Through New Eyes

Touring the Holy Land with the ICB Guides

After six years of waiting for the general licensing exam for Palestinian tour guides to be held, the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities conducted the written and oral exams in March, 2006. The results of the International Center of Bethlehem’s students were excellent and 16 out of 17 students who took the exam passed and got their licenses. For the ICB, these results are a testimony to the educational philosophy we follow and a good sign for the future of the Dar al-Kalima College, which shall open its doors in September of 2006.

The students, who joined the guiding course just four months before the second Intifada began in September 2000, had to study under extremely difficult circumstances. In the past six years, their lives have been affected by repeated Israeli invasions, tight military closures imposed on the Bethlehem district, 24-hour curfews for days on end, unemployment, denial of permits to visit sites and even imprisonment of some of them by the Israeli army. However, their determination and persistence ensured their success.  

As for some of the statistics regarding the licensing process, the number of students sitting for the Ministry’s exam from the three institutions that teaches guiding in Palestine including the ICB was sixty three (63) students. A total of 55 students passed, where18 of them got a general-guide license, 16 of them got a West Bank-guide license, and the remaining 21 either got a local-guide license or a site-guide license. The ICB’s 17 students, who made 27% of the total number taking the exam, achieved a success rate of 94.1% (with 16 out of 17 students passing) in comparison to the general success rate of 87.3% (with 55 out of 63 students passing). Out of the 18 students who got the general-guide license, which qualifies a person to guide tourists in both Palestine and Israel, 50% (9 students) were graduates of the ICB.

The ICB believes that its newly licensed guides will add richness and bring in new blood to the tour guiding profession. As a group, the students reflect the mosaic of the Palestinian society.  They are men and women, range in age between the early twenties to the late forties, are both Muslims and Christians, and are residents of different localities, including the tri-cities in the Bethlehem area, the refugee camps in the Bethlehem and Hebron areas as well as the surrounding villages. Like the majority of Palestinians, this group of guides is multi lingual. Not only are they proficient in English, but the many amongst them can additionally guide in languages such as German, Spanish, Italian or Greek. 

Enthusiastic, professional and articulate the ICB guides are trained to transmit the richness and diversity of the Holy Land to its visitors. The contextual approach that we use to teach this three-semester program, from the perspective of the land, peoples and identities, has provided our students with the necessary skills to guide groups in a distinctly Palestinian manner. As our cultural ambassadors to the world, we believe that these guides have to potential to touch the lives of  20,000 visitors annually, should each one of them work with 50 groups a year, with an average 25 people in each group. We invite you to be among those visitors.