A young girl poses in front of the sign for the Galil Jewish–Arab School in northern Israel. Photo: JNS.org.

JNS.org – Israel’s Ministry of Education has successfully integrated more Arab teachers into Jewish schools, reporting a 40 percent increase in the last three years, according to the Hebrew news site Walla.

The number of Arab instructors of English, math and science jumped by 76 percent, while Arab-language classes saw a 40% increase in Arabic teachers from 2013 to 2016, according to Education Ministry figures.

Haaretz recently reported on a shortage of qualified English teachers in Israel’s Jewish schools, which has played a role in falling English-language proficiency among Israeli high school graduates.

This problem led the Ministry of Education to launch an integration program in 2013 to infuse schools with more teachers, in a joint effort by the ministry’s teaching personnel department and the Merchavim Institute for the Advancement of Shared Citizenship in Israel.