There is anger and fear in the dati leumi community as Education Minister (Yesh Atid) Rabbi Shai Piron is reportedly planning to infuse hundreds of millions of shekels into public schools in the Arab sector. Most of the money will be taken from the dati leumi education system.
There are rumors that the minister is working to allocate significant funding to the Arab sector schools, which according to academic statistics, are far behind their Jewish counterparts. Dati leumi news sources point out that in recent years academic achievement exams have shown a decline in English, biology and other non-limudei kodesh subjects in the dati leumi community. Despite the worrisome decline in core subjects, it appears the minister is going to take a major junk of that community’s education budget, a rumor that has many angered and concerned.
The treasury, which is also under Yesh Atid’s control, is preparing to increase the education budget for the weaker sectors. It is estimated that the differential budget for elementary and junior high schools will more than double, The Marker reports.
Education Ministry officials signal they are diverting money from areas receiving the largest chunk of the pie, the national religious public schools.
Today, a state religious public school junior high school students receives a budget for 48 learning hours weekly as compared to 40 hours in the non religious public schools and 35 hours in the Arab sector. The ministry is now working to narrow the gaps between the sectors.
However, in an effort to soften the blow and expected opposition, the state religious public schools will receive perks. Some of the special funding received by religious public schools will be included in their basic budget. The ministry is also going to fund gender separated classrooms from fourth grade for religious schools requesting to do so. In the past the parents had to fund this.
The Marker report adds the ministry also plans to shut smaller schools and it will provide transportation for students to larger schools, a move that the ministry feels will result in significant savings.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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6 Responses
You call this piron guy rabbi???? Come on?
Next we will call Obama and Putin rabbi!
There he goes again… tell him to go back to laughing at the knesset podium……
Of course this Shai guy (a rabbi like Dov Lipman, Yair Lapid, Obama and Putin, as #1 said) has to take it from the Daati Leumi community? From whom else? He has already squeezed charedim dry and won’t ch”v take it from the universities. For Yesh Atid Arabs and other goyim are much more important. With such friends of religious Jews, who needs enemies?
And where’s is DL’s chairman Bennett in all this? Haven’t they realized yet that Bennett hasn’t done a single positive thing for them?
By the way if all these jew haters are “rabbis” u guess bibi is rosh yeshiva, maran, or chacam!
Under the Israeli system (and this is true in many countries with parliamentary systems), distributing patronage is a major function of cabinet ministers. Yesh Atid hopes to get some Arab votes in the future (remember a good many Israeli Arabs are secular – and might find Yesh Atid to be attractive). However at this point, Yesh Atid has little hope of getting either hareidi or dati leumi support – so why not burn bridges that won’t bring in support and spread some money where it will be more effective in bringing in votes and contributions.
And by the way, this is what Rabbi Deri was sent to prison for- though his real offense was for being an uppity frum Sefardi.
That’s it, I think that from now on, instead of calling him by the title Rabbi they should call him imam, as we see where his loyalties lie