From the book: Christians in the Holy Land and edited by: Michael Prior and William Taylor

It is true that the missionary schools played an important role in educating the Christians Arabs at a time when education was scarce. However, their inability to recognize and respect the indigenous church, instead of consolidating the local Christians in Palestine led to the exact opposite. The Christian schools not only brought in their respective language and culture, but were a means, whether international or not, of dividing the already fragile Palestinian Christian Community, and alienating it from its mother culture. Because the emphasis was on religious, rather than national identity, the school, instead of retaining the educated local Christian, provided him with a direct link to the West, and became a catalyst to the evacuation of the Palestinian Christian Community.

Christian Arabs have been sensitive to the threat that cultural colonization would involve their up rooting from their heritage. They have tried to affirm their national identity, and have been at the root of the Arab national movement. However, they have not been able to resist the challenge that was presented, both by the colonization church, and by the political ambitious of the West concerning the Middle East in general, and Palestine in particular. In Palestine this awareness was translated in the 30s and 40s into the development of a new type of private school which was neither Christian nor Muslim. It was national, and had the slogan, ‘Religion is for God and the homeland is for all.’ Such was the case of Beir Zeit school, which has now developed into a University, the Nahda College in Jerusalem and Gaza College in Gaza.

As has been demonstrated in my historical preview of education in Palestine, the importance of the private school sector, which is predominantly Christian, is receding, in view of the growing availability of public education. Because the Christian school has managed to maintain a relatively acceptable standard, and because the Christian school still holds a certain prestige, we find that its presence now is more a function of class than it is of need. This aspect, however, is definitely not conductive to playing a cementing role for the Christian community in Palestine. It is becoming more evident that the survival of the Christian school is based on the collection of school fees. For that reason, the Christian school is beginning to disadvantage poorer Christians, except, of course, in the case of parish schools, or schools that are strongly subsidized by the international Church. This perpetuates the cycle of social discrimination, which in this case is based on socio-economic factors, rather than on purely religious ones, but, more often than not, on both.