"The Status, Challenges and Effects of ECCD on Palestinian Arab community citizens of Israel&qu

Background

Palestinian citizens of Israel comprise approximately 20%, or a little over 1 million of Israel’s population. Palestinian children citizens of Israel comprise 25% of all children living in Israel. This national minority is discriminated against on a number of levels, through laws as well as government policies. This discrimination is affecting all spheres of life and creating huge gapes between the Jewish and Arab citizens in Israel. Poverty is only one example: 57.5% of Arab children are living under the poverty line.

Palestinian citizens of Israel are not a monolithic group. They live in a variety of cities, towns and villages throughout Israel, including the unrecognized villages, mixed cities, and Palestinian villages, and within secular and a variety of religious communities (Muslim, Christian, Druze).

The state, to date, failed to provide meaningful or effective programs to eliminate discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel. Generally we should be aware that:

a) The absence of a written constitution, basic law or ordinary statute that explicitly guarantees the right of equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel diminishes the power of this right. It thereby prevents the Palestinian minority from attaining equal rights.

Israel still lacks a written constitution or a basic law that constitutionally guarantees the right of equality for all. Further, there is no regular law which protects the right of equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel. Although Arab MKs have submitted many bills aimed at guaranteeing this right for Palestinian citizens of Israel, all were dismissed by a majority of the Knesset. Although ordinary statutes do provide protection for the right of equality for some segments of the population such as women,[1] through the Women's Equal Rights Law, which declares total gender equality, no statute relates to the right to equality as a constitutional right.

b) Ordinary statutes that protect the right to equality for women, such as a 2000 amendment to The Women's Equal Rights Law – 1951,[2] which prohibits all forms of discrimination against women, whether intentional or de facto, and the 1993 and 2000 amendments to the Government Companies Law - 1975, which mandate affirmative action for women and Palestinians citizens of Israel, are not effectively implemented in the case of Palestinian women.

c) Another significant problem with the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty (in addition to numerous other laws, including the Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation) is the protection it affords to the Jewish majority, through its declaration of the state as a Jewish and democratic state.[3] This declaration undermines the equal rights of "non-Jewish" citizens of the state and can be interpreted as justifying the giving of preference to, and implying the superiority of, the majority in various fields. [4]

The exclusion of the right to equality from the Basic Laws, as well as Israel's self-definition as a Jewish state, empowers the state to carry out an unreasonable policy of "reasonable discrimination." [5] The origin of this concept is that discrimination on the basis of national belonging is legitimate, part of the government's policy, and part of the "constitutional" structure of the state as "Jewish and democratic."

Although the state policy impacts all citizens and all spheres of life, however the most affected groups in our society are women and children as demonstrated below:

Palestinian women citizens of Israel face the harshest consequences of this discrimination – as members of a national minority group, and as women in the Israeli society – and as women living in a conservative and traditional society. In this paper I will concentrate on Early Childhood Education (ECE) services, although we believe that it is important to address other fields which are related to ECCD. Since ECCD is not only related to formal or informal education but rather, it includes all the domains related to the child’s growth and development, and those which affect him/her such as: caring for the pregnant mother and follow up on the fetus’s development and growth, primary and protective health care, child’s education, child-oriented media, schooling, etc…

The Effect of ECCD

Education and psychology scholars agree on the important role which early childhood has in building the individual’s personality. Therefore the Field of Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) demands worldwide attention. Studies have demonstrated how efficient it is for the society as a whole to invest in ECCD. The child’s first years are considered a crucial period, particularly when it concerns the cerebral development.

In the last few years, there has been a remarkable progress in this field. The concern for children and childhood in general, and the awareness of the importance of early childhood in particular have increased. Despite this improvement, our children still suffer a serious discrimination regarding the services and opportunities offered to them. Caregivers are still in need of supportive resources in Arabic, and parents still encounter serious challenges regarding this issue.

Education in ECCD

In Israel, for historical background, ECCD educational services fall under the responsibility of two ministries:

The Ministry of Industry Trade and Labor and the Ministry of Education

The Ministry of Industry Trade and Labor: ages Birth - 3

Under this Ministry’s responsibilities falls the following:

• Support working women and provide subsidy in Nurseries and home nurseries fees.

• Set the rules for payment in the nurseries and home nurseries

• Approve the Nurseries and provide them with license.

• Supervise the work in the Nurseries.

• Supervise the home nurseries.

