Since its establishment in 1977, An-Najah National University has sought to develop the College of Educational Sciences in line with a cultural perception that realizes the university′s goals of community outreach, establishing close links among all colleges, and creating interactive involvement among students in research and other activities.



College Academic Programs
The College of Educational Sciences offers a number of academic programs leading to a B.A. degree in four majors: Psychology, Methods of Teaching, Physical Education, and Elementary Education. In addition, the college has an M.A. program in four fields: Methods of English Language Teaching, Methods of Science Teaching, Methods of Mathematics Teaching, Curriculum and Instruction, and Educational Administration.
Undergraduate Degree: Study Plan

The college has study plans leading to B.A. degrees in four academic fields: Psychology
Methods of Teaching
Elementary Education
Physical Education

In their freshman year, students sign up for general courses offered by the college. Students must successfully complete 30 credit hours

College course descriptions

Introduction to Library Science

This course is a study of the development of library science and the role various civilizations have played in establishing libraries as centers for the preservation of human knowledge. Students learn about library organization, book classification and indexing, and the range of library materials available to patrons. Emphasis is placed on developing students′ library-use skills especially in writing reports and term papers. The course also covers other topics: development of writing and book publishing, history of libraries, library services, types of libraries, organization of human knowledge, sources of knowledge, research planning and writing.


Introduction to Psychology
Topics covered in this course are nature of psychology, development, learning, motivations, intelligence, perception, schools of psychology, areas of psychology, its branches, personality, mental disability, psychology tests …. The course also dwells on foundations, principles and areas of psychology, its mental and educational applications.



Introduction to Education
This course covers the following topics: concept, functions, goals, types and nature of education; development of educational thought throughout the ages; culture and education, education and society, role of education in changing the learner, and the educational process, curriculum, the teacher and means of education.


Descriptive Statistics
This course introduces students to nature of statistics, areas of its employment, statistical methods, samples, classification, tabulation and representation of data in graphs, frequency distributions, central tendency and dispersion measures, regression, correlation, probability and equal distributions.


Developmental Psychology
This course examines the concept of growth and development in its physical, mental, social and emotional dimensions. It also looks at principles of growth and developments, extent to which developmental characteristics and traits are influenced by genetic, family and social upbringing factors. The course also explains important relationships between development of growth aspects, and processes of family, environment and school formation through different stages of life.


Psychological Texts in English
The purpose of this course is to enable students to get acquainted with studies and research in the fields of education and psychology. To this end, a variety of selected readings in English will be used in this course. Emphasis is placed also on strengthening comprehension and understanding in addition to development of student’s translation skills from English into Arabic.



Learning How to Learn
This course deals with basic skills which every university student must possess in order to learn- before and after graduation. Necessary skills include speed-reading with comprehension, effective note-taking from sources such as lectures, textbooks, audio-visual materials, scholarly articles, research methods, technological aids and their use.



Elective Courses

Introduction to Sociology
Beginning with features of social thought and the emergence of sociology, the course dwells on Ibn Khaldoun, a celebrated sociologist, August Kunt, and Emile Durkheim. Also covered are social phenomena, social relationships, social systems, and finally the role of sociology in daily life.



Educational Aids
This course introduces students to technological educational aids, their characteristics and advantages, technological tools, resources of educational aids, computer and its educational uses, educational equipment and its resources, curriculum and teaching aids.



Introduction to Computers
As the title suggests, the course focuses on acquainting students with computer hardware and software, areas of its uses, basic operation of a computer system, data processing, introduction to programming languages and computer applications, files, matrices, their significance, and their digital and letter types, information storage and retrieval.



Introduction to Islamic Education
Students, in this course, are introduced to philosophy and fundamentals of education in the Holy Qur’an, Prophetic tradition (sunna), principles of Islamic education and its goals; methods of teaching Islamic education; models of educational thought among Muslim scholars: AL-Ghazali, Ibn Sina, AL-Farrabi, AL-Qabisi, Ben Muskuwei, Ibn Sahnoun, and Ibn Khaldoun.



Principles of Philosophy and Logic
Dealing with the concept and importance of studying philosophy, the course covers Greek thought as represented by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and Western thought as represented by Descartes and Kant. It also covers Arab thought as represented by AL-Ghazali’s and Ibn Sina’s philosophies. Also explained is the concept of logic and its divisions, with emphasis on Aristotle’s imaginary logic.



Education and Palestinian Society
Introducing students to the role of education in development of the Palestinian people, the course investigates the history of education in Palestine starting from the Islamic conquest to the Turkish Ottoman era, during British colonialism and then the Zionist occupation, and finally the role of education during the present Palestinian National Authority era