Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has slammed a refusal by schools to accept Ethiopian immigrant students as "intolerable" and vowed to punish the institutions. Three hareidi-religious schools in Petach Tikvah have refused to accept some 100 students of Ethiopian background, saying the students are way behind their peers in their studies.
The principals of the schools emphasized said they did not have the resources to provide the students with the extra assistance needed to bring them up to the level of their Israeli peers -- and the government has not offered the assistance needed to do so.
The prime minister told a joint interview Sunday morning with Voice of Israel government radio and IDF Army Radio, “This is an intolerable idea. We don’t accept this.” He added, “I give complete support to the Minister of Education’s stand.”
Minister of Education Gideon Saar has said that he will impose economic sanctions against schools that refuse to accept Ethiopian students. He added that he would also consider removing the schools’ licenses if they refuse.
MK Ronit Tirosh, former Education Ministry director-general, planned to meet Sunday morning with the principals and present a compromise solution to integrate the Ethiopian students who are lacking a school.
However, the private religious schools in Petach Tikva say they are not equipped to deal with the heavy influx of new immigrants, and have refused to accept the would-be students in an attempt to force the city to help them bear the burden of large-scale absorption.
Members of the Parent-Teacher Forum in the city's religious Zionist schools say that the state-religious schools, which serve approximately 10 percent of Petah Tikva’s children, are being expected to absorb more than 90 percent of the new immigrants – and are not being given the proper resources to do so.
While several dozen soon-to-be first grade students from Ethiopia have enrolled in the religious-Zionist schools, dozens of older children were refused admittance.
The principals from the three hareidi-religious schools were noncommittal as to whether they would attend Sunday's meeting. They said the meeting should have been held for the entire system of religious schools in the city.
School officials say the new immigrants are significantly behind their Israeli-born peers in language and math skills, and require extra assistance in order to close the gaps.
School officials proposed separate classes for students from Ethiopia, in which students would be taught material that their Israeli counterparts have already covered. However, the proposal was rejected by the Education Ministry, which said the separate classes would constitute racial discrimination.
The counter-offer reportedly proposed by Tirosh would integrate Ethiopian students in all of the city's religious schools across the entire spectrum, without their having to pass admission tets.
Moreover, the students would be placed in regular classes, but would also attend extra-curricular support classes intended to help bring them up to the academic standards of their peers. The extra support classes would also be made available to other students who need the assistance as well, according to the proposal.