According to the law each working women could receive subsidy in accordance with the family income given that she is working women and her child is visiting a recognized nursery.

According to the Ministry, of the 1,665 daycare centers, which have recognition, only 31 centers operate in Palestinian villages equaling 1.86%. They provide service for only 1700 Arab child that is 2.1% of the total children in that age. Another 2,500 Arab children aged 0-3 attends publicly subsidized house care programs.

Although Palestinian children constitute 25% of the total number of children in Israel, they constitute only 5.25% of the 80 thousand children in Israel attending subsidized daycare centers and house care programs. The lack of sufficient daycare centers in Palestinian villages discourages many women from participating in the labor force, since most of them cannot afford a private babysitter.[6]

This situation creates a list of problems such as:

• Lack of appropriate development supervision.

• Absent suitable infrastructure

• Lack of special consideration of Arab NGO’s working to advance ECCD.

• Lack of professional supervision on caregiver training.

Ministry of Education: 3-5 years

Let me begin with a positive remark that the late appointment of Professor Yuli Tamir as Minister of Education could be an opportunity to make some positive changes in the Ministry of Education.

Background:

The Ministry of Education (MOE) severely under-funds schools for the Palestinian minority in Israel. Israel does not regularly release official data detailing how much it spends in total on each Palestinian compared with Jewish student, which "… indicates the weakness of its commitment to real improvements in the Palestinian educational system in Israel."[7] However, statistics published in 2004 reveal that combined public and private investment in Palestinian school students stood at an average of 862 New Israeli Shekels (NIS) per student, compared with 4,935 NIS per Jewish student for the academic year 2000-2001. Over the same period, public investment totaled on average 534 NIS per student for Palestinians, compared with 1,779 nis per Jewish student.[8] Thus, while these figures show that private investment in Jewish students greatly outstripped that in Palestinian students, the government spent over three times as much on each Jewish student as on each Palestinian student. This under-funding is manifested in many areas, including the poor infrastructure and facilities that are characteristic of Palestinian schools[9]. Crowded classrooms[10], few teaching hours relative to Jewish students, the lack of support and management professionals in the Palestinian educational system in Israel, and poor Arabic textbooks. This environment creates a negative experience for students, academically, emotionally and socially, and leads to phenomena such as academic under-achievement and high drop-out rates.

The MOE retains centralized control over the curricula for Palestinian schools and Jewish secular schools. The State Education Law sets the educational goals of the state educational system, which emphasize only Jewish history and culture. Mandatory subjects for all students who take the matriculation examinations at the end of high school include, for example, Jewish religious texts. Palestinian students are thus denied the opportunity to develop a positive cultural and national identity.

ECCD services for Arab children

Two recent legislative measures are potentially effective legal tools for raising education levels for all in Israel. However, both are being implemented in a discriminatory manner vis-à-vis Palestinian citizens of Israel.

A 1984 Amendment to the Compulsory Education Law-1949 lowered the age of compulsory education from five to three years old, and required that implementation of the new amendment be fully achieved by the end of 2000, subsequently delayed until 2008. Due to the MOE's discriminatory allocation of budgets for kindergartens, state funding for preschool education for three to four year old Palestinian children remains minimal: although over 25% of children in Israel aged three and four are Arab, only 66.5% of three-year-old Arab children were enrolled in kindergartens in 2002-2003, compared with 100% of Jewish children.[11] In 2004, the Supreme Court rejected a petition which demanded that the MOE establish preschools for approximately 300 Palestinian Bedouin children in their villages to ensure their right to free education, in accordance with the Compulsory Education Law.[12] The children involved were from two Bedouin villages in the Naqab in the south of Israel which the government does not recognize, both of which lack any educational framework for children of this age.

The Long School Day Law-1997 (amended 2004) was passed to increase school hours for students in towns and villages with low socio-economic status, and to encourage mothers in these areas to work outside their homes. The long school day is available for only 10% of the school children in Israel, or 140,000 children. The generally poor state of school infrastructure, buildings and facilities in Palestinian towns and villages further hinders the implementation of this law in Arab schools. Budgetary constraints, to which Israel attributes the partial/delayed implementation of these laws, cannot continue to relieve the MOE of its obligations under them. The implementation of the laws should prioritize the economically and educationally disadvantaged Palestinian minority in Israel, to help close the educational gaps between Jewish and Palestinian students.

