Israel's parents send their kids to school in the hope that they will graduate wiser, well educated, and ready for the challenges of higher education and the labor market, but a look into how the Education Ministry prepares students for the future reveals a worrying picture: Study programs that aren't up-to-date, too many exams, and teachers who don't understand the "meaningful learning" reform that is considered the ministry's flagship program.
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The education system has been through two very difficult years. On the face of it, one could place the blame on the coronavirus pandemic: The lockdowns left students stuck at home, confused, and stuck to their screens and Zoom. The entire system switched to survival mode.
Those hit hardest were middle schoolers and high-school students. During the critical period before the marathon of matriculation exams, students are supposed to not only learn English, math, history, geography and other subjects – they are also supposed to gain critical competencies that will serve them in institutions of higher learning, in the labor market, and in life in general.
What is the Education Ministry doing about it? The answer unfortunately is "not enough". A series of reports and reviews creates the impression that when it comes to preparing students for the future, the Ministry has failed to a certain degree – and that was even before Covid. Studies show that some of the most important competencies needed for the 21st century are self-study, critical thinking, teamwork, creativity, and digital literacy. Education systems around the world put an emphasis on these skills in preparing students for the future – but Israel is still treading water.
"Israel's figures in terms of skills required for the labor market – in mathematics, language and problem-solving in a digital environment – are very low compared to other OECD countries," says Dr. Iris Ben David Hadar of the School of Education at Bar Ilan University, a member of Israel's steering committee for adult competencies.
"We don't prepare our adults well enough," she adds. "Israel doesn't have oil or gold; our economy is knowledge-based and therefore we need to develop our human capital. We aren't doing enough in that respect: The average financial investment in an Israeli high school student is much lower than the OECD average. These aren't just numbers; this is where the key to the future of our society lies. But I'm optimistic. We have a [new] minister of education [Yifat Shasha-Biton] and I hope she will pick up the reins on this issue."
Israel's failure on this issue can be seen, inter alia, in international assessment exams. In the PISA exam for example, Israeli students scored lower than the OECD average in each of the three fields of literacy, namely reading, mathematics and science. In the last two exams, out of 37 OECD countries that participated, Israel was ranked 29-33.
In 2014, then-Education Minister Shai Piron launched the "Meaningful Learning" reform aimed at adapting the education system to the 21st century and providing students with the skills that will prepare them for the future. The minister had big dreams about critical and creative students, who would be able to pick up new skills on their own, and would swim freely in the digital environment.
However, the reform failed to take off; an education ministry study pointed to enormous difficulties in its implementation. Schools, it appears, failed to make the desired changes. They suffer from a severe shortage of physical and technological infrastructures, and, worst of all, some of the teachers and administrators simply don't understand the reform and how to implement it.
A state comptroller's report on the issue showed that while the ministry of education set out to give students the skills to prepare them for the future, teaching programs remained outdated and almost unchanged. Out of 82 teaching programs for middle and high schools, 11% were last updated 20 years ago; 40% of teaching programs were updated between 2001-2010 – in other words at least 10 years ago; 50% were approved in the past decade.
The significance is that most study programs in compulsory subjects such as history, literature, middle school civics, geography, and others have not been updated in line with the meaningful learning reform. Another weak point of the system is the excessive number of exams in middle and high school: With so many internal and external exams, the schools don't have the time to invest in preparing the students in line with the goals of the reform.
Beyond all that, it appears that one of the main problems is that the education ministry doesn't have an overall plan for providing students with competencies. For four years various officials within the ministry wrote papers on the subject, but each of them proposed placing an emphasis on different skills. The absence of synchronicity, along with duplicated proposals, led to the heads of the ministry failing to formulate a proper program with goals, priorities, resources and timetables.
"There is no connection between the goals the education ministry has set and their execution in practice," explains Dr. Niv Gal-Arieli, a lecturer on education policy at the Oranim Academic College of Education. "This results from the enormous size of the education system and from the sheer number of elements involved. In the state comptroller's report, there are testimonies from teachers, administrators and supervisors, many of who have expressed a lack of faith in the abilities of the system to execute its tasks. So, it is not at all surprising that parents and children as well express dissatisfaction at the degree to which the system is preparing them for the future."
Indeed, a survey of 34,000 students conducted last year by the education ministry as part of a survey of the pedagogical and school environment found that 40% of students in Grades 10-11 don't see schools as an institution that prepares them for life.
A statement from the education ministry and from the bureau of Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton said they were promoting a number of measures that will provide students with the academic and other skills required in the present era. "These measures include, among others, changing the matriculation exam systems, which will impact teaching and studying methods in lower classes as well and will include multi-disciplinary learning that is taught in a way that is challenging and will arouse curiosity, and will be taught partly online.
"Moreover, the minister intends to encourage programs that provide competencies that will prepare the students for life, such as financial management. These processes will be prepared in cooperation with the education system."
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