TEL AVIV, August 31, 2009 (WAFA)- Roughly 35,000 east Jerusalem students will not begin the new school year on Tuesday in the Israeli municipality schools, a Civil Rights Association and Ir Amim foundation report suggests.
The reason for this, as stated in the report, is a shortage of 1,000 classrooms in east Jerusalem which grows bigger with each passing year. By 2011 the shortage is expected to reach about 1,500 new classrooms.
The report suggests that 5,000 students are not registered into any educational institute. 30,000 students are forced to study within private education establishments in exchange for large amounts of money.
These are private schools or informal establishments being activated by private companies, churches, the Waqf, the United Nations and various Palestinian elements.
The report also indicates that among those who attend the city's educational system, thousands are forced to study in classrooms and rented buildings unfit for studies, small rooms with no ventilation and no playground yards. This condition of the classrooms has been so for years and gets worse with each year.
Half of the classrooms activated by the Israeli Municipality of Jerusalem in the city's eastern neighborhoods are below standards: 704 below-par classrooms as opposed to 656 up-to-standard classrooms. Among the below-standard classrooms, 221 are within facilities 'in unfit condition.'
The report also raises issues regarding the students' registration to the schools and reveals that in some eastern Jerusalem establishments various service payments are being charged upon registration illegally. These payments, which at times amount to hundred of shekels take a heavy toll on residents, many of them needy. This is due to the fact that 67% of east Jerusalem's families are considered poor.
Ir Amim Director-General Yehudit Oppenheimer said, 'We call upon the government of Israel to recognize the importance of the issue of education in eastern Jerusalem and to give it priority in dividing the Education Ministry's budget in order for proper budgets to be quickly and efficiently allocated.'
