Early childhood educational reforms do not reach the Bedouin society in the Negev, or their realization is unusually slow: as early as the year 2000, Bedouin early childhood education was decreed to be auspice under “compulsory education”, but to this day approximately 5,045 Bedouin children of preschool age do not attend kindergartens, and many of them do not even have one near their homes.

At a time when the architectural designs of kindergartens include specific details to ensure that they will be pleasant and well-kept, many of the Bedouin kindergartens are housed in mobile trailers or rented buildings, and are characterized by neglect and unsightly environments, an insulting mark of poverty and even abandonment.

However, there is nothing quite as serious as abandoning toddlers. In the Bedouin community, thousands of toddlers are born every year, but there are only 19 day care centers. The few nurseries that do exist do not meet the needs. Repeated negative references in the State Comptroller’s reports and in publications of “Sikkuy-Aufoq” and the “Negev Coexistence Forum” have not brought any positive returns. The Government decided on affirmative preference for Arab education in the construction of day care centers in 2014, but since then only a few of them have been built, and no answer has been given to the growing need for subsidized service that would allow Bedouin women to participate in the labor market.

Day care centers are essential for the education of toddlers, and are gaining importance in light of the professional decision to “invert the educational pyramid” with the intention of improving and expanding early childhood education services.

The lack of day care centers is one of the clear reasons that only a quarter of Bedouin women are employed, and many of them have difficulty finding suitable work. It directly contributes to deep poverty and the failure of the educational system. Another barrier to employment is the substantial cost of placing a child in a day care center, which the average Bedouin family finds it very difficult to meet.

The lack of day care centers in Bedouin communities today:

There are very few day care centers in the Arab communities in the Negev relative to the size of the population of preschool children in these communities. The findings of the Negev Coexistence Forum investigation, updated for December 2021, show that in a community with 49,400 children, from birth to four years of age, there are only 16 supervised day care centers in operation.

As of the publication of this report (May 2023), there were approximately 300,000 people in the Bedouin community in the Negev, and an annual number of births that exceeds 10,000 babies per year. However, according to the Labor Department’s “recognized framework detection” system, as of 2016 there were only 19 active day care centers in the Bedouin communities.

In comparison, according to the transparency in education system, no less than 756 kindergartens for ages 3-5 operated in the Bedouin communities in 2021, and even this number reflects an insufficient number of facilities and discrimination of the Bedouin population. According to data of the Ministry of Education, about 5,000 Bedouin children between the ages of 3-5 do not attend kindergartens – a much higher rate of absence than that of Israel as a whole. If 80% of these children were to visit kindergartens, at least 114 additional kindergartens would be required.

Also for comparison, the number of day care centers per capita in Jewish settlements in the Negev was much higher:

· In Kiryat Gat, which has 65,000 residents, 29 regular day care centers operate.

· In Kiryat Malachi, which has 26,000 residents, 10 regular day care centers operate.

· In Ofakim, which has 36,000 residents, 14 regular day care centers operate.

· In Netivot, which has 47,000 residents, 18 regular day care centers operate.

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