A measure introduced in the Quebec legislature to allocate $1,500,000 for the Montreal Protestant School Commission provides for the first time the possibility of grants for pupils of Jewish high schools.
The additional funds were made necessary by the presence of Jewish pupils in Protestant schools. The Jewish pupils will be counted in government calculations in the distribution of provincial funds to school commissions, also for the first time, under the proposed legislation.
Some two-thirds of increased appropriations to the Protestant school commission recently was based on the increase of Jewish pupils in such schools but the arrangement had not been based on specific inclusion of such pupils in the government calculations.
The legislation would recognize such private high schools as the High school sponsored by the United Montreal Talmud Torahs as private schools and therefore eligible for grants of $200 per pupil annually if approved by the Protestant School Commission.
Harry Blank, a Jewish member of the legislature, said this was “a great step forward” in recognition of Jewish education even if the number of such high school students was small. He said 4,000 Jewish pupils out of a total of 16,000 Jewish school-age children in Montreal attend Jewish day schools but most of them are in elementary grades which are not eligible for grants. He pointed out that this was the first time school rights of the Jewish minority would be recognized in Canada and that there were no objectionable conditions attached to the grants.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
