At the beginning of each academic year, parents in Jerusalem face challenges when choosing the appropriate schools for their children, due to the multiplicity of references for the city’s schools and the occupation’s supervision of a large part of them.
Palestinian academic Dr. Mustafa Abu Suway, a member of the Islamic Waqf Council responsible for a large number of schools in Jerusalem, said that the Israeli occupation runs about 40% of the city’s schools.
He added in an interview with Tel Aviv Tribune Net, before the start of the new school year this week, that Jerusalem schools have several references, including the occupation municipality, the Palestinian Authority, the Islamic endowments, and private schools or schools affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Abu Suwai stated that the occupation interferes in the educational process in several ways, which places the people of Jerusalem facing major challenges.
The number of school students in Jerusalem was estimated at about 120,000, who need about 80 new classrooms annually, indicating that the total need currently is no less than 1,800 classrooms, according to Israeli estimates.
He pointed out that the occupation deliberately improves the educational environment of the schools it supervises in order to serve the needs of its labor market in the future.
As for the schools with a Palestinian reference, Abu Suway says, they are either rented houses or buildings that are not suitable as schools and lack the most basic needs. In fact, the economic pressures they are exposed to have made some of them accept support from the occupation municipality.
He stressed the responsibility of parents in choosing the schools their children should attend.
