Bank of Palestine, in partnership with the Welfare Association and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, continue to fund and implement the Zamalah Fellowship Program, and launch the eighth round of the program for 2019, focusing on the fields of managerial and banking sciences, scientific and practical medical research and other fields.
A total of 14 Palestinian universities are part of this program that is supervised by a steering committee, which consists of representatives from beneficiary universities and a representative from the Ministry of Education and Higher Education. The evaluation process involves the evaluation of applications submitted be candidate teachers by a jury committee of university representatives. The contracted universities include Al Najah National University, Birzeit University, Al Quds University, the Polytechnic University of Palestine, the Arab American University, the Palestine Technical University (Kadoorie), Hebron University, Bethlehem University, Palestine Ahliya University, Al Quds Open University, Al Azhar University, the Islamic University, Al Aqsa University and Palestine University.
The Zamalah Program aims to contribute to the development of the educational system in Palestinian universities by promoting the expertise of teachers, lecturers and administrative employees at Palestinian universities by sending them on professional and academic missions for a period between two to six months to world-renowned universities that offer education in finance, banking, economics, investment and sciences. Through this initiative, fellows will acquire new expertise, as well as practical and applied experiences, to return and apply them in Palestine, enabling the quick integration of students in the job market, and responding to the needs of human competencies.
Over 181 researchers, managers, technicians and academicians from various Palestinian universities were sent on this fellowship program. International experts came to Palestine and implemented two training courses; one at Al Quds University and the other at Al Najah University, benefiting almost 100 academicians. Furthermore, over 50 scientific papers were published in accredited academic publications, and networking was established with several international universities, including the Coventry University in the United Kingdom, the Polytechnic Open University in New Zealand and other universities. Fellowships mainly included specializations in the fields of health sciences (53%), engineering and telecommunications (24%), management, economics and banking (16%), literature (6%) and environmental and water sciences (1%).