Number of Arab teachers in Jewish schools rises by 40%

[shira]

The number of Israeli Arab teachers working in Jewish state schools has increased by 40% in recent years to reach 588 in the last school year, up from 420 just three years ago, the Walla news website reported Monday. The jump is the result of an Education Ministry program to integrate Arab teachers of English, mathematics and science, among other subjects, into Jewish schools, reducing the surplus of teachers in the Arab sector and promoting coexistence.

The program, launched in 2013, is run jointly by the Education Ministry's Teaching Personnel Department and the Merchavim Institute for the Advancement of Shared Citizenship in Israel. According to Education Ministry figures, the school subjects with the biggest jump -- 76% -- in the number of Arab teachers are English, math and science. The number of Arab teachers instructing Arabic language classes at state schools also increased by 40% from 2013 to 2016.

However, despite the encouraging numbers, a poll published in Walla three months ago revealed that 21% of Jewish parents would oppose having an Arab teacher for their children. The survey found that 30% of parents would prefer a Christian Arab over a Muslim Arab teacher, 40% said they would accept an Arab teacher from either religion, and only 1% would prefer a Muslim teacher.

Eyal Ram, the head of the Education Ministry's Teaching Personnel Department, said the integration program seeks to provide "an opportunity for a shared life and coexistence among the two sectors, and to offer a viable solution for the surplus of teachers among the Arab sector and for the shortage of English, math and science teachers among the Jewish sector."

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=36021

[Little Tich]

1. Israel to Give Arab Teacher Trainees in Galilee Half the Budget of Jewish Peers

Source: Haaretz, Jul 07, 2016

In addition to incentivizing trainee teachers to study subjects that are in high demand like mathematics, Education Ministry cuts budget for Arabic-speaking teachers to be.

A new method of budgeting for students at teacher training colleges will provide Arabic speaking students in the north of the country with just over half the budget that Jewish trainee teachers will receive.

The new program is being implemented by the Education Ministry as a means of encouraging students to study subjects for which there is a lack of teachers, such as mathematics and science.

But in addition to incentivizing students to study subjects for which there is high demand by providing an additional per-student budget, the ministry has decided that the per-student budget for Arabic-speaking trainee teachers in colleges in the north will be only 56 percent of that received by Jewish students.

The new system will not be instituted in the south of the country, where there is a shortage of Bedouin teachers, according to the ministry.

Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.729349

Note: Haaretz Premium article - Google title for access.

[Israeli]

2. The stark difference between Israeli and Arab schools on the same side of the separation barrier

Just five minutes from Kfar Saba, under full Israeli control, children from the village Arab a-Ramadin will attend a school made of clay, without electricity, and most certainly without computers. All my years as a teacher and administrator couldn’t have prepared me for this place.

By Eitan Kalinski

As I stood in front of a structure called ‘School for the Children of the Village of Arab a-Ramadin,’ located five minutes from Kfar Saba, I felt myself shamefully shed over 40 years of teaching. A stone’s throw from Kfar Saba’s cultural centers and educational palaces to the west, and the settlement of Alfei Menashe to the east, stands a cramped condemnable clay structure with a gaping roof. We’ll call it a school.

In Kfar Saba, which as I mentioned is five minutes away from this school, the staff of teachers at every school is diligently undergoing final preparations to receive the students who will arrive to smart classrooms, laboratories for chemistry and physics, computer and robotics rooms, a gymnasium, spacious well-lit classes, air conditioning that will give you chills during heat waves, heating that will warm students when it’s cold, an expansive yard for recess, bathrooms and water fountains in the yard, and lockers and cold water in the corridors.I have been a teacher for over 40 years. I assumed managerial positions for several years and led a teacher’s seminar in Safed. All my organs associated with the education system suffered from shock on Saturday, when I left a tour with dozens of young members of Combatants for Peace and stood before this structure. I felt the intensity of a painful gap between what I experienced throughout all my years in the school system, and the trampling of respect for student and the teacher, which will take place on September 1 at the ‘gate’ of the Arab a-Ramadin school.

On the other hand, for the children of Arab a-Ramadin — located in Area C, under Israel full Israeli jurisdiction — a dedicated staff of teachers imbued with a mission to do the impossible, wait within the clay walls of the classroom. Under a gaping frayed ramshackle roof, three students will sit around one desk because of the shortage, and over 40 students will cram into one classroom. Rays of sunlight will shine through one tiny window to light the room that isn’t connected to electricity.

Continued @
http://972mag.com/the-stark-difference-between-israeli-and-palestinian-schools-on-the-same-side-of-the-separation-barrier/121598/

[Little Tich]

3. Denying children a proper education is definitely uncool. n/t

[shira]

5. The crusaders, inquisitioners, cossaks, nazis, and kkk'ers always find some problem w/ Jews.....

It's been that way for thousands of years - including the 21st century - with racists finding some way Jews have been oppressing or trying to kill them.