, this has long taken the form of interactive science activities, reading and storytelling sessions, theatre, arts, and joint activities for children and their parents. The area also develops project-based learning, in which students and teachers lead projects rooted in their own schools and communities. This approach is reflected in work across science, technology, the social sciences and the arts in education, and in the STEAM approach (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics), embodied most recently in the STEAM Fab Lab, established in 2022 at the Qattan Centre in Ramallah.
Early Childhood and Student Development: This area focuses on the early years of learning, nurturing children's curiosity, creativity and skills, and laying the ground for their active participation in their schools and communities later on. It offers dedicated professional development programmes for early childhood educators and for kindergartens and early childhood centres, in both the West Bank and Gaza, supporting play-based, child-centred practice in the years before school.
The Educational Programme works in partnership with schools and community organizations and announces its opportunities on the Foundation's website and social media channels.