Thousands of people rallied in Jerusalem on Sunday, September 6, to demand more funds for Christian schools to which the Ministry of Education allocates a third of what it budgets per Jewish pupil. During the protest, Hadash MK Ayman Odeh (Joint List) announced that the entire Arab school system will go on strike on Monday, September 7, in solidarity with the Christian schools. Some 33,000 Christian students from 47 schools have been on strike since the school year began on September 1.

Thousands rallied in Jerusalem on Sunday, September 6, to demand more funds for Christian schools. (Photo: Siha Mekomit)

The Christian schools are demanding a budget of 200 million shekels a year (around $50 million) so that parents will no longer have to pay monthly tuition fees. The Ministry of Education has proposed an allocation of only 20 million shekels.

“Budgetary cuts along with the Ministry of Education’s order restricting collections of tuition fees from the parents are a death blow to the Christian schools,” said the principal of one such school. The Christian school administrators point out that ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools in the independent Ma’ayan Hahinukh Hatorani and Haredi Atzma’i networks are funded in full by the state budget, even though they are not subject to inspection by the Ministry of Education and despite the fact that many of these schools do not teach the mandatory core curriculum set by the ministry.

Rallies in support of the Christian schools took place in a number of Arab and mixed Arab and Jewish communities last week. At Kafr Rama, in the Galilee, dozens of people blocked Route 85, while in Ramle in the center of the country, hundreds of students and their parents attended a solidarity rally on Thursday, September 3. The majority of Ramle’s Arab children study in church schools. Similar events also took place last week in Haifa, Jerusalem, Shfaram, Jaffa, and Nazareth.