The Samaria Regional Council opened the 2024-2025 academic year on Tuesday with more than 25,000 students beginning classes across the region.
Council head Yossi Dagan joined students and educational staff to mark the start of the year, which saw the launch of eight new kindergartens and four new secondary educational institutions.
Six of the eight new kindergartens are located in communities recently established this summer in northern Samaria. According to council data, the region's educational system now includes 28 elementary schools, 11 secondary institutions, and 168 kindergartens.
This year, 1,440 students entered first grade, while the transportation network operates more than 1,200 bus routes each morning.
The four new secondary schools include Kedma High School Yeshiva in the settlement of Tapuach, operated by the Bnei Akiva yeshiva and ulpana network, the region's first secondary school for special education in Revava, run by the Tomshin network and a religious technological high school for girls in Eli, managed by the Amit network.
Dagan opened the school year alongside Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. The two inaugurated the Kedma yeshiva in Kfar Tapuach together with Elchanan Glatt, director-general of the Bnei Akiva Yeshiva and Ulpana Center, head of the yeshiva Rabbi Arnon Klein, parents, and students.
Smotrich addressed the opening, stating that investment in settlement activity is reflected in education and the establishment of new learning institutions. "We are making history, in security, in settlement, and in education", he said.
Dagan remarked during the opening ceremony: "This is a historic and moving morning. In a place where communities were uprooted and kindergartens destroyed, today we are reopening the gates of education and hearing the voices of children again".
The council head continued: "Eight new kindergartens opened this year in Samaria, six of them in the new communities in northern Samaria. This is the true Zionist response. The settlement enterprise is growing and with it a strong, values-based, and excellent educational system. We are investing in our children and building here the future of the State of Israel".
Elchanan Glatt, director-general of the Bnei Akiva Yeshiva and Ulpana Center, offered blessings on the opening of Kedma Yeshiva, saying: "The opening of Bnei Akiva's Kedma Yeshiva is great news for us and a great privilege to be partners in building a new educational home for students in the region".
The opening of these institutions coincides with the beginning of implementation of the Samaria Regional Council's five-year education plan.
Under the program, the council is expected to invest 50 million shekels over five years in upgrading and developing educational institutions, against the backdrop of population growth and continued settlement expansion.
