Last week, the chairman of the Finance Committee of the
Knesset, Rabbi Avrohom Ravitz, gave Prime Minster Netanyahu a
list of more than 1000 classrooms of which the government
will choose 400 to build for chareidi educational
institutions all over the country. A professional committee
of the Education Ministry and the Office of the Prime
Minister will decide which 400 will be built.
In his letter, Rabbi Ravitz quotes the clause which relates
to the promise Netanyahu made in the coalition agreement
between United Torah Judaism and the government, for the
building of the 400 classrooms as well as what the Deputy
Minister Michael Eitan, said on the Knesset platform three
months ago, when he announced that the Education Ministry
would conduct a professional study to examine the needs for
classrooms in the chareidi sector, according to the existing
criteria and guidelines of the Education Ministry that
determine when a classroom should be built.
Eitan announced that no more than 400 classrooms will be
built in '99, and that the chareidi educational systems
should file a report within a month regarding their needs in
this area. He also said that the general director of the
Office of the Prime Minster and the general director of the
Education Ministry will meet to discuss the building of
classrooms immediately after the Education Ministry files its
interim report.
In his letter to Netanyahu, Rabbi Ravitz said that the
chareidi sector needs 1055 classrooms, and he expects,
according to the promises and the recent declarations, that
400 will be built in the near future.
