The Palestinian curriculum in the age of artificial intelligence

Writer: Tharwat Zaid Al-Kilani

A child in his early years, who has not yet learned to read, asks the artificial intelligence about things that his parents may not be able to answer. He doesn't read, but he learns. He does not carry a book, but he accesses knowledge. He may find a quicker and broader answer than his family environment can provide.

The scene may seem fleeting, but it reveals a profound shift: knowledge no longer waits for school, or even reading, to reach humans. If a child can enter the space of knowledge before he learns to read, then the educational question is no longer when to introduce artificial intelligence into school, but rather how to rebuild education in a world in which the conditions for learning and knowledge themselves have changed.

First: From a new tool to a transformation in the function of education

Artificial Intelligence is a new tool in education, but at the same time it is reshaping the environment in which learning occurs. It changes how people access knowledge, how they ask for it, examine it, produce it, and use it in decision-making. With this transformation, the relationship changes between the learner and knowledge, between the teacher and the content, and between the school and the world.

Here the question returns to which human being do we want to build? What knowledge does he need? What capabilities should he possess in a world where machines can answer, summarize, produce, translate and suggest within moments?

The curriculum, in essence, goes beyond a list of concepts, knowledge, and academic subjects, to embody society’s perception of humans, knowledge, values, and the future. Therefore, the future of the curriculum in the era of artificial intelligence begins with reconsidering the learning experiences that humans need, and extends to building their ability to question, understand, analyse, verify, compare, build an argument, experiment, produce, and judge.

In a world where knowledge and its production methods are changing faster than the cycles of building and reviewing curricula, it is no longer sufficient to view the curriculum as a complete structure awaiting review after years. Rather, it needs to be designed from the beginning as a renewable learning system that maintains its goals and references, and renews its contents, resources, and experiences in light of research, the field, and new transformations.

Building the curriculum is a national responsibility. It translates society’s choices and priorities into learning experiences that shape the lives of students. In the Palestinian case, this responsibility becomes clearer. Education needs to remain rooted in identity, references, and values, open to global knowledge, and capable of serving the priorities of liberation, development, and human building, and preparing generations that are aware of its reality, read its transformations deeply, participate in shaping its future, and preserve its privacy.

The intention here is to go beyond introducing AI into the curriculum as a new tool within an existing educational structure, and to reconsider the learning experience itself: what needs the teacher’s presence, what the digital environment can support, what should happen inside and outside the classroom, and how these spaces are integrated into a single learning experience.

In light of the ongoing efforts to reconsider the Palestinian curriculum and prepare a new national framework, there is a need for a clear national compass that guides this path, defines its goals, references and priorities, and now accommodates the transformations imposed by artificial intelligence. Such a compass allows us to benefit from global experience and adapt it to our needs, while the educational decision and the direction and meaning of the curriculum remain emanating from Palestine.

Second: The learner in the era of ready-made answers

When the answer becomes available within seconds, the value of knowledge in learning changes; The most important criterion becomes the learner’s ability to deal with them: formulating the question, understanding the context, examining the source, discovering error and bias, comparing, building an argument, trying alternatives, and making a decision. Thus, curriculum design gradually moves from focusing on the amount of content that should be covered to the type of learning that should occur for the learner, and the experiences that build his ability to understand, analyse, produce, and judge.

With this transformation, the supremacy of cognitive decision-making becomes an educational goal related to the learner’s ability to select, verify, judge and produce knowledge, and to benefit from global knowledge while having the ability to interpret it in our context and employ it in addressing our questions and needs.

The sovereignty of cognitive decision requires awareness of the conditions and standards of knowledge: who determines what reaches us, how knowledge is arranged and presented, what makes an answer reliable, what data smart systems are based on, and what limits should govern their use. Choosing and judging knowledge is linked to understanding the environment that shapes it and the criteria that give it its value.

The national compass of knowledge gives this decision its direction. The selection and research are directed towards the priorities of society, the specificity of Palestine, and the future of its generations, with conscious openness to human knowledge. Cognitive value is not measured by possessing the greatest amount of knowledge, but rather by our ability to identify what we need, understand its causes, and employ it in building capacity and production.

Third: The teacher and evaluation again

The role of the teacher changes with the change in the learner’s relationship with knowledge, and the essence of his role remains in what he adds to learning in terms of human and intellectual meaning. It constructs the question, designs the learning experience, reads the learner's thinking, discusses evidence, uncovers ambiguity, directs the dialogue, and helps the student build a cognitive position that he can defend. The teacher does not compete with the machine in response speed, as the value he adds is related to building understanding, developing thinking, guiding judgment, and creating meaning.

Artificial intelligence opens the way for the transition from education that is standardized in its path and speed to more unique learning that responds to the differences between learners, their needs and abilities, and provides the teacher with broader capabilities in planning and producing content, analyzing students’ work, and following up on their progress. The educational value of these capabilities remains linked to what they add to human learning and ability, and to the extent to which they contribute to building deeper and more effective learning.

