Millions of adults in Israel are unusually happy today as 2,129,562 children return to school for the start of the school year.
1,700,535 children will be going to grade school, and another 429,177 will be going to nurseries and kindergartens.
A whopping 148,774 children will be starting first grade.
The breakdown of students in each of the major, recognized school system streams is as follows:
Public School: 678,161
Religous Public School: 217,137
Private School: 248,364
Talmud Torah: 50,470
Non-Jewish Schools: 437,503
There are 4,561 schools with 62,962 classrooms, and approximately 15,000 kindergartens/nursery schools in Israel.
For many Haredim (Ultra-Orthodox), the school year started 3 weeks ago, on Rosh Chodesh Elul. It’s estimated that Haredi students make up approximately 30% of the students in Israel.
More statistics can be found on the Ministry of Education’s website.
As one parent told this reporter this morning, “We’re meeting in the park at 10 to throw a party”.
I’ll be there.