The shortage of kindergartens and daycare centers, and the non-implementation of the long school day in Palestinian towns and villages, reduce the engagement of the Palestinian women, traditionally the primary care-providers for children, in the labor force. Their low rate of engagement in the labor force impacts negatively on Palestinian women's standard of living and degree of independence.

Further more the Arab children are marginalized from all reform effort given in Jewish schools as an example I present you with a subject which is dear to me that is Gender Equality:

In the report presented to CEDAW Israel states (p.86) that in recent years "sincere efforts" were made to remove messages containing gender stereotypes from textbooks used in Palestinian schools, in line with efforts previously made in the Jewish educational system. However, the report goes on to cite the 1999 State Comptroller Report, according to which the MOE lacked the means to extend the project of removing stereotyped messages into the Palestinian educational system. As a result, textbooks used in many Palestinian schools still contain gender stereotypes. A committee set up by the MOE to examine gender stereotypes in school textbooks in Israel concluded that 60% or more of the textbooks examined in the Palestinian educational sector include the wide use of gender stereotypes, and that this indicates that gender stereotypes are more common in textbooks in the Palestinian sector than in the Jewish sector.[13] Therefore, the MOE's failure to remove gender stereotypes from textbooks in the Palestinian sector constitutes discrimination against Palestinian female school students, since the need to eliminate these stereotypes has been identified and they have been removed from textbooks in Jewish schools.

Other issues such as children with special needs recreation program enrichment programs needs further presentation.

The challenges:

In the last few years, our understanding and awareness of the importance of ECCD has remarkably developed; however, we still encounter grand challenges. These challenges can be either categorized on different levels, such as political level (formal and informal), social level and professional level, or summarized as follows:

• Challenges relevant to social awareness and attitudes:

-Challenges deriving from the social attitudes towards children/ childhood.

-Parents’ challenges regarding early childhood.

• Policy-related challenges:

-General policies of the government regarding ECCD in the Arab society.

-Local policies in municipalities and local authorities.

-Policies in local organizations

• Resource related challenges:

- Human resources

-Professional resources

-Material resources

Challenges relevant to social awareness and attitudes

Challenges deriving from the social attitudes towards children and childhood

In our society, each family member plays a specific role with responsibilities within the family as a collective. This includes the role of child care which doesn’t relate only to parents and siblings like other familial responsibilities. Rather, there is an active participation of grandparents, aunts and uncles. The large family still plays an important role in childcare regardless of any negative or positive impact. In other words, our cultural heritage is very rich with knowledge and positive and negative practices. The real challenge here is appreciating this heritage and treating its components critically so that we can adopt methods which integrate authenticity with innovation.

The second challenge, relating to the previous one is building an educational approach:

The challenge here is formulating and developing educational approaches which suit the twenty-first century. Education can neither be treated as correction nor as formation. The real challenge is to deal with education as development since each individual is already equipped with various capacities which develop naturally and are shaped following the individual’s interaction with his/her surrounding.

This creates other challenges such as:

-Recognizing the child’s internal life that appears and prospers under certain conditions (valuing the individual’s various capacities).

-Recognizing the child’s internal motivation which leads him/her to initiate activities and direct them, as very crucial for developing his/her different personality aspects.

-Appreciating the individual differences between children.

-Raising the child on self-discipline, for guaranteeing his/her personal freedom and responsible behavior in a socio-cultural context.

-Raising the child should be done according to the child’s own capacities.

• Appreciating and respecting the parents and large family’s role in enriching the child’s surrounding.

Parents’ challenges regarding early childhood

Parents play an important role in ECCD where they face different challenges:

Parents still relate the term ECCD to the child’s learning, and it is presumed that learning relates to the presence of a teacher and student. The teacher’s role is to teach/ explain and lecture, whereas the child’s role is to “understand” and “memorize”. This vision affects the way we treat our children and our expectation from the nursery and/or the Kindergarten. When our child returns home, we ask him/her “what did you learn today”? We expect an answer that emphasizes information that he/she is supposed to acquire at the nursery like numbers, songs, etc. Likewise, many caregivers face questions from parents’ such as “what did our child learn today?”, and some of them have difficulties answering this question and tolerating the parents’ urgent need to know “how many things did our child learn?”

The challenge here is concentrating on the quality of the caregiver’s work with the child, rather than the quantity as the technological progress around us doesn’t focus on the need to memorize, as one hard disk can save a lot of information in few seconds. Nowadays, we need skills for dealing with the huge amount of information, finding the correlations and making the right choice. In other words, we need to develop critical attitudes rather than the capacity of storing information. Moreover, we need to create knowledge rather than just learn it.

