Source: Jerusalem Post
The Israel Education Ministry is launching a new five-year program to integrate Israeli-Arab teachers into Jewish schools in order to fill a shortage of teachers for core subjects. The program calls for 500 teachers to be fully integrated into schools in five years, teaching science, math, English, and Arabic – subjects with a severe shortage of teachers – according to a report by Channel 2 on Tuesday. The program will cost six million dollars.
The project is based on a pilot program sponsored by the Abraham Fund the Ya Salam program which began in 2005, with cooperation from the Education Ministry, completely funding the program in Israeli elementary schools until the government saw value in it and adopted it.
Ya Salam has 85 Arab and 15 Jewish Arabic teachers, who teach both written and spoken Arabic along with aspects of Arab culture to 5th and 6th graders. In 2009, after a trial period, Ya Salam was implemented in every elementary school in Haifa and the northern sector of Israel.