2.6 million students return to school amid teacher shortages, systemic challenges

Some 2.6 million students and preschoolers returned to school Tuesday morning at some 28,000 institutions around the country, as Israel marked the beginning of the 2026-2027 school year.

The number includes some 180,000 new first graders.

“We are opening the school year with a great sense of responsibility and a clear direction: to strengthen Israeli students’ sense of belonging and resilience and deepen their identity, values and heritage, while at the same time providing them with the knowledge and tools that will enable them to lead and succeed in a rapidly changing world,” Education Minister Yoav Kisch said ahead of the start of the school year.

But national education is facing numerous challenges, with a recent study finding that Israeli teachers perform considerably worse than their OECD counterparts in literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills at every level of the education system.

There is also a shortage of capable teachers. The Central Bureau of Statistics recently assessed that schools are lacking some 31,000 teachers qualified to teach the subjects they have been assigned. The Education Ministry insists the shortfall is only several hundred educators.

In a recent poll published by Channel 12, 68 percent of respondents gave the education system a “poor” grade, compared to 25% who said it was functioning well.

In a small shake-up of the curriculum, 9th graders will be taught “financial education” classes, meant to give them better tools to handle their finances as adults, including lessons on consumerism, investments, budgeting and more.

Devastated communities return to school

In the south and in the north, in communities devastated on October 7, 2023, and during the ensuing war, many students will return to schools in their hometowns for the first time since the attack, after being housed temporarily elsewhere in the country while the communities were rebuilt and rehabilitated.

The Tekuma Directorate, tasked with rehabilitating the Gaza border following the Hamas invasion, announced Monday that the new school year will open in the Gaza border communities with 22,233 students, a nine percent increase from the start of the 2023 school year, a month before the Hamas-led massacre.

Of that number, 4,553 are children between the ages of zero and three, 3,965 are kindergartners, and 13,715 are in grades 1 through 12.

In the city of Sderot, student numbers are up by 16%, the directorate said.

The growth reflects the ongoing return of communities to their homes after long periods of being housed in temporary accommodation while their communities were physically renovated and rebuilt.

Over 95% of residents of Kibbutz Kissufim went home this summer, and those from Kibbutz Holit and Kibbutz Kfar Aza started to return this month. Youngsters from Kibbutz Be’eri, still living in temporary accommodation in Kibbutz Hatzerim, are going back to study in Eshkol Regional