Other challenges

• The major challenge is treating ECCD as a complicated mission which needs various skills and huge efforts, especially when the knowledge resources are various, thus emphasizing the parents’ responsibility to help their children dealing critically with these resources.

• Preserving and respecting children’s rights.

• Satisfying the child’s basic needs in a manufactured society, full of attractions and various seductions, under difficult conditions of poverty and financial crisis (60% of poor children are Arab). With the absence of financial problems, the quality of the childcare still remains a serious challenge in large families.

• Adopting a developing pattern of childcare, especially as most parents are acquainted with childcare as a pattern of training or forming.

• Parents should play a role in protecting their children from sexual and physical violence, and any other harm.

• Participating in the educational formal processes. In most of the places that we’ve surveyed, parents took part only in financial support or in entertaining programs. Their role as partners in determining the educational vision or as partners in the educational mission is almost nonexistent. This emphasizes the urgent need for developing the educational vision regarding early childhood among directors in the Ministry of Education, early childhood coordinators and parents.

• All the above challenges are a small part of a wide range of other challenges…

Policy related challenges

Israel is considered to be very developed regarding ECCD, especially concerning laws and services. However, there is an important challenge related to the formal concept of ECCD and the institutional infrastructure deriving from this vision:

The importance of ECCD is still related to education, especially in a formal framework. The real challenge is developing the concept so that it becomes inclusive, relating to all developmental domains and aiming at perfection regarding all the components that affect the ECCD.

It is evident that the different developmental domains are interrelated and one can not concentrate on one aspect without considering the other aspects as the impact is mutual. For example, we can not develop the child’s cognitive skills and capacities without considering his emotional, social and environmental state. A state of illness, hunger, pain or unease will definitely affect the child’s capacities to interact, learn and develop. In addition, the child’s care and development start once or even before he/she is born.

(Nowadays, few people recognize the importance of physical, cognitive, emotional and psychological preparations for pregnancy).

Recognizing this challenge and thinking of ways for dealing with it require several changes

This would require rethinking the existent ECCD infrastructures found in the different ministries that are without planning. The Ministry of Health deals with pre and post-birth health issues. The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Employment, deals with the educational frameworks for early childhood and not necessarily for the sake of ECCD, but for supporting working mothers. Despite the changes that have occurred in the last few years regarding the different aspects of this collective responsibility, the focus still remains one-sided in the Ministry of Education and others.

Revising this issue would urge the ministries or departments to cooperate in order to deal with the field of ECCD.

General policies of the government regarding ECCD in the Arab society

The challenges relate to the law application in the Arab society:

The modified law concerning free compulsory education was recommended to include children who are 3-5 years old and due to the need for suitable educational framework

(Modification of 1984). It was suggested to apply this law in all the areas until 1992. However, the implementation had been postponed for another 10 years. In 1992, the early childhood committee in Shatil, with the cooperation of the Follow-Up Committee and the Israeli Parliament members, started working on achieving the postponed implementation of the law. The efforts of these active entities, and after years of intensive work for increasing the educational institutions in our society, have led to the government decision of implementing the law of free compulsory education gradually, within 10 years beginning from 1999.

At that time, the Minister of Education (Yitzhak Levi) suggested applying the law according to “national priorities”, thus excluding the majority of Arab children. Following the application list which included 136 settlements in the occupied territories, we organized another campaign against that discriminating decision. The public institutions, including Shatil’s early childhood committee and the Follow-Up Committee on the Arab Education, approached the high court regarding this issue. They required a just application of the law and suggested the socio-economic scale as an appropriate and fair scaling. These insisting public committees were welcomed by the new Minister of Education (Yosi Sarid) who adopted our attitudes and suggestions and transformed the “national priorities” into measures determined according to the socio-economic scaling published by the central surveys bureau, as all the Israeli cities and villages belong to 10 levels ( level 1 is the lowest). Due to unemployment, poverty and difficult socio-economic situation in many Arab areas and villages, these are located in the lowest levels of the scale- figure 1. When it was decided to apply the law in the areas located in the lowest two levels, 41 Arab villages and towns were included in the list.

Despite our achievements concerning the 1999 free compulsory education and our successful impact on the Ministry of Education, the application of this law still suffers budget deduction and the ministry’s ignorance. Whoever reads the ministry’s pamphlets meets promises that haven’t been fulfilled for years.

