   
The Education Gap (Adalah)
Editorial, Adalah, The Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, 4 September 2007
Over the past decade, two main characteristics of the petitions filed by Adalah to the Supreme Court on behalf of Arab organizations in the field of education stand out.
The first is the focus in these petitions on the very right of access to education in Arab towns and villages. For example, these petitions dealt with the lack of schools at all levels in certain areas, particularly the Naqab, the lack of suitable access roads to schools, the transport of pupils to schools located far from their homes, and the connection of schools to infrastructural services.
The second characteristic is the focus on direct discrimination in the allocation of funding, for example, the challenge to the "Shahar" academic enrichment program's application to Jewish students only, and the classification of 553 towns and villages as National Priority Areas "A" in the field of education, excluding all Arab towns except of four small villages.
Last month, Adalah filed another kind of petition to the Supreme Court on behalf of 33 Arab families in Haifa. This petition demanded the establishment of the first special state school for the arts for Arab children. Today there are 25 special state art schools for Jewish pupils in Hebrew, and none for Arab pupils. This petition is indicative of the extent of discrimination and the huge gap between the Arab and Jewish education systems.
At the same time as the Education Ministry funds tens of special state schools in various fields (such as art, music, science, technology, media and democratic schools) for Jewish students, Arab organizations are still struggling for the very existence of ordinary schools for Arab children.
* For more information, visit the Adalah site at www.adalah.org
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