Parents' payments to the schools will increase by NIS 20 per student for one year

After four years of studies in which the Ministry of Education made attempts to reduce parents' payments, subsidize some of them and prevent their increase, on Monday he announced that he was canceling the plan to subsidize parents' payments for all students. As a result, the parents' payments to the schools will increase by NIS 20 per student already in the next academic year and are expected to continue to increase in the years to come.
According to the Ministry of Education, parents' payments in the next school year (2018) will reach NIS 560 in grades 1-2 and up to NIS 1,392 per student in grade 12. In all sections, the price increase amounts to about NIS 20 compared to the previous school year. So, the ministry chose to subsidize the increase in student health insurance rates by NIS 20 by reducing other items.
According to the law, the only mandatory payment for schools is an insurance payment of NIS 69 per year for all age groups. All other payments are permission payments. The administrators are not allowed to sanction the children due to non-payment of school fees. And yet, this is the first time in the last 12 years that the Ministry of Education raises parents' payments. In the past, the ministry made sure not to raise the payments and in case it became necessary to do so, it subsidized the increase in price. About five years ago, the Ministry of Education pledged to the Knesset's Education Committee to reduce and regulate parents' payments, and worked to do so sparingly - but now it has retracted. According to representatives of the Ministry of Finance who were present today at the discussion in the Education Committee where the rates were approved, there is no budgetary source left to reduce parents' payments. This, even though the education budget will rise in 2024 to a record of NIS 85 billion - an increase of NIS 16 billion compared to the 2022 budget. One of the explanations for this is the allocation of billions of coalition funds to ultra-orthodox and religious education - at the expense of other programs and at the expense of state education - which the government decided on.
According to the Knesset's Information and Research Center data presented to the Education Committee, the government could cancel the parents' payments through a subsidy of only NIS 1.77 billion per year. This is also the amount collected in 2022 for the standard parental payments, such as a culture basket, trips, class parties and health insurance. However, this amount does not include the TLN payments (external reinforcement programs) and voluntary purchase items, which are collected only in some schools.
The total parental payments that the schools collected from the parents in 2022 amounts to NIS 4.9 billion (including the mentioned NIS 1.77 billion). This amount is mainly due to parents' payments that are collected for reinforcement classes in schools in established localities as well as tuition fees that are collected in private schools.
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