PRESS BRIEF | Adalah demands Israel open kindergartens and solve overcrowding problem in Wadi El-Na'am schools

Due to overcrowding in schools in the unrecognized Bedouin village of Wadi El-Na’am in the Naqab (Negev), and the lack of sufficient classrooms and proper learning conditions, dozens of children from Alazazmeh tribe in the village were unable to attend kindergartens since the opening of the school year in beginning of September. Adalah, on behalf of Mohammed Danferi, the head of the parent committee at Alazazmeh schools, sent an urgent letter on 8 September 2022 to Israel’s Ministry of Education and to the Neve Medbar Regional Council, requesting that they act immediately to open more kindergartens and to solve the problem of overcrowding in AlAlazazmeh schools in order to allow the children to attend school. Children born between the years 2017-2019 – those of compulsory education age – still remain at home without any educational framework, despite the fact that a list with their details was forwarded to the relevant authorities in the Neve Medbar Regional Council and the Israeli Ministry of Education. Adalah argued that a situation in which children of compulsory education age do not attend an educational institution due to lack of educational frameworks and unpreparedness for the start of the school year, is outrageous, and contradicts the provisions of the law.