The official school year opened in a partial and confusing manner today, due to the strike by one of Israel's two teachers unions. Roughly a million kindergarten and elementary school children began school normally this morning, but some 550,000 junior high and high school students were affected by the protest over the firing of several hundred teachers and the cutback in hours of 3,000 others. Junior high schools in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa were not affected by the strike. Many schools have teachers from both unions, leaving some classes intact, others canceled, and both students and teachers confused. The Education Ministry is currently considering a proposal to close all junior high schools until the strike is settled. Finance Ministry officials say there are no current plans to negotiate with the teachers, and warn that the strike could be a long one.
Police and other security forces were on high alert to ensure that schools were not targeted by terrorists.
Despite the morass, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Education Minister Limor Livnat visited the Ben-Tzvi school in Ramle, while President Moshe Katzav was a guest of an elementary school in the Israeli-Arab town of Abu Ghosh, between Mevaseret Tzion and Telz-Stone. Sharon expressed his pleasure and pride at hearing the children singing about peace. "This is the only place in the region, and possibly in the world, that the first word children learn is 'peace," he said. Katzav, for his part, said he "feels pain" whenever an innocent person is killed. The remarks were taken as referring to incidents such as the one outside Hevron in which IDF forces killed four Arabs at 3 AM this morning.
Police and other security forces were on high alert to ensure that schools were not targeted by terrorists.
Despite the morass, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Education Minister Limor Livnat visited the Ben-Tzvi school in Ramle, while President Moshe Katzav was a guest of an elementary school in the Israeli-Arab town of Abu Ghosh, between Mevaseret Tzion and Telz-Stone. Sharon expressed his pleasure and pride at hearing the children singing about peace. "This is the only place in the region, and possibly in the world, that the first word children learn is 'peace," he said. Katzav, for his part, said he "feels pain" whenever an innocent person is killed. The remarks were taken as referring to incidents such as the one outside Hevron in which IDF forces killed four Arabs at 3 AM this morning.