Lupolianski and Tamir scheduled to visit the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Umm Lison to inaugurate new schools.
By ABE SELIGTamir 224.88(photo credit: Ehud Zion Waldoks)
Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski and Education Minister Yuli Tamir are scheduled to visit the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Umm Lison on Wednesday to inaugurate two new schools recently built there.
While the step is certainly aimed at countering criticism the Education Ministry and Jerusalem Municipality have faced in regards to the area's education system, activists who campaign on behalf of east Jerusalem's residents say that construction of the two schools is only a drop in the bucket when it comes to solving the much larger issues facing the education system there.
"It's a positive step," said Haim Ehrlich, the
coordinator of policy development for Ir Amim, a group that promotes Israeli-Palestinian coexistence in Jerusalem. "But it doesn't begin to touch on the most serious problems in east Jerusalem - most importantly the severe lack of classrooms."
Citing a Knesset Education Committee document from 2006, Ehrlich said it is speculated that there will be a shortage of 1,900 classrooms in east Jerusalem by 2010.
"The two new schools have 46 classrooms combined," Ehrlich said. "So when you compare that to the projected number of 1,900 or the current lack of 1,500 classrooms, it's almost nothing."
Ehrlich also said the condition of existing classrooms in east Jerusalem was "harsh," with many students learning in apartments and other areas without the proper zoning for educational institutions.
"The conditions of educational institutions and really all infrastructure in east Jerusalem is not helping this situation," Ehrlich said. "It's not helping anyone."
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), echoed Ehrlich's statements, saying that while they welcomed any opening of educational facilities in the area, the new schools, whose classrooms they estimated at 30, represented only a fraction of the need in the area.
"30 new classrooms is a mere fraction of the 160 new classrooms the government has committed to building by the end of 2008," said Melanie Takefman, a spokeswoman from ACRI. "And it's an even smaller fraction of the number needed to reverse the total shortage of more than 1,500 classrooms in east Jerusalem. By 2010, that deficit will grow to 1,900."
ACRI led a protest outside of City Hall in Jerusalem earlier this week, in which pupils from east Jerusalem schools, or the lack thereof, staged a mock classroom in which speakers discussed the problems facing the area, and various ways to improve them.
Two weeks ago, as the students went back to school on the first day of classes, a flag was burned at the entrance of an elementary school in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Safafa, hours before Lupolianski and President Shimon Peres were scheduled to arrive.
Regardless, the mayor and the education minister will go to the village Wednesday, and inaugurate the new schools, along with the classrooms, computer laboratories other amenities offered inside, with the aim of advancing the students' educational environment in the village and in east Jerusalem as a whole.
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