Adalah Demands Education Ministry and Matte Asher Regional Council Reinstate the Personal Care-Giver to Disabled Arab Child

On 1 November 2007, Adalah sent a letter to the Matte Asher Regional Council and the Director of the Ministry of Education (MOE) in the North, demanding that the personal care-giver who accompanies a fourteen-year-old Arab child, Ibrahim Hamoud, from the village of Sheikh Danoun in the Western Galilee be reinstated. As argued in the letter, Ibrahim has suffered from a disability since birth in his spinal cord, and has been diagnosed with a 100% permanent disability, and has no control over his bladder. As a result of his situation, he is in need of a catheter and diapers at all times.

Since the first grade, Ibrahim has been studying at the Al-Salam comprehensive school in his village, because there is no special educational facility available to suit his needs. A personal care-giver was designated to and accompanied Ibrahim at all times. However, at the end of the last school year, the Matte Asher Regional Council informed his parents that the personal care-giver would be cancelled and replaced by a care-giver for all students with special needs in the class. As a result, Ibrahim was forced to remain at home without an educational framework.

In the letter, Adalah Attorney Sawsan Zaher argued that, “Ibrahim cannot do without, even for a moment, the care and supervision of a personal care-giver, and is therefore unable to attend school. The discontinuation of his personal care-giver constitutes a breach of the Compulsory Education Law (1949) and the Special Education Law (1988), which mandate the creation of a suitable educational framework for pupils with special needs. It further constitutes a breach of his basic right to education.”

The MOE's office in the Matte Asher Regional Council sent a warning in which it threatened to sue Ibrahim's parents under the Compulsory Education Law if Ibrahim did not return to the school. In response to this threat, Adalah stated in the letter that, “Given that you have not fulfilled your duty to provide a suitable education to the son of our clients it is prohibited for you to make threats on the basis of the Compulsory Education Law, which you yourselves are breaching. This step stands in contradiction of your duties and of correct conduct, in accordance with the principles of administrative law.”