The story that is shaking up the Haredi education system: In the upcoming school year, the Ministry of Education is planning a cut of approximately 70% from the granting of teaching study permits in seminaries. This step was considered in the past, during Gideon Sa'ar's time as Minister of Education, but the Haredi MKs, mainly the 'Degel Hatorah' MKs, who were in the coalition at the time, vetoed it.
The Minister of Education, Rabbi Shai Piron, has taken up the gauntlet and intends to implement the move as early as the next school year. If the move does indeed come to fruition, the seminaries will not be able to train many of the girls who have already been accepted to the institutions, as a result of the cuts. Another practical significance of the move is the dismissal of many teachers.
Behind the scenes of the story is a significant financial story. In some seminars, parents are required to include their daughter in the teaching track as well. That is, in addition to professional studies such as architecture, software engineering, and the like, parents are required to pay for the teaching track. Over the years, many parents have been outraged by the matter, claiming that it is a large expense that they have difficulty meeting, since each major costs over 10,000 shekels per year, at the very least, while majors such as graphics, etc. reach almost 20,000.
Budget doubling
Why is this profitable for the seminar management? The explanation is simple. In this way, the seminar 'wins' a double budget - a budget from the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism for the professional major (computer graphics, etc.), and another budget from the Ministry of Education for the teaching major. However, it should be noted that there are seminars that did not take the double budget.
Now the Ministry of Education has decided to put an end to the phenomenon. In addition to the heavy payment imposed on parents, this has also created inequality in other areas: Seminaries that benefited from the increased budgets allowed themselves to organize a summer camp for their seminary students free of charge. Girls from other seminaries were forced to pay hundreds of shekels, just because their institution did not benefit from the same budget increase.
MK Nissim Ze'ev, whose wife runs a seminary for girls in Jerusalem, tells Haredim10 that their seminary has never used this "unfair" method, and has never doubled budgets or forced girls to take one path or another. He even intends to examine the issue, submit an urgent proposal to sort it out, and perhaps even take the story to the High Court of Justice.
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