Link archives

Spring 2001

The ripple effect: 
How one Ph.D. is opening education to hundreds in the Negev desert of Israel

After Ismael Abu-Saad completed a Ph.D. at the college in 1989, he returned home to find there was still no running water or electricity in his town.

Abu-Saad comes from Lakiya, a dusty, sun-scorched town that is home to 7,000 Bedouin in Israel’s Negev desert. He lives there today with his wife, Kathy, and their two children.

In all, about 120,000 Bedouin dwell in the Negev, and Abu-Saad was the first of them to complete a doctorate. Today, the 42-year-old is a professor of education at Israel’s Ben-Gurion University (BGU) of the Negev and founder of the university’s Center for Bedouin Studies and Development. His professional and personal life is devoted to helping other Bedouin obtain a university education.

The fact that Abu-Saad has an education at all is surprising. The fact that he has gone on to become a pioneer in education is nothing short of remarkable.

He was born in a tent in the Negev desert, the oldest of 11 children. Elementary school consisted of a single classroom in an asbestos-roofed shack. “The school was a little bigger than this room,” he says, pointing to his modest, book-lined office in Ben-Gurion University. “First row was first grade; second row, second grade; third row, third grade; and fourth row, fourth grade,” he recalls wryly. “The teacher was also the school principal, the janitor, and the guard.”

Growing up Bedouin

From fifth through ninth grade, Abu-Saad rode a donkey to the nearest school nine kilometers away. Most students abandoned their studies at that point since there was no senior high school in the region. But Abu-Saad’s father, a truck driver, recognized the value of education and sent him to a boarding school in the more developed northern region of Israel.

“When I did well in my studies he would reward me with a watch or a radio or some other prize,” recalls Abu-Saad. “I also saw what a difference education made in the lives of my cousins who lived in the Gaza Strip.”

It wasn’t long before the highly motivated youngster had completed both a B.A. and M.A. in education at Ben-Gurion University. “It was clear to me from the beginning that I would work in education,” says Abu-Saad. “That’s where the most work needs to be done in my community.”

“Education is the answer.”

The Bedouin of southern Israel have the highest rates of fertility, infant mortality, high school dropouts and unemployment, coupled with the lowest level of literacy in the country. The Bedouin are, in many respects, a third-world island in the high-tech ocean that is Israel.

The traditional nomadic life of the Bedouin came to an abrupt end with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The state’s efforts to settle the Bedouin in seven government-established towns in the Negev—including Lakiya—has proven to be a dismal failure. Lacking industrial areas, parks, community centers and even a library, these communities are more like dormitory towns than viable cities.

Half the Bedouin have refused to move to them, preferring to live in ramshackle huts with corrugated iron or asbestos roofs in the middle of the desert. These “unrecognized villages” receive almost no services from the government, which considers them to be illegal.

The result is that the 120,000 Negev Bedouin are caught between the nomadic life they have essentially left behind, and a future—still painfully out of reach—that would enable them to become educated, prosperous members of a modern Israeli society.

For Abu-Saad it was clear that the key to lifting the Bedouin community out of this morass lay in education.

He spent 10 years working as a teacher and principal in various Bedouin schools in the Negev but ultimately threw his hands up in dismay. “I found that it was impossible to change the educational system from the inside. You can’t teach science without labs; you can’t call a ball a sports facility.”

Abu-Saad believed he could have more influence as a researcher and set out to obtain a doctorate in educational policy and administration. While visiting a friend in the U.S., he applied to the college’s program because he felt it would offer him the right combination of applied and pure research skills.

The college also offered him a scholarship “without which I could not have managed,” he says. Colleagues went out of their way to help him: they even gave him the keys to the department to enable him to use a computer on weekends—since Abu-Saad couldn’t afford to buy one of his own.

He is particularly grateful to three faculty members—Vernon Hendrix, professor emeritus; former University professor Shirley Clark; and Karen Seashore, all from the Department of Educational Policy and Administration.

Working for change

Upon completing his degree, Abu-Saad returned to Israel to teach at BGU. Located in Beersheba, the capital of the Negev desert, BGU is also the natural choice for aspiring Bedouin students in the region. But when Abu-Saad began teaching, there were very few students from his community enrolled there.

In the hope of changing that, Abu-Saad established the Center for Bedouin Studies and Development. The interdisciplinary university body researches underlying causes of problems in the Bedouin community and proposes programs for remedying them, particularly in the field of education.

“I believe if you really want to help a community, education is the key for empowerment. If we improve the education system, people can find ways to fight for their own rights rather than seeking help through other agencies,” says Abu-Saad.

He targeted Bedouin women as his first goal. “They are the future mothers and builders of the Bedouin community. If they’re educated, their kids will be educated.”