According to the 2003 general survey, there was an increase in the number of children attending KGs (3-4 years old) in the areas where the law has been applied. However, there haven’t been enough KGs to absorb all the children, thus there was an increase in the average of children’s number in each KG, and there is a need for intensive care especially in the Negev.

The report prepared by Ameen Fares, Mossawa center, and according to the general survey conducted by Dr. Hala Espanioly of Al-Tufula center to follow up on the implementation of the law 2004, demonstrate that, the number of children (0-6 years old) who attended educational frameworks reached 385,076, while the number of Arab children reached only 67,575. This means 17.5 % of the children who attended educational frameworks the same year. The number of 3-6 years old children who attended educational frameworks was 64,010.

0-6 years old children in Nurseries and day care centersr

Comparison between the Arab and Jewish educational frameworks for the year 2002

Age

Number of children in each group

% Arab children in each group

Number of children in educational frameworks

Number of Arab children in educational frameworks

Percentage of Arab children in educational frameworks

Total

918,452

29.0

385,076

67,575

17.5

Birth

136,121

28.5

519

34

6.6

1

137,071

29.4

13,601

653

4.8

2

133,849

29.6

29,879

1,250

4.2

3

132,880

29.4

106,851

17,556

16.4

4

128,516

29.2

112,493

19,707

17.5

5

126,040

28.6

109,013

27,948

25.6

6

123,975

28.2

12,720

427

3.4

If we look at the education percentage, which is the percentage of the number of children in the educational framework for 1000 child in each age category, we conclude that the gap between the Arab and the Jewish education percentage is huge, reaching 50%: the Arab education 24.7%, while the Jewish 47.3%. The gap becomes smaller once the children are younger.

Percentage of Arab and Jewish Education

Age

Education average for 1000 children

Education percentage in the Jewish educational system

Education percentage in the Arab educational system

Percentage difference between Arab and Jewish education

Total

419

473

247

1.9

0

4

5

1

5.7

1

99

133

16

8.3

2

223

296

31

9.6

3

804

931

439

2.1

4

875

981

504

1.9

5

865

867

745

1.2

6

103

134

12

11.3

Ameen Fares examined the impact which the law application has on the percentage of children in nurseries in the Arab society. He found that following the law implementation, the children’s number was doubled. These findings match the inclusive survey done by Dr. Hala Espanioly in 2003, especially after implementing the law in the two lowest levels of the socio-economic scale. The villages belonging to these levels were mostly Arab and it is worth mentioning that the law was applied due to our serious efforts invested then.

This survey shows the positive impact the law had on the numbers. The education percentage in the nurseries (ages 1-2) had increased in 105.1% following the law application. Among 3-6 year old children, where the law hasn’t been applied yet, the increase reached 35%. Consequently we, in Musharaka, have introduced a special project for advocacy and are looking for a suitable coordinator.

The challenge here is applying the law in other areas.

Other challenges related to the government policies and the discrimination practiced against the Arab society regarding projects and budgets

• Buildings' Infrastructure: One of the harshest obstacles facing those responsible for early childhood in Arab cities and villages are the suitable buildings, and the budgets' issue. According to the inclusive survey conducted in 2003, the implementation of the law has not solved the issue of buildings, areas and budgets. According to the official regulations imposed by the Ministry of Education, the inner area of nurseries should be at least 125m². In addition, if the nursery includes an external yard, the overall required area should reach 500 m², a detail not found in the survey. Added to the buildings' issue, the nurseries' yards are poorly equipped with playing facilities. Therefore, the government has to adopt a holistic plan for developing the infrastructure in Early Childhood. This requires cooperation between ministries, relevant institutions and local authorities to further develop this infrastructure and search for creative methods to face this challenge. This holistic plan should take into consideration the unrecognized and newly recognized villages, in addition to the educational frameworks for children with special needs and children in the mixed cities.

• Campaigns against the privatization in education, and preventing opportunist groups from abusing the free obligatory education law for their own benefit. These groups aim at profiting on the children’s accounts. They are registered as private institutions that obtain recognition according to the law. A law that permits the opening of nurseries by local authorities and organizations.

• Supporting educational initiatives aiming at developing an alternative to the formal educational frameworks. This alternative should be oriented towards enriching the field of early childhood and contributing to pluralism as an essential value.

