United Torah Judaism MKs tabled the Chareidi Education Law on
Monday 9 Tammuz and the Knesset granted a request to exempt
it from the 45-day tabling requirement, allowing the bill to
be brought for discussion in next week's plenum.
The bill is needed because of a High Court decision
preventing the funding of the yeshivos ketanos as of
the 5768 school year (which starts in just two months)
because secular subjects are not included in the
curriculum.
The law was part of the coalition agreements that were to be
signed between UTJ and Kadima, but after the negotiations
stalled and got nowhere, the paragraph was adopted by Shas
and was included in its coalition agreement.
UTJ hoped that following this agreement it would be brought
for a first reading as a government proposal, but since that
has not yet occurred, all of the UTJ party members submitted
the bill to the Knesset plenum.
The bill was drafted by the office of Atty. Yaakov Weinroth
and is called the Government Education Bill of 5767-2007 (an
amendment to the Law for Unique Educational and Cultural
Institutions 5713-1953).
The Ministerial Legislating Committee will discuss the bill
on Sunday and UTJ hopes that it will be approved so it can be
brought for a preliminary vote next week.
The bill is intended to legally regulate the chareidi
education system once and for all and to guarantee the basic
curriculum and general learning conditions. The law would
also regulate the time periods for submitting requests for
licensing educational institutions and orders to cancel the
license, including the appeal system.
Since only a short time remains to approve the law in all
plenum readings before the summer sitting ends one month from
now, UTJ is stepping up its effort to complete the
legislation process.
