East J'lem school year opens amid strikes, overcrowding
The new school year starts in east Jerusalem amid acrimonious protests from parents calling conditions, overcrowding in schools deplorable; four new schools also welcomed students, including new school for arts and music.
The east Jerusalem school year started on Tuesday, in spite of strikes in several schools, classroom overcrowding and poor infrastructures. Four new schools were opened, including an arts institution—the first of its kind in the Arab sector.
As Eid al-Adha concluded, the school year in east Jerusalem was officially opened, but only partially. No less than 4,000 students from the Dar al-Marefa school in the Kafr 'Aqab neighborhood stayed home. The Ministry of Education wanted to shut down the school, identified with Hamas, last year.
Ownership of the school was transferred before the current school year started. The owners of the buildings housing it, however, refused to rent them to the new administration.
In addition, 600 pupils from Shuafat's boys' school remained home as their parents protested a principal switch every year in the past four years, each of them failing to put the school back on track. Parents demonstrated in front of the school Tuesday morning, locked its gates and barred entry. Police were called to disperse them.
"This school has violence. No principal could educate the children and it was just a total mess," said the school's parents' association. The association claimed to have asked for an administrator from local authorities, but the request was denied.
"This year they brought in an administrator from outside the village and the parents rejected her. If she can't get one classroom in order, how could she put a 600-student school in order? Parents are adamant enough to have their children sit the entire year out," said Chairman of the east Jerusalem Parents' Association, Amhad Abu Eid.
Abu Eid also commented on classroom overcrowding in the school. "In order to go to the bathroom, children have to climb over tables and jump from table to table just to reach the classroom's exit," he said.
A school in the Abu Tor neighborhood also failed to open the new school year amid claims from parents its infrastructures are in poor shape and won't allow studying throughout the entire year.
Apart from the strikes, the school year is also hampered by a large shortage in available classrooms, which stands at 2,000. A petition on the matter was submitted to the High Court after a previous one—made in 2011—produced no results to speak of, despite the fact the court instructed the municipality to build the missing classrooms within five years.
Four new schools were built, however, including the Abda'a school for music and the arts. 5,800 east Jerusalem students will be studying in a program entitling them to an Israeli high school diploma this school year. This marks a 14 percent increase from last year.
In addition, the municipality launched a concentrated equal opportunity and gap reduction program for its east Jerusalem residents at an investment of NIS 25 million. The program will include enrichment and additional tutoring hours as well as learning centers, and will be put into practice in all post-primary—and some elementary— schools in east Jerusalem as part of a long school day.
