Israeli parents to pay only half of school fees for upcoming year
The executive director of the Israel National Council for the Child called the parental payments a "kind of regressive education tax imposed on parents in Israel."
By TZVI JOFFRE, CODY LEVINEA girl hugs her mother before entering her elementary school in Sderot as it reopens following the ease of restrictions preventing the spread of the coronavirus disease.(photo credit: REUTERS/AMIR COHEN)
Parents will pay half of the annual fees for various services offered by public schools, including educational trips and cultural activities, this upcoming year, it was decided on Tuesday.Funding of the other half of school services will be decided at a later date, depending on Israel’s health and economic situations.The decision to limit the amount paid by parents came following an agreement on Tuesday between the chairman of the Knesset Education Committee and the Education Ministry.The government on Tuesday also approved a proposal to set aside NIS 300 million to subsidize afternoon childcare services until the end of the upcoming school year.The proposal was raised by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Israel Katz and Education Minister Yoav Gallant.Vered Windman, executive director of the Israel National Council for the Child (NCC), said: “A vote in favor of parental payments is a vote in favor of perpetuating disparities and discrimination, especially in today’s time of crisis against the background of the deteriorating socioeconomic situation in the face of the consequences of the coronavirus.”The NCC has demanded the cancellation of parental payments and has asked the Education Ministry to at least present a multiyear plan leading to the full cancellation of parental payments.Windman said the payments were a “kind of regressive education tax imposed on parents in Israel.”“The mechanism of parental payments, in its current format, leads to inequality and widening gaps [both] between students and from school to school, all according to the financial capacity of the student’s family,” she said.The schools are responsible for collecting the payments, often creating friction between staff and parents.“Parental payments fundamentally contradict the principle of equality, the basic right to education and the spirit of the Free Education Law, and they constitute fertile ground for the humiliation and discrimination of students, while widening the gaps in the education system,” Windman said.The subject of parental payments to schools has been contested for years, as even payments considered optional, such as school trips and cultural activities, feel compulsory for many parents.One of the latest clashes on the issue occurred between Blue and White and Likud last July, when Blue and White worked to block Likud from removing government coverage of certain educational initiatives.At the time, MK Orly Fruman (Blue and White) accused the Education Ministry of treating parents as a cash register.“It is time for long-term planning to ease the burden on the parents and for the state to take responsibility for funding what is called free compulsory education,” she said.
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