Adalah demands the opening of a kindergarten in the unrecognized Bedouin village of Al Rowais in the Naqab
In the absence of adequate educational institutions and transport services in the village, some 140 of the village’s kindergarten-aged children do not attend any educational framework in violation of the Compulsory Education Law.
More than 2000 residents live in the unrecognized village of Al Rowais near the village of Molda in the Naqab (Negev) without any basic services such as education, health, sanitation and welfare. In the absence of educational frameworks in the village, most of the village’s 600 children attend schools in neighboring villages, and some 140 children aged 3-5 do not attend any kindergarten. There are no kindergartens in the village, and drivers of transport services hired by the regional council refuse to allow these children to board the buses to attend kindergartens in nearby villages claiming that the law prohibits them from transporting children of these ages.
On 11 September 2019, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, sent a letter on behalf of a member of the village's local committee, Salem Alnabari, to the head of the Al Qassoum Regional Council and its director of the education department, and the Education Ministry demanding the establishment of a kindergarten in Al Rowais. Adalah Attorney Nareman Shehadeh-Zoabi argued in the letter that the failure to provide schools for these children violates Amendment No. 16 to the Compulsory Education Law. This amendment, which was passed in 2014, extends the compulsory education age to three-year-old children. Thus, in light of the harsh conditions in which the older children of Al Rowais are transported to neighboring villages on unpaved roads, the 3-5 year old school should not be transported out of the village, as an alternative to establishing a school for them in the village, an obligation imposed by law on the Regional Council and the Ministry of Education.
Adalah Attorney Nareman Shehadeh-Zoabi added:
"The systemic neglect that makes the deplorable situation of the village of Al Rowais possible not only violates the basic rights of the village’s children, but also endangers their lives. As previously ruled by the court, the State and the local authority are obligated by law to provide educational services and to ensure that they are accessible. There is no justification, legally or otherwise, that kindergartens will not be built for the welfare of the children, just like anywhere else. This is just a small example of a phenomenon of enormous dimensions, as the state itself has already recognized the need for the construction of 172 kindergartens, with the exception of cases such as that of the village Al Rowais, with pressing needs that have not yet been recognized by the authorities".
