Dozens of Israeli-Arab medical students who are studying in Jordan will be forced to discontinue their studies after the Israeli Education Ministry failed to issue the necessary matriculation certificates for them.
Each year, the students are accepted to the Jordanian universities immediately after they graduate high school, based on their grade sheet, and the Education Ministry pledges to issue their matriculation certificates by the start of the academic year in September.
However, this year the ministry failed to do so on time, citing "technical problems."
'Students paying for Israel's failure'
MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List-Ta'al), who brought the issue before the Knesset, charged that the ministry's shameful conduct was reminiscent of the Third World.
Tibi said that following a recent conversation with Education Minister Yuli Tamir, she apologized for the delay and promised to handle the matter. He also spoke to the Jordanian authorities, which agreed to defer the deadline for handing in the certificates to October 24.
However, after the certificates had not been delivered by the agreed-upon date, the universities informed the Israeli students that they were suspending their studies till further notice.
"The enlightened State of Israel, which seeks to become a member of the European Union, can't even issue a matriculation certificate on time?" Tibi slammed. "This is a shameful failure for which the students are regretfully made to pay too dear a price."
The Education Ministry responded by saying that they were currently handling numerous requests for certificates, and that the delay was the result of the teachers' strike last year, which pushed forward some of the matriculation exams to the fall.
They further promised to resolve the issue promptly, so that the students would be able to resume their studies.