More than 2 million Israeli school kids took their backpacks, pencil box, books, and notebooks and headed back to school Sunday morning, as the 2018-19 school year got underway.

According to the Education Ministry, a total of 2,310,000 school and kindergarten students began their school year, including 167,000 first-graders, 194,000 teachers and 131,000 students entering their 12th and final year of studies.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett said the theme of this school year will be “We maintain unity, together with our uniqueness.”

“ I am the education minister of 2.3 million students of all varieties,  Jews, Arabs, Druze, Circassians, religious, secular, ultra-Orthodox.” Bennett said in a statement “Every child in the State of Israel deserves an excellent education and a fair opportunity. Israeli society is facing increasing polarization and I thought that the remedy for this problem is unity and reconciliation through education.”

Schools will deal with the issue of unity on two principal axes: the first, unity among all elements of Israeli society and the second, Jewish peoplehood and the connection with Diaspora Jewry.

According to data released by the Ministry of Education, the majority of Israeli students are Jews (1,760,000), together with 388.000 Arabs, 120.000 Bedouins, 41.000 Druze, and around 1,000 Circassians.

Still, some 140.000 state-run daycare centers remained closed leaving at home 80,000 toddlers, due to a strike over pay.