April 2025 | Gaza: Where Education Endures and Reconstruction Begins
The Classical Institute’s Contribution to the Rebuilding of Higher Learning
This April, The Classical Institute has been invited to contribute to the Conference on the Rebuilding of Higher Education in Gaza, hosted by the College of Public Policy at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Doha. The conference brings together Palestinian universities and global institutions in an effort to imagine — and build — what comes after the rubble. A future not only of physical reconstruction, but of restored learning, restored dignity, and restored civilisation.
Representing The Classical Institute at this international gathering will be Dr Mariam Attia, our Senior Lecturer in Academic Practice, whose paper has been formally accepted for presentation. Dr Attia brings with her a depth of scholarly insight and a voice shaped by a lifelong commitment to educational equity and institutional renewal.
Her paper speaks to this: that education is not an accessory of peace, but a condition of it. That in the face of siege, it is not the silence of books that echoes — but their refusal to be silenced.
Held at the Minaretein Building in Education City, the conference will include all Palestinian universities, as well as partners from the University of Exeter, the University of Glasgow, the University of Johannesburg, and others. Together, these voices will speak on behalf of generations yet to graduate — on behalf of a knowledge tradition that refuses to be erased.
The Classical Institute is honoured to stand in this space, not as a guest, but as part of a broader cause. Our presence in Doha is an expression of our core: that learning is resistance, and that rebuilding begins not with bricks, but with books.
📍 Minaretein Building, Education City, Doha
🗓️ 14–15 April 2025