• The supportive infrastructure regarding projects, resources and services available to the caregivers. Although the Ministry of Education has never prioritized it, many caregivers see the positive contribution this issue has on their work in the field. For example:

The challenge of applying pressure on the Ministry of Education to increase the training and supervision days. Currently, the ministry's policy provide the Jewish sector with 1 training days for 25 nursery classes, and one supervisor for 80-100 caregivers. However, this policy is not implemented in the Arab sector. The pressure under which the supervisor works makes it difficult for her to answer all the needs in the field. Here, one can notice the apparent discrimination between the Arab and the Jewish sectors (on average, the Arab supervisor is responsible for 180 caregivers while the Jewish is responsible for 80 caregivers only). Consequently, there is an urgent need to ask for an increase in the number of supervisors' in order to improve the current situation.

Training: Working with children involves many challenges and learning opportunities. It is well known that training is one of the most important tools that guarantee continuous learning in the field of early childhood. This involves challenges on the budgeting and social issues. Thus, a research needs to be conducted about how to address this issue. This issue relates to enrichment educational programs and the extent to which they meet the caregivers' needs.

Other examples related to supportive services and resources.

Local policies in Municipalities and local authorities

The local authorities play an important role in the implementation of the free obligatory education law. Despite the gradual development in this field, and the increased interest in this issue on behalf of the Arab local authorities, there are still many challenges related to their involvement in the field:

• Taking the responsibility to develop early childhood frameworks holistically, on the village or the city level. Cooperating with the other early childhood institutions to meet the needs of the local community.

• Campaigns against the privatization in education at the local community level, especially by individuals or groups aiming at profiting on the children’s accounts. When the local authorities don’t consider or prioritize the opening of nurseries, these groups, registered as private institutions establish nurseries and obtain official recognition. Many of these institutions have been registered as non-profit organizations in order to obtain recognition from the education or the local ministries. This is one of the conditions for the recognition of the nursery to be a registered institution or a local authority. Aiming solely at profiting, these nurseries create problems concerning the quality of the work and the services provided there.

• Placing early childhood issues on higher levels in the priorities list. Developing a professional early childhood unit that cooperates with supervisors and trainers for supporting caregivers, assistants and parents. The inclusive survey results show an increased interest on the behalf of local authorities to employ an early childhood coordinator. The survey data shows that the coordinators working in the local authority have no experience or qualifications relevant to the field of early childhood. This issue needs further examination.

• There should be a proper use of the budgets designated to develop the early childhood services.

• The participation of parents in the educational process and adopting holistic educational vision and policies. According to the inclusive survey, we have realized that the educational vision adopted in the nurseries and adapted to the child's needs is not clear yet. Moreover, we have realized that caregivers and parents don’t take an essential part in determining this vision. Therefore, it is very important to hold training courses for departments' heads in the local authorities. Through this, we aim at cooperating to developing a common educational vision adopted by all the specialists and professionals in early childhood, and shared by all the agents that have an influence on the educational process.

• Another important issue to be addressed is “steering committees” Most Arab local authorities lack similar committees (they exist only in 16.6% of the local authorities in which the law is implemented). However, these committees rarely include caregivers, who are considered to be the crucial in the field of early childhood. Thus it is essential involving them in determining the educational vision according to which they work.

Policies in local institutions

The last few years have witnessed various attempts to build a new infrastructure adapted to our society's portrait and conserving our Palestinian identity. Various follow up committees that initiate the building and the development of our society's infrastructure. In the late seventies and the early eighties, we witnessed the initiatives of social and political groups to establish nurseries and day-cares, for example: The Democratic Women Movement in the different villages and cities, The Nazareth Nurseries Institute (1984), The Progressive Women Movement in Araa, "Abnaa Al-Balad in Oum El-Fahem and "Kofor Karea'". There have also been some non-profit organizations and development some projects in the field of early childhood, like: Dar AL-Tefl Al-Arabi (The Arab child's home), Acre (1984), opening other branches in the Triangle (1989). Some years later, the organization started working independently as Dar AL-Tefl Al-Arabi- Northen Triangle and Jaffa (1989) that ceased its activities in 1991, AL-Tufula center (1989) - pertains to The Nazareth Nurseries Institute, AJEEC

(Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Development), The Early Childhood Programs Fund- Jerusalem. Many other organizations have been registered for establishing a nursery or developing a day-care center, always focusing on their previously determined aims. Religious groups have also taken the initiatives to establish similar nurseries and day-care centers.

