Empowered by education: scholarships for Palestinian students
Following an approach from student groups including Amnesty St Andrews, the Middle East and North African Society, the St Andrews Muslim Students’ Association and the BAME Student Network, the University has agreed to fund an additional two scholarships to the STEPS (St Andrews Education for Palestine) programme.
The places, which it’s hoped will in time contribute to the desperately needed rebuilding of civil society in Gaza, will be provided under St Andrews’ Sanctuary Scholarships umbrella, ensuring not just that St Andrews waives the fees for study of these additional places, but that students also receive stipends for living costs.
The University’s longstanding partnership with STEPS is on the basis that St Andrews waives fees, while STEPS raises money independently for the students’ living costs. Aware that fundraising has been a challenge for STEPS of late, the University felt that if it was to provide two additional places, these should come with the built-in assurance that scholars are fully supported while they are here.
Dr Patrick O’Hare, MA Hons 2011, PhD 2017 (Cantab) is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology, former Student Association President (2011 – 2012) and founding trustee of St Andrews Education for Palestinian Students (STEPS). He recounts the origins of St Andrews’ longstanding partnership with STEPS, how recent events continue to highlight its importance to the University community, and why alumni support is vital to the charity’s future.
From 2009 to 2024
Attacks launched by Hamas from Gaza spark a disproportionate response from Israel in which a large number of Palestinian civilians are killed, leading to protests in the UK in which students play a leading role. Sound familiar? Indeed, but we are not, in this case, talking about the last nine months. Rather I am referring to 2009 and Israel’s ‘Operation Cast Lead’, a three-week conflict in the strip that claimed the lives of up to 1500 Palestinians and 13 Israelis. Although I am now a senior researcher in Social Anthropology, back then I was a student and, within a few weeks of the attacks, an initial petition calling for support for Palestinians, divestment from Israeli companies and boycott of institutions had morphed into a week-long student occupation of Lower College Hall.
Students occupying Lower College Hall in 2009
Support for Palestinian students
Predictably, the occupation ended without most of the demands that were made of the University being met. However, one of the demands that the University committed to exploring was the establishment of scholarships for Palestinian students. This led to an agreement from the University in 2011 to provide two annual fee-waivers for Palestinian Masters students. As a corollary, STEPS (St Andrews Education for Palestinian Students) was established as local charity to fundraise to cover the costs of the students’ transport, accommodation and living expenses. I was a founding trustee of STEPS, and after re-joining the board in 2022, this year I will become co-chair, alongside long-time secretary Ellen Collinsworth.
Students in St Salvator’s Quad during the 2009 occupation
Since 2011, when STEPS was launched with the patronage of Noam Chomsky, who was visiting the University to receive an honorary doctorate, the charity has welcomed and supported over 15 Palestinian students from Gaza, the West Bank, and refugee camps in Lebanon. These inspiring young people have undertaken a diverse range of courses, from Sustainable Development and Social Anthropology to Management and Data Science.
Many of them have returned to Palestine, using their education to support their communities, while others have continued with their studies and work in the UK and elsewhere, championing their homeland from afar. One of these alumni, Mohammed Sabbah, has remained in Scotland and has become a STEPS trustee, joining fellow Palestinian Dr Malaka Shweikh – a lecturer in International Relations at St Andrews – and other trustees from the St Andrews community. From the outset, STEPS has been truly a ‘town and gown’ endeavour, enjoying long-standing support from the local Christian, and particularly Quaker, community.
Living with torment
This year has been particularly hard for Ahmed, current STEPS scholar, whose family are still in Gaza. It has also been a challenging year for last year’s scholar Isra’a, who now works at the University and whose young daughter was stuck in Gaza for the first six months of the war but thankfully has now been reunited with her in Scotland. Like all Gazans abroad, Isra’a and Ahmed have had to live through the torment of being safe but not knowing if their closest family members would make it through the night. In the months since the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, which killed between 700 and 800 civilians, Israel has dropped more bombs – 70,000 tonnes – on Gaza than the combined WWII bombing of London, Dresden and Hamburg. Children have been killed at a faster rate than any other conflict over the past 25 years. To date, almost 40,000 Palestinians have been killed – at least a third of them children. Targeting any civilians in war, whatever their religion or nationality, is morally reprehensible and, as recent developments in the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ) suggest, criminal.
Banners at the entrance to Lower College Hall, 2009
Taking action
St Andrews staff and students have not remained silent in the face of such barbarity, calling on the University to boycott Israeli institutions, divest from companies complicit in the occupation, and increase support for Palestinians in the face of a so-called ‘educide’ that has seen students, professors and rectors killed and higher education institutions reduced to rubble.
In particular, societies such as Amnesty, St Andrews Muslim Society (STAMSA), the Middle East and North African Society and BAME student groups called for an increase in STEPS scholarships, leading to a commitment from the University to offer two additional fully funded scholarships for Palestinian students for the academic year 2024-2025. STEPS received and considered a record number of applications and have made three awards. Our fourth prospective student recently had to postpone an English language test after having to evacuate her home in the face of imminent Israeli attacks on Khan Younis and North Rafah, indicating the tremendous risks that civilians in Gaza are facing and the difficulties of getting them out of the strip.
Reflection and securing the future
Solidarity activities around the current Gaza genocide have brought back memories and have caused me to reflect on our student occupation of 2009. The original occupiers were a wonderfully diverse bunch of students who demonstrated the strength and character of St Andrews: Scots, English, Omanis, Iranians, Americans, Mexicans, Palestinians and more. I’ve lost touch with most of them and wonder where they are now. Looking through photos from that time, I remember the close bonds that were formed over an intense week living together on those blue carpets. I am proud of the action taken by up to 150 St Andrews students back then, and I am prouder still of the legacy of that occupation: the establishment of STEPS, which has prospered thanks to the trustees and supporters drawn from the wider St Andrews community.
Preparing for the 2009 occupation
The urgency of providing educational opportunities for Palestinians is only likely to increase over the coming years. Find out more and support STEPS.