Education Ministry Orders the Led Municipality to Register Three Children at Preschools Located Close to their Homes
On 13 November 2007, in its response to a letter sent by Adalah, the Ministry of Education?s (MOE) ordered the Preschool Division in the Municipality of Led (Lod) to allow three Arab families to register their children at predominately Jewish preschools located close to their homes in the Ghani Afif neighborhood immediately. In the letter, sent in September 2007 on behalf of three children, Adalah demanded that the children be registered at these preschools due to the long distance between their homes and the Arab schools to which the municipality had assigned them.
In the letter, Adalah Attorney Sawsan Zaher argued that the families' wished their children to be registered at a preschool close to their homes due to the long delay in transportation to the school to which they were assigned. This delay forced the children to return home by foot or to travel on alternative buses, if available, or to stay at home. In addition, other children claimed to have been subjected to incidents of physical and sexual assaults on the buses, making all of the children and scared reluctant to travel to school.”
“The unavailability of transportation for the children violates their right to obtain a free, compulsory education and denies them an educational framework. Out of school, many of the children play outside without supervision and exposed to danger. The Led Municipality is obliged to provide transportation for the children if there are no schools located close to their homes, in accordance with the Compulsory Education Law [1949], and the non-provision of transportation is in breach of the Compulsory Education Law and of the municipality's duty to realize the children's right to an education,” argued Attorney Zaher.
The children on behalf of whom the letter was sent have ceased going to school as a result of the aforementioned transportation problems. The parents therefore requested that their children be transferred to schools closer to their homes, but were rejected by the Preschool Division in the Municipality of Led. The families also complained to the municipality's drop-out counselor, who warned them that criminal indictments would be filed against them for breaking the Compulsory Education Law.
