After the halt in the yeshiva world's budgets: The state's response, which was delivered today (Monday) in response to a petition filed against it in the High Court of Justice by the Hiddush Association, against the addition of schools from ultra-Orthodox education networks to 'Ofek Hadash', raises legal difficulties, and therefore should not be implemented now until a decision is made regarding the 'Ofek Hadash' regulations in the networks.
According to the response, the networks - Shas's 'Bnei Yosef' and United Torah Judaism's 'Independent Education' - began implementing the 'New Horizon' agreement, which was expressed in increasing the scope of teachers' working hours, on their own initiative and without a state guarantee that the agreement would indeed be implemented.
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Furthermore, the networks continue to do so despite an explicit order from Finance Ministry officials to freeze the implementation. In doing so, the state abdicates responsibility for claims by employees of the education networks that they will not receive the salary increases they were promised after being required to work overtime.
The state's response states: "As of today, the regulations have not yet been amended. Therefore, the 'Ofek Hadash' reform has not yet been applied to the schools of the chains, and to the extent that the chains actually teach according to the 'Ofek Hadash' learning format, they do so at their own discretion.".
The petition was also filed against the regulations that Education Minister Yoav Kish has been promoting in recent months to increase a permanent budget for Haredi education networks, thereby correcting decades-old injustice and discrimination, as the regulations are supposed to equalize the salaries of teachers in private Haredi education with the salaries of teachers in public state education.
In its response to the High Court, the state requested that its response regarding the claims regarding the regulations be postponed until May 21.
Contrary to the state's position, the networks claimed in their response to the petition that since they are already implementing the New Horizon Agreement, the budget increases are due to them, and the state has the obligation to increase their budgets.
Both chains claimed in their response to the petition that they began implementing the 'New Horizon' reform, based on the government's decision made in May regarding the distribution of coalition funds, which allowed them to receive salary increases for implementing the New Horizon reform.
