November 15, 2011

Bedouin school

A strike called in desperation by parents in two schools for Bedouin children in Israel’s Negev this week yielded immediate results: on the first day of the strike, education officials toured the school and the next day a contractor began to implement repairs to address the grave safety and health hazards that were the basis for the strike.

SHATIL’s Forum for Arab Education in the Negev guided the parents in their successful struggle, helping them to write letters to the authorities and to plan the strike when the letters were ignored.

“SHATIL’s help was huge,” Musa Abo Bneh, chair of the Wadi el Na’am Parents’ Committee and a member of SHATIL’s Forum for Arab Education in the Negev, told NIF News. “From writing letters to strategizing, to help in contacting the media, SHATIL was by our side 24/7 and helped us achieve a solution. SHATIL is awesome!”

Parents of the more than 2,000 pupils in the two schools and 14 preschools in the unrecognized Bedouin village of Wadi el Na’am, kept their children out of school on Sunday and Monday to protest hazardous conditions including a lack of flushing toilets that led children to relive themselves in the yard; broken windows; exposed wiring; water leaking into the schoolyard; desks and busses in poor repair and more.

The decision to strike came on the heels of a visit to the school by members of the SHATIL-led Forum for Arab Education in the Negev. As soon as word of the strike hit the media, representatives of the Ministry of Education phoned the parents and asked for a meeting — which was held the same day. Present were Nir Shmueli, deputy director of the Ministry’s southern district, Hanan Afuta, head of the education department of the Abu Basma regional council, the Ministry of Education appointed supervisor for the school, as well as representatives of the school’s Parents Committee and the Forum.

The next day – on day two of the strike — the group, as well as the official in charge of school safety for the southern district and a contractor visited the school to see the deficiencies for themselves. At the end of the visit, it was decided that repairs would begin immediately and the contractor is beginning work at the school as we go to press.

In light of the quick response, parents ended their two-day strike and the children were back in school on Tuesday.

A similar development occurred two weeks ago, when a strike by the parents of the El Azzam School in the village of Abutlul, which is in the process of becoming recognized, led to the immediate repair of a number of safety and sanitation problems. This protest was also guided by SHATIL’s Forum for Arab Education in the Negev.

Both schools have very few computers and air conditioners and teachers lack basic equipment. The parents’ committees in both schools gave the Ministry of Education until January to bring the situation up to the standards the Ministry upholds in other schools.