Following the Office of the Ombudsman's inquiry, the local authority announced that it would begin to pay the fee for all the parents in the council whose children study in the same framework, and repaid the fee to the parents retroactively
The complainant is a resident of one city, while his children attend school in a different city. The reason for this is the family’s preference for a school in the state run educational system for the Haredi public (Mamlachti-Haredi)which is not available in their home city.
He submitted a complaint stating that the local authority refuses to pay the external student fees (a fee paid by the sending municipality to the receiving one), even though there is no Mamlachti-Haredi school within the council's jurisdiction. As a result, the parents are forced to pay the fees themselves each year to the receiving munipality.
The sending local authority justified its refusal by claiming that there is a State-Religious (Mamlachti-Dati) school within its jurisdiction, which belongs to the same public educational sector as the school the children attend. However, the Ombudsman clarified to the council that for several years now, the school in question has belonged to the MamlachtiHaredi system, which is distinct from the Mamlachti-Dati system.
Parents have the right to choose a school within their preferred educational system, and therefore in the absence of such a school in their home city, the sending local authority is obligated to pay the external tuition fee, in accordance with the Compulsory Education Law and the regulations of the Director General of the Ministry of Education.
Following the Ombudsman’s intervention, the local authority reported that 27 children residing within the local authority’s jurisdiction attend that same school in the receiving municipality.
As a result of the Ombudsman’s inquiry, the council announced that it would begin covering the external student fee for all parents in the municipality whose children attend that school – including the complainant’s children. This was done for the 2023–2024 school year (5784).
Following a renewed review and an additional inquiry by the Ombudsman, the council later confirmed that it had refunded the tuition fees retroactively — beginning with the 2019–2020 school year (5780) — to all parents residing within its jurisdiction whose children attended that same school.