All these attempts aim at developing the different life aspects, pressuring the government to fulfill its obligations towards the Arab society in Israel. The lack of a legal and legitimate authority (government) that prioritizes our society's interests like establishing schools, educational centers and nurseries, urges us to take the initiative and develop the life aspects neglected by the government.

In the field of early childhood, the need for nurseries and day-care centers has increased as they are considered supportive institutions, alternative to the large family. Moreover, the scientific progresses in the domains of education and psychology have emphasized the importance of the child's first years on his growth and personality. Therefore, new special programs have been developed concerning childcare giving and education in formal educational framework (nurseries and day-care centers), besides the informal ones like the family.

Despite the witnessed progress in the domain of early childhood, the different organizations realized that the efforts they invested have not been enough to fill the still existent gaps. There was an urgent need to advocate to the different ministries and raise the social awareness regarding the importance of early childhood. In 1992, a special committee for the development of early childhood in the Palestinian society in Israel was established. The committee has concentrated on:

• Raising social awareness to the importance of early childhood.

• Raising the level of the local authorities' involvement in the early childhood context, especially in establishing nurseries up to the age of 3 years old.

• Lobbying on the Ministry of Labor to raise the level of the training given to caregivers in the Arab society.

• Advocating for passing the compulsory education law from 3 years old and implementing it in the Arab society (We've achieved this goal in 1999).

• Lobbying on the governmental level to change the criteria for implementing the free compulsory education. Up to date, we've succeeded in adopting the socio-economic scale as criteria to start the law implementation. Nowadays, the law applies only for level 1 and 2.

• Lobbying to increase the early childhood courses in the formal training institutions.

• Lobbying to obtain recognition of the existent training institutions.

Nowadays, organizations deal with the following challenges:

• Broadening the cooperation between regional organizations established six years ago through Musharakah coalition and the local organizations.

• Advocating on the governmental level for the law implementation and increasing budgets for the Arab society.

• Cooperation between the civil society organizations and the formal and informal frameworks that support early childhood in the Arab society. Cooperation between ministries and organizations and the supportive foundations to guarantee the maximum benefits from the available resources.

• Developing qualitative educational resources in Arabic based on the global knowledge of early childhood and aiming at strengthening the child's Palestinian identity and humanistic values. These resources contribute to the child's critical intellectual skills and guarantee the implementation of his rights according to the Arab education vision adopted by the follow-up committee project.

• Broadening the organizations' work to reach all of the society's groups, especially the marginalized communities in the unrecognized and newly recognized villages, distant villages and children with special needs.

• Disseminating and sharing the experiences of the different organizations.

• Disseminating, sharing and distributing the special resources for parents and caregivers developed in the last twenty years.

• Supporting parents who face challenges and encouraging their involvement in the educational process.

• Supporting the organizations' transformation into developing learning institutions.

Resources- related challenges

Human resources

According to the inclusive survey findings, there are still few unqualified caregivers in the regions where the law has been implemented, especially in the Negev. However, it is worth indicating that the caregivers' qualification level is generally satisfying. This is a good evidence for the progress recently witnessed in the field of early childhood. It is an indicator of the success achieved by the civil institutions working in the field of early childhood which have invested maximum efforts to lobby on the Ministry of Education to increase the training courses in teachers' formal institutions to qualify the caregivers working in the field. Though much was achieved, there is still a need to give more weight to this issue in order to implement the law in different areas, especially in the Negev.

We also witness an increase in the frameworks providing B.E.D to caregivers. Previously, the B.E.D could be obtained only at the Arab Teachers' College. Today, many other colleges have this accreditation, such as: David Yaleen, Tal Hai, Ahava, Al-Kasemi, Gordon, Oranim, Bet-Berl, The Kibbutsim Seminar and Kai. Moreover, universities have developed various innovative specializations in early childhood.

Following the increased interest in developing early childhood specializations, we, at Musharakah, provided six female students with scholarships for master’s degree, to develop leaderships in early childhood. Nowadays, we are developing a similar project in the Negev. Musharakah has also graduated 19 professional trainers who passed a pioneering and formally recognized training course in the Arab society in Israel.

Despite these achievements, we still face the following challenges:

• Challenges related to the quality of the training adopted in the different organizations and its suitability to the available information about early childhood.

• Challenges related to the human resources supporting the caregiver. The survey has shown a significant lack in the supportive human resources in day-care centers. As the support level available in some places is relatively low, those involved in the field of early childhood have to take initiatives to solve this issue. It is worth indicating that the supportive human resources contribute significantly to the caregivers' work with the children, and to the enrichment of their work process. Therefore, it is important searching for additional cadres of educational trainers, counselors specializing in early childhood, psychologists and enrichment specialists.

