Donors should insist that @UNRWA shut down its Jordanian schools

UNRWA sends out emails about its dire financial straits, saying that there is no money left for its services.

But there is one simple way it can alleviate its problems: shut down the UNRWA school system in Jordan.

There is no reason whatsoever for the UN and UNRWA's donor countries to support a separate school system altogether. But in Jordan, it is completely unnecessary.

Nearly all Palestinian "refugees" in Jordan are citizens of Jordan. They can all attend Jordanian state schools, whose curriculum UNRWA uses. 

Already about one third of Palestinian "refugee" citizens of Jordan send their children to Jordanian public schools. Jordan does not ban them from its schools. In fact, Jordan also gives schooling to non-citizen refugees from Syria, so even the Palestinians who aren't citizens should be able to attend Jordanian schools.

Maintaining two parallel school systems is inefficient and wasteful. Jordan can take over the existing UNRWA school buildings and hire UNRWA teachers. The donors who fund UNRWA could divert some of their money for a few years to Jordan's education ministry until the transition is complete.

UNRWA in Jordan uses the Jordanian curriculum and schoolbooks, so there is no disruption there.

Most importantly, it is the state's responsibility to educate its young people, and Jordan shouldn't outsource this task to the international community.

How much would this save? Education is roughly half of UNRWA's billion dollar budget, and Jordan has some two million "Palestine refugees." Almost certainly cutting this wholly unnecessary program would save $100 million a year, or about 10% of UNRWA's budget - without impacting the lives of the children who would still attend the same schools with the same teachers using the same textbooks.

UNRWA tries to position itself as being crucial. In this one case alone, it is clear that it isn't, and it is just trying to get as much money from the international community while keeping Palestinians separate from the main population of the country they are citizens of.  It encourages Jordanians to consider Palestinians as not real Jordanians and to treat them as if they are only temporarily there, which makes it easier to take away other rights from them - something Jordan has done many times before.

You know....apartheid.

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