Minister of Education (Yesh Atid) Shai Piron explains on his Facebook page that suggestions to amend days off for students do not represent an effort to curtail or extend vacation, but rather an effort to achieve a congruence between student’s and parent’s days off without compromising the days off that teachers must receive.

Piron explains that since the public school year begins on August 27th instead of September 1st, the system owes teachers five vacation days as per their contract. At present, those days are given by bridging vacation between Yom Kippur and Sukkos as well as Lag B’Omer. He feels that it would be preferred by most parents to shift these five days to five Fridays since most parents do not work on Fridays and having the children home when they are working compels them to make daycare arrangements or take off from work. Piron stresses this is his suggestion and he does not plan to make any changes without the agreement of parents, promising to avoid acting unilaterally.

The Facebook explanation seems to be in response to a report on the minister’s intention to curtail school vacation, which was met by an angry response from students who understood their summer vacation was being shortened. School principals were also opposed to the plan to shortening summer vacation, which the minister explains is not the case.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)