 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
3,000 Arab students will be forced to cross fence on way to school
|
|
|
Yoav Stern / Ha'aretz
|
01 September 2004
|
|
| |
Some 3,000 Arab schoolchildren and dozens of teachers will be forced every day to pass through the transit points in the West Bank separation fence in order to get to their schools in Jerusalem, according to figures released yesterday by the Jerusalem municipality. The students in question all study at state schools operated by the municipality's education authority, and there are also students at private schools scattered across the capital who will also have to pass through military roadblocks on their way to school.
The separation fence passes through the municipal area of Jerusalem at several points, dividing residential areas and the schools designed to serve them. Suhila Abu Gosh, the deputy director of the education authority's Arab division, said yesterday that police and Border Police officials promised to try to make the daily trip by students as quick as possible, but that there was no guarantee that they would be exempt from delays. The municipality is about to sign a lease on a building in the village of Aqab, which will be used as a school, saving local students from crossing through the fence every day.
Sources in the education authority report a massive increase in the number of students seeking to register for schools in East Jerusalem, since so many families are relocating to areas of Jerusalem which lie within the route of the fence. "Our schools now have to take in many more students," says Abu Gosh.
There are still no exact figures regarding the scope of the phenomenon, since it is common in the Arab education system for students to turn up at a school on the first day of lessons without having previously registered. The entire Arab education system continues to suffer from a severe shortage of classrooms, despite efforts by the education authority to construct additional classrooms.
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Visit the WIR
Archive for previous issues |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Subscribe
| Unsubscribe
The Week
In Review Newsletter is sent to PHRC subscribers or anyone
else who has expressed an interest in our service.
Powered by the Palestine Human Rights Campaign |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