This transformation requires rebuilding the professional development of the teacher, so that his ability to read, criticize and verify the content produced by smart systems expands, and choose what suits the learning objectives and the privacy of the learners, in addition to developing his pedagogical and digital knowledge in learning design and evaluation, understanding the limits of artificial intelligence and the ethics of its use, and protecting the privacy of the learners.

As for evaluation, it needs to shift from retrieving answers that the machine can easily produce to revealing understanding, thinking, analysis, application and production, and the learner’s ability to explain and defend his choices, analyze errors, and criticize the outputs of artificial intelligence. Here the crucial question becomes: Did the student accomplish the task, or did he actually learn?

Fourth: From the renewed curriculum to the national system

Palestine is entering this transformation bearing accumulated crises in education, economy, institutions and society. At a time when we are trying to address existing challenges, artificial intelligence technologies are advancing and the ability of countries and societies that have the most resources and knowledge to develop them and determine their conditions and standards is expanding.

The speed of this transformation requires educational systems to prepare for it before the existing gaps widen. Poor preparedness may open a new gap in artificial intelligence, increase reliance on knowledge and technologies that we do not have the conditions for producing or criteria for judging, and introduce new tools to schools before they have the educational and institutional capacity to direct them.

In this context, there is a need for a national framework for the education system that reconnects the philosophy, goals, references, and policies of education with curricula and educational practice, and includes a national curriculum framework that transforms these references into renewable learning goals, competencies, and experiences. The rapid transformations in knowledge, and the new learning possibilities offered by artificial intelligence, require a flexible curriculum capable of renewing learning experiences, accommodating differences between learners, and opening more diverse paths for them, while national goals and references remain regulating this renewal. Thus, the national framework, curriculum, practice and evaluation are integrated into a system capable of learning and renewal, and artificial intelligence becomes a field for expanding the ability of education to develop, not a force that determines its direction.

This framework requires policies, legislation, and resources that establish an educational and digital environment capable of responding and transforming, safeguarding data and privacy, and ensuring that the curriculum is reviewed and developed in light of evidence, research, and the field. It also requires a national capacity for monitoring and forecasting, to monitor transformations in knowledge, society, and technology, and anticipate their effects before they turn into gaps in learning or dependency in knowledge production. The renewal of the curriculum is based on a gradual construction that learns from experience, tests its impact in the field, reviews its practice, corrects its path, and adds to what has been achieved without interruption. So that change becomes a sustainable institutional capacity in the life of the curriculum, not a temporary response to every new wave.

Educational sovereignty is embodied in this renewal remaining coming from Palestine, open to human knowledge and benefiting from international experience, with a national ability to choose, adapt and rebuild. Thus, artificial intelligence enters a path that we own and direct, and the reference, meaning, and direction of the curriculum remain in our hands.

Fifth: The community of experience and the future agenda

The national framework for education and curricula requires a national community of expertise with an advisory function, based on the accumulation of knowledge and experience in education and related matters, and providing the sector with analysis and advice on its issues, policies, curricula and directions. Its value lies in connecting experience with research, and keeping educational decisions connected to the knowledge and questions produced by the field.

With artificial intelligence and the acceleration of knowledge, there is a need for a Palestinian research agenda that responds to actual education questions, monitors developments in learning, teaching, curricula, language and knowledge production, and transforms research results into knowledge that can be used in formulating and reviewing policies and legislation. The research agenda gains its value when its results are transformed into inputs for the decision, so the decision becomes more evidence-based and better able to prepare for the future.

The national compass gives this path its direction, connecting experience to research, research to decision, and anticipation of Palestinian priorities. Thus, the community of expertise becomes a sustainable advisory support for education, contributes to understanding artificial intelligence and directing its presence, and supports the construction of educational options based on Palestinian knowledge and open to human experience.

Sixth: The compass before the tool

True readiness does not lie in pursuing everything new, but rather in having the ability to understand it, choose what suits us, determine the conditions for its use, and review its impact. In essence, proactive preparation is educational wisdom: to research before we decide, to build capacity before we acquire the tool, and to determine the end before the means.

Artificial intelligence has begun to enter a child's life before he enters school, and perhaps before the child knows the meaning of school itself. Hence, the responsibility of the Palestinian curriculum is determined to build a human being who knows his reality and history, who preserves his narrative and identity, who has the ability to question, think, verify and produce knowledge, and who uses technology without giving up his right to think and choose.

The path began with a child asking the AI ​​before it knew how to read; It should end with a person who knows why he asks, how to judge, what to choose, and for what purpose he uses his power. The future of the curriculum is not determined by the tools that enter a child’s life, but rather by the person we build him with, the knowledge that we give him the ability to produce, and the compass that preserves his identity and direction as he opens up to the world.