Last update - 00:00 25/12/2006
Tamir to review bid to fund non-state schools by municipalities
By Or Kashti and Yair Etinger, Haaretz Correspondents
Education Minister Yuli Tamir will head a committee to review a new bill calling for the funding of non-governmental schools by local authorities, following a government decision from Sunday.
The committee will act on the Attorney General's recommendations to withhold Knesset votes on the bill until the matter undergoes a professional review.
The bill was put forth by the minister without portfolio Meshulam Nahari, of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party.
Under the new bill, local authorities would be required to fund non-governmental schools, i.e. schools not officially recognized by the state, most of which belonging to the ultra-Orthodox school system. The municipal funding would be equal to the budgeting provided by the state to these institutions.
According to Tamir, Nahari's bill requires non-state institutions to meet all of the Education Ministry's criteria, e.g. the number of students in each classroom and in the entire school. A ministry review ahead of the government meeting on the issue revealed that Shas' elementary school system averages 18 students per classroom.
Other ultra-Orthodox school not operated by the state average 24 students per classroom, and public schools average 25-32 students per classroom. The Education Ministry alleges that the bill would encourage the establishment of smaller schools, thus wasting precious resources. Therefore, sources at the ministry congratulated the decision to have Tamir review the bill.
Tamir said she is "happy the AG made a decision in the matter and it will be formulated by the Education Ministry - where deliberations by all the parties concerned should take place, in order to come up with a bill that would act to ensure equality in education."
At the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he would not "remain complacent with the inequality between children. Thousands of ultra-Orthodox students study in caravans under horrible conditions, and no one raises their voice."
"No one is losing sleep over the discrimination against ultra-Orthodox and the full arsenal of counter-arguments is pulled out only against bids to make the studying conditions of the ultra-Orthodox equal to those of all other children," he added.
Nahari stressed at the meeting "there is no logic or legal justification for allowing each municipality to decide for itself which students enjoy funding and which students don't, resulting in blunt discrimination against the educational institutions not recognized by the state."