The World Bank recently released a detailed study of UNRWA’s educational services for Palestinian refugees, and the conclusions are generally very positive indeed:
Palestine refugees are achieving higher-than-average learning outcomes in spite of the adverse circumstances they live under. Their education system—the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine refugees in the Near East—operates one of the largest nongovernmental school systems in the Middle East. It manages nearly 700 schools, has hired 17,000 staff, educates more than 500,000 refugee students each year, and operates in five areas, including the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, and the Syrian Arab Republic. Contrary to what might be expected from a resource-constrained administration serving refugee students who continually face a multitude of adversities, UNRWA students outperform public schools in the three regions—the West Bank and Gaza and Jordan—by a year’s worth of learning.
The data below, for example, displays performance on standardized international tests for math and science (TIMSS) and mathematics, science, and reading (PISA). The study does not examine schools in Syria and Lebanon, however.
You’ll find a World Bank blog summary by one of the study authors here, with a link to the full report.
PRRN 