Classroom (illustration)
Classroom (illustration)iStock

The Israel Teachers Union on Thursday morning completed a week of two-hour strikes, covering all areas of the country: On Thursday, schools in Tel Aviv and its environs began their day two hours late, at 10:00a.m.

Previous days' two-hour strikes had affected the greater Jerusalem area, northern Israel, southern Israel, and various locations in central Israel. Each day's strikes, including Thursday's, affected preschools, elementary schools, and middle schools, but did not affect special education institutions.

The Teachers Union has also announced that it will expand the strikes next week. Details will be provided over the weekend.

Israel Teachers Union Secretary-General Yaffa Ben David said, "In light of the utter silence on the part of almost all of the members of the current government, which prides itself on advancing equal opportunities and preventing discrimination against women, I wonder if everyone ignores the great difficulties which are facing the educational system, whether everyone is indifferent to the suffering of tens of thousands of women who are teachers and preschool teachers, who earn a pitiful salary and who are forced to take additional jobs in order to finish out the month."

"I ask myself: What will motivate them to act? Only in September, when they understand that one-third of of Israeli students do not have a homeroom teacher? When they bring their child to preschool and discover that there are 35 children who are living in cramped quarters without the attention they deserve? When they are forced to keep their children at home, simply because the national babysitters gave up and left?"