Following Request by Al-Tufula Center, Adalah Demands that Education Ministry to Resume Transport to School for Arab Bedouin Children in the North

On 1 November 2007, Adalah sent a letter to the Ministry of Education (MOE), Northern Division, and the head of the Regional Council of Misgav, demanding that they resume transportation by bus for children from the Arab Bedouin villages of Kammaneh and Husseniya to their school in the village of Nahaf in the north of Israel immediately. Adalah sent the letter after the educational department of the regional council decided to stop providing transport on the basis that the children are from “outside the registration area.” Adalah Attorney Sawsan Zaher wrote the letter on behalf of a number of the children's parents and the Sawa, a women's group in Husseniya, which is a product of joint work between the women and the Al-Tufula: The Pedagogical and Multipurpose Women's Center.

Children from Kammaneh and Husseniya have studied at schools in Nahaf for many years, as there are no schools in these villages. Previously, the Misgav Regional Council provided transportation for the children to Nahaf, according to the law. The route to and from the school in Nahaf from the children's homes is approximately 15 kilometers.

At the beginning of the 2005-2006 school year, the Misgav Regional Council decided to transfer all of these children to a school in Wadi Salameh, the route to and from which is around 25 kilometers. The regional council made its decision without consulting with the children's families, without informing them of it in advance. The regional council merely told the parents that it is their responsibility to register their children at a school in Wadi Salameh. In October 2005, Adalah, on behalf of the parents, petitioned the Haifa District Court, which ordered the Misgav Regional Council to resume the transportation and pay the children's “external students' education fees” in November 2005.

At the beginning of the 2007-2008 school year, the children's parents filed an application to the educational department of the Misgav Regional Council to register their children at schools in Nahaf. The Misgav Regional Council approved the majority of the applications, but refused to provide transportation for the children.

After their transportation was halted, some of the 150 children affected by the decision were forced to remain at home, in particular girls; others were forced to travel to and from their schools on foot on a daily basis. Their journey by foot included crossing the main road between Akka (Akko) and Safad (Tzfat), which posed a great danger to their lives, and often left them arriving to school late and exhausted, as Adalah argued in the letter.

In the letter, Attorney Zaher contended that, “The Misgav Regional Council and the Ministry of Education are legally obliged to provide free education for the children of [Kammaneh and Husseniya], which includes the provision of transportation. Halting the transportation harms the children's constitutional right to an education. Thus the regional council must resume transportation immediately for the children of the two villages to and from schools in Nahaf.”