Dozens municipalities fight an intention to limit external education programs promoting democracy

Dozens of 230 municipalities, administrators and 760 teachers are protesting against the decision to transfer the responsibility for external programs at the Ministry of Education to the chairman of the extreme right wing party "Noam", Deputy Minister Avi Maoz. Prime Minister Netanyahu made it clear: "I will supervise the unit's activities."
Administrators make it clear that they will not let "dark positions influence the agenda", the civics teachers make it clear that they will not cooperate "with curricula that contradict humanistic values" - and the prime minister-designate is trying to calm the storm that has arisen.
After, in the coalition agreement with Noam, which opposes LGBT rights, he gave party chairman Avi Maoz the authority over the unit responsible for programs and partnerships in the Ministry of Education, Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu made it clear that he would be the one to oversee the unit's activities.
Netanyahu made this clear following the storm, which included, among other things, a widening protest by dozens of authorities who stood up against the intention to transfer authority over the unit to Maoz, who is intended to serve as a deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Office. As part of the protest, more than 230 principals signed a letter sent to Netanyahu, in which they wrote that "they will stand up and stand firm to preserve our democracy. We will not remain indifferent to the situation, we will continue to expose our students to content dealing with freedom, equality and the love of man. We call for the decision to be changed immediately ".
One of the signatories of the letter, Sharon Michaeli-Ramon, director of the School of Nature, Environment and Society in Tel Aviv, said that "the removal of the unit for unique programs and partnerships from the Ministry of Education, and the possibility of canceling some of the bodies that provide necessary answers to education, create a real fear of reducing possibilities for pluralistic education, civic education and an education of fairness. It is forbidden for education to be attached to a political agenda, since the whole essence of quality education is to expand the cognitive-critical canvas and support all girls and boys, girls and boys, in their life's journey, in every sector, community and personal feeling in which they are rooted."
At the end of the week, more than 760 citizenship teachers and educators signed a letter, in which they declare that they will not cooperate with curricula that contradict the values ​​of equality and democracy. "We will not accept in silence an educational leadership that promotes anti-democratic actions in legislation and in practice that violate human rights. We will continue to educate our students in light of liberal, humanistic and democratic values, even in the face of attempts to narrow our steps and extinguish their light," wrote the teachers, members of the Human Rights Education Forum and the Teachers' Forum The Arabs for Citizenship, from the founding of the Society for Civil Rights.
Shahar Regev, a citizenship teacher from Tel Aviv, said that "we hope that there are enough strong professionals who will know how to stop and regulate the extreme and hateful ideology of Avi Maoz. We, the citizenship teachers, will continue our work of education with great piety and a sense of mission, along with the recognition and inclusion of minorities and differences Socially. We cannot allow casual politicians to destroy the educational work of generations. We are happy that there are local authorities that have already come out with a call that gives support to our actions and invite other authorities to join."
In the "Yesh Atid" party, that they will open a "hot line" to centralize information regarding the "attempts to introduce dark content into the education system", as they say, and provide legal support to parents who encounter difficulties in stopping the process.
MK Moshe Arbel of Shas submitted a complaint to the head of the Authority for the Protection of Privacy against Yesh Atid, alleging the establishment of an unregistered database according to the Privacy Protection Law as part of that "hot line". He claimed that the hotline includes personal details of Israeli citizens, "without the protection established by law and without its legal registration".