The Role of Foreign Aid for Secondary Education on Human Capital Development in Palestine (1999–2019)

Abstract

This study highlights teachers’ and experts’ perceptions of the role of foreign aid for secondary education sector on human capital development based on staff capacity-building and infrastructural assistance received by education facilities in the Gaza Strip, Palestine. The results of a questionnaire administered to teachers and interviews with experts support the hypothesized role of foreign aid to secondary education on human capital development in the Gaza Strip; . Its observed that educational experts (senior level) agreed that foreign aid programs substantially contribute to human capital development through staff training and capacity-building and improvement of the educational infrastructure, teachers (operational level) found that foreign aid programs conferred limited benefits in these areas. Furthermore, frequencies and percentages related to demographic characteristics, means and standard deviations reveal that the experience, training, and education are the three main mechanisms for acquiring human capital. While Interviews with senior-level educational experts indicate that foreign aid programs play a variety of roles in supporting human capital development and educational infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, these findings conflict with the responses of operational level education staff.