Adalah Demands Education Ministry in the South Employ more Arab Citizens

(Beer el-Sabe, Israel) On 18 April 1012, Adalah sent a letter to Ms. Amira Haim, Director of the Southern District Ministry of Education (MOE), demanding that the MOE hire more Arab employees in order to implement the law requiring adequate representation of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel in the ministries.

Data obtained by Adalah regarding posts and public positions in the MOE shows that only 2.3% of the employees of the Southern District MOE are Arab. Some departments do not include a single Arab employee. The disproportionate employment figures are especially acute as 25% of the residents in the south are Arab Bedouin. In the Southern District, there are about 183,000 school students, 65,000 of whom are Arab Bedouin or approximately 40% of the district's students.

The duty of adequate representation of the Arab population in the civil service is enumerated in article 15a provisions of the National Service Law (1959) (as amended 2000). This law states that Arab representation in the civil service should be ensured, and the Israeli Supreme Court has emphasized this requirement in its caselaw. The lack of adequate representation in these units therefore constitutes a violation of the legal duty on the MOE.

Adalah Attorney Rami Jubran, who wrote the letter, emphasized that the issue low numbers of Arab employees in the MOE was discussed many times in recent years, and that the lack of response by the MOE has evoked strong criticism. In 2009, a report by the National Investigation Committee, headed by MK Dr. Ahmad Tibi, highlighted the low rate of Arab employees in the MOE.