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NEWS
School Year Opens Smoothly
By G. Kleiman
The 5767 school year opened on Sunday (September 3) with
hardly a hitch as 99 percent of students went back to class,
the Education Ministry reported. At 48 schools studies were
delayed for various reasons: lack of guards, lack of air
conditioners, cellular antennas in close proximity to the
school, discrimination, renovation work and budget problems
were some of the reasons cited.
A total of 1,730,000 students, including kindergartners, took
their seats on the first day of school. In Haifa and other
northern districts 450,000 children who spent their summer
vacation in the shadow of war returned to the classroom.
Eleven thousand kindergartens and 4,380 schools opened their
gates across the country, with 116,000 teachers teaching in
52,000 classrooms.
The Prime Minister's Office reports that the hot-lunch
program will be expanded in the coming weeks from 100,000 to
150,000 students — still short of the project goal of
192,000 students.
In the Palestinian school system, the teachers' strike
continues. The Palestinian Finance Ministry pledged to pay
Education Ministry workers in Gaza NIS 1,500 to stop the
strike, which follows 7 months of unpaid salaries.
Two Bedouin schools did not open. In Kaseifa a strike was
held to protest overcrowded classrooms while in Rahat a
school did not open due to parents' complaints of safety
hazards.
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