School funding to play major role in Israeli election on sectarian lines

School funding looks set to play an important role in this Israel’s election campaign after figures showed a big difference between secular and religious children, and between Arab and Jewish students.

Among other things, the statistics show that Arab students from less stable socio-economic backgrounds were allocated 42% less money than a Jewish child in the same position.

The newly-released government data, dating from 2012, follows Education Minister Shay Piron’s resignation last week, which prompted officials to disclose the information.

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It shows that students in secular Jewish primary schools got up to 15% less state funding than those in private Charedi or national religious schools. The private Charedi schools are run by Shas and United Torah Judaism – two political parties that were, until last year, members of the Israeli government. State funding for them is anchored in a 1991 agreement.

At secondary school level, Arab students from a weak socioeconomic background received 42% less ministry funding than Jewish peers, while Jewish students at national-religious high schools got 15% more than their secular counterparts.

Efforts to correct the imbalance by outgoing Finance Minister Yair Lapid hit a legislative hurdle before he was sacked last week by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who immediately called new elections.