The Arab Education Forum in the Negev announced Tuesday it would refuse to open the school year in the sector's five schools and 12 kindergartens in protest of the local school system's hardships.
The forum's administrator, Dr Awad Abu-Farih, told Ynet that "this is just the tip of the iceberg. This is a symptom indicating the distress and extreme discrimination the Arab school system in the Negev faces."
The forum's data on the Arab school system in the Negev paints a gloomy picture: Overcrowded schools, sometimes up to double their capacity, classrooms in caravans, safety deficiencies and alarming sanitary conditions are just some of the problems it faces.
"Our children deserve the same study environment as the rest of the children in Israel ,"told Ynet a member of the forum. The leaders of the Negev's Arab communities concurred and are demanding the major issues be addressed immediately.
'Going from bad to worse'
Earlier Tuesday, the Parents Association of Yarka - a Druze community in the Western Galilee – announced it too would not open the school year.
The community's 4,000 pupils, ranging from kindergarten to eight-grade, will not begin their school year due the severe safety, sanitary and transportation deficiencies plaguing their schools.
Attorney Erez Habish, who heads the Yarka Parents Association, blames the ongoing problems on the regional council – or lack of one. The Interior Ministry ordered the council to disperse five months ago, without making certain it is replaced.
In a letter to the education, interior, environment and transpiration ministries, Habish listed all the problems Yarka's schools face, from lack of classrooms, through to delayed teachers' salaries and a wide array of infrastructural problems.
"Things in Yarka have gone from bad to worse… so it is with great pain that the Yarka schools parents' associations have decided not to open the school year until a satisfactory solution to all the problems is found," said Habish in his letter.
"The problem is there is no regional council and we don't know when it will be re-established," he told Ynet, adding "we feel we have no one to talk to... right now we're just hanging in there."
Anat Bereshkovsky contributed to this report