Four years ago, there were only eight Bedouin women enrolled at BGU. Many maintained that this was because Bedouin society is too traditional to encourage the education of women. “Nonsense,” retorted Abu-Saad. “It’s just a matter of money.”

Bedouin parents, who often have 10 or more children, just couldn’t afford to educate all their children, he argued, and he decided to see what would happen if the university offered full scholarships to Bedouin women. Through the generosity of the Center’s main supporter, American Jewish philanthropist Robert Arnow, such a program was launched.

The result: in four years, the number of Bedouin women enrolled at BGU has risen from eight to 120; and of these, 22 are now pursuing master’s degrees. These women will go on to fill crucial positions in Bedouin communities as teachers, social workers, and school psychologists, replacing the often poorly qualified staff who now work there.

In return for the scholarships, the women are required to spend several hours a week doing community work. In addition to teaching them the value of volunteerism, the program has another spin-off. “These women provide a role model in the community,” says Abu-Saad. “Other families see that Bedouin women are studying at the university and so they say, ‘Why shouldn’t ours?’

“I don’t do any recruiting in the Bedouin community,” he notes. “The people come to us now that there is an address.”

Another of the Center’s programs is designed to tackle a different problem: most Bedouin students at BGU—there are a total of 350 men and women enrolled this year—study the humanities and social sciences. “But this is a high-tech country so we have to help prepare students to get into science and technology programs,” Abu-Saad says.

To do that, he launched an intensive tutorial program for tenth graders in math, physics, and English. Staffed by university personnel and supported by the Arnow family, the program is designed to increase the number of Bedouin students who pass the high-school matriculation exams, and enable them to get accepted into science and engineering programs at the university.

Many of the students in the voluntary program do their homework in tents; one of them is raising her nine brothers and sisters since her father left the family and her mother went to work.

“Most of them are deeply motivated and overcome tremendous odds to succeed,” says one teacher in the program.

“A lot of people think I’m crazy for providing Bedouin kids with an education because I’m raising their expectations,” Abu-Saad says. “They ask me, ‘What happens when these students graduate from the university and don’t find jobs?’”

That’s a distinct possibility since Israeli Arabs in general and Bedouin in particular are, for the most part, not employed in high-level jobs in academia, government, or industry.

“There is not a single Bedouin employed in the area’s largest high-tech park. But I can’t say the reason is discrimination because until now we haven’t produced any engineers,” Abu-Saad says. “Once we do, we’re in a different position. If companies still don’t hire Bedouin, we can challenge that in the Supreme Court.”

As he tells his critics: “Without education, people don’t even know what the Supreme Court is, let alone how to use it to their advantage.”

The Center also is involved in research projects including a statistical survey of the Negev Bedouin and, more recently, a study on how to salvage the seven government-established Bedouin towns that are languishing in poverty and neglect. Unlike previous government studies, the Center based its research on interviews with community leaders and members. Some 1,800 households were surveyed.

“We approach the community as a partner rather than as some outsider who knows what’s good for them,” Abu-Saad says.

He hopes the new Israeli government will adopt some of the study’s recommendations which outline ways to improve the quality of life for the 60,000 residents of these towns.

Today, unlike during his childhood or even when he returned from the U.S. 12 years ago, they enjoy running water and electricity, but there is still no sewage system or public transit, no playground or library.

A personal commitment

Ironically, a man whose life is dedicated to promoting educational opportunities for young Bedouin has not been able to find an educational option for his four-year-old daughter. There aren’t any pre-schools in Lakiya. Even the compulsory kindergarten is abysmal, he says, noting that the toilets are so far away that often children don’t make it there on time.

A successful professor, Abu-Saad easily could move to a non-Bedouin town such as Beersheba, where he teaches. There he could enjoy the facilities found in most Israeli towns—a cultural center, swimming pool, and good schools instead of “living in the Stone Age” as he puts it.

So why doesn’t he?

“How could I give advice on how to improve life in the Bedouin towns if I myself am not even living there?” he says. “I would become like one of the outside authorities telling them what to do. This way I have a personal stake in improving life in the community.”

Abu-Saad admits it has not been an easy choice. He is married to an American and knows he could have a much easier life in the U.S. He recalls the time he spent at the college as the most pleasant years of his life. But he felt compelled to return to Israel to help his community.

In addition to his work on behalf of the Bedouin, Abu-Saad also directs BGU’s master’s degree program in educational policy and administration, which is attended by hundreds of current and future educators from around the country.

Abu-Saad is convinced that without the financial aid and overall support of the college and University of Minnesota, he would not be where he is today. “By investing in one person, Minnesotans ended up having an impact on 120 Bedouin women,” he says, “as well as on the entire Bedouin community of the Negev and the educational system of Israel.”

— Leora Eren Frucht