The CEC holds a workshop to evaluate the election course

As part of an EC funded project aiming at raising electoral awareness and encouraging academic research on elections, the CEC has collaborated since the beginning of 2014 with academics from four Palestinian Universities in the West Bank and Gaza, specifically; Birzeit, Al-Najah, Al-Quds and Al-Azhar in developing and introducing election courses. The courses were taught for the first time in said universities beginning of first semester of 2014 as part of universities taught programs directed to undergraduate students of political science as well as postgraduates.

At the end of first semester, the CEC held yesterday an evaluation workshop at Birzeit University to evaluate the course content with participation of teachers and students from West Bank universities. Due to technical reasons, participants from Al-Azhar University in Gaza weren’t able to take part in the workshop; however the CEC will soon organize a second workshop with Al-Azhar University through video conference.

Participants stressed the importance of the course in encouraging academic research on issues related to democracy, equality, freedoms and comparative electoral systems and recommended for the course to be taught in the rest of the Palestinian universities.

The workshop also included student’s presentations of some research papers tackling electoral issues in Palestine and the Arab region. The teachers, on their part, provided feedback and recommendations on how to further develop the course content.