Arab students lag behind in English and in science

The Education Department's Haifa district office expressed satisfaction that Haifa's Jewish sector results were higher than the national average.

By MIRIAM BULWAR DAVID-HAY (TRANSLATED)
Elementary school students in Haifa's Arab sector are failing in the key subjects of English and Science and Technology and are way behind Jewish students and even other Arab students in those subjects, reports the Hebrew weekly Yediot Haifa. In the national Meitzav tests carried out around the country in the last school year, Haifa's Arab fifth-graders scored a failing average of just 48 percent in English and 46% in Science and Technology, well behind their counterparts elsewhere in Israel. According to the report, last year's Meitzav tests examined students in second, fifth and eighth grades around Israel on their mother tongue (Hebrew or Arabic), Mathematics, English, and Science and Technology. Those results have now been analyzed by region, and in Haifa, where about half the city's 43 Jewish and seven Arab elementary schools were tested, they showed a large gap between the levels of the two sectors. The report said that among fifth-graders in the Jewish sector, the average for English was 74% in Israel and 84% in Haifa. In the Arab sector, the average for English was 69% nationally and just 48% in Haifa. Similarly, in Science and Technology the Jewish national average was 72.5% and in Haifa was 78%, but the Arab national average was 60% and in Haifa was just 46 percent. The Education Department's Haifa district office expressed satisfaction that Haifa's Jewish sector results were higher than the national average, but said "greater efforts" needed to be made in the Arab sector. No other comments were reported.