Education Ministry director-general Ronit Tirosh has announced that the position held by a Shin Bet security service representative charged with carrying out background checks on teachers and principals in the Arab education system is being done away with.
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Tirosh, along with Shlomo Dovrat, the head of the Dovrat Commission on Education Reforms, recently informed the Arab community's representative on the committee, Prof. Ismail Abu Sa'ad, of the decision.
Tirosh said that at a meeting with Shin Bet representatives in light of the Dovrat Commission's recommendation to do away with the post, it was decided that employees of the Arab education system will no longer need to undergo security checks. Alex Roseman, who currently holds the post, will leave the Education Ministry.
Appointments in the education system will now be made solely according to professional criteria.
The Shin Bet representative served as the deputy commissioner of Arab education in the Education Ministry. If he decided not to appoint a teacher, principal or any other office-bearer in the Arab education system, the appointee had no way to appeal the decision. This position existed in the Education Ministry for several decades and was a well-known secret in the ministry, even though there were no official regulations. Former education ministers Yossi Sarid, Shulamit Aloni and Amnon Rubinstein all tried, without success, to do away with the position.
For the Arab public, the cancelation of this position is one of the most significant improvements included in the Dovrat report.
The report, however, does not include a special budget to ensure that the significant gaps between the Jewish and Arab education systems are finally closed. Dovrat met about a week ago with the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee and according to one committee members, Ataf Mouadi, he informed them that the Finance Ministry did not plan to allocate any more funds to the Arab sector schools at this stage.
"The improvements we've managed to get through the commission are important, but without quickly closing the gaps in infrastructure, and the number of classrooms and teachers, they will have no significance," Abu Sa'ad said.
Abu Sa'ad believes that the greatest achievement for the Arab sector in the Dovrat report is the fact that for the first time, the Arab education system is seen as an integral part of the national education system.
There is still, however, no answer about when the conditions will improve for Arab schools. There is still a shortage of 1,500-1,700 classrooms, 4,000 trained teachers, computers, laboratories and gyms
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