• Challenges related to training courses.

• Challenges related to training available for caregiver assistants.

Financial Resources

In the last few years, our society has witnessed an increased interest in ECCD and an increased awareness regarding the importance of the educational institutions. However, programs adopted by the day-care centers are much influenced by those prepared for kindergartens. The inclusive survey has shown the caregivers' enthusiasm and willingness to receive training to develop their work with children. Many caregivers still follow old and unsuitable curriculums. Moreover, we are encountering educated and well trained caregivers, who still use educational approaches that aren’t adapted to the child's needs. Few succeed in developing new themes through the child's needs and close environment. Therefore, we see that it is essential to develop a holistic integrative vision in the field of early childhood.

Despite the early childhood program developed in 1995, translated to Arabic and published in 1998, the ministry has not provided any financial support for the translation of the program's principles. The program professional committee, composed of 9 members, did not include any representative from the Arab society.

The program was developed by a 19 member committee, of which only one representative was an Arab. The questions to be asked here are "to what extent does this program apply to our children"? And "to what extent is the applicable part implemented in our society?"

The challenges here are:

• Cooperation between the ministry, the civil society organizations and the professionals to determine the early childhood needs, and to develop the needed resources.

• Developing and disseminating enrichment programs as most nurseries and day-care centers lack similar programs. 50% of the villages, in which the law was implemented, don’t provide any enrichment programs. Though similar programs are available in some villages, they are still few and parents consider them to be significantly important. The available programs are: Hadareem, Etgar, Maa'gan and Karev.

[1] See also The Prevention of Sexual Harassment Law - 1998, and The Equal Rights for People with Disabilities Law - 1998.

[2] The Women's Equal Rights Law - 1951, Sections 1 and 6.

[3] Section 1(a) of Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty. The Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation provides constitutional protection for every Israel national or resident to engage in any occupation/employment. Section 2 provides: "The purpose of this Basic Law if to protect freedom of occupation, in order to establish in a Basic Law the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state," available at: www.knesset.gov.il.

[4] See, e.g., Justice Kedmi in H.C. 6698/95, Qa’dan v. Israel Lands Administration, et. al. He ruled that the value of a Jewish and democratic state may supersede the right to equality.

[5] Hassan Jabareen, “Comments on the Unreasonableness of the Attorney General's ‘Reasonable Discrimination Policy’,” Adalah's Newsletter, Volume 1, May 2004, available at: www.adalah.org.

[6] Boulos, S. (2003, July) The Integration of Palestinian Women in the Israeli Labor Market: Obstacles and Suggestions for Solution, Haifa: The Association of Civil Rights in Israel.

[7] Human Rights Watch, Second Class: Discrimination against Palestinian Children in Israel's Schools, 2001, p.49.

[8] Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), New Survey – Investment in Education 2000/1, Press Release 3 August 2004 (Hebrew). According to the Mossawa Center – The Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens of Israel, only 3.1% of the MOE's budget was allocated for Palestinian citizens of Israel in 2001. From State Budget for Fiscal Year 2001, Government of Israel 2000, cited in Mossawa Report, The Arab Citizens of Israel: Status and Implications for the Middle East Conflict, Shira Kamm (et al.) Mossawa Center 2003, pp.13-14.

[9] A study commissioned by the Follow-Up Committee on Arab Education in Israel found that, for example, of the 6,300 classrooms surveyed, as many as 6.5% were completely unsuitable for productive learning and instruction. In addition, the physical facilities themselves are also laden with health risks, such as asbestos and other hazardous substances.

[10] From primary to secondary school levels, average class sizes are larger in Palestinian schools than in Jewish schools, with an average class size of 27 pupils per class in Jewish schools compared with 30 pupils in Palestinian schools. Source: CBS, Statistical Abstract of Israel 2004, Table 8.11.

[11] CBS, Children in Kindergartens and Day Care Centers - 2001/02, Press Release 4 August 2004 (Hebrew).

[12] H.C. 5108/04, Ismail Mohammed Abu-Guda, et. al, v. Limor Livnat, Minister of Education, et. al. submitted by Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.

[13] Report of Committee to Examine Gender Stereotypes in School Textbooks in the Educational System in Israel, March 2002, pp.27-28. (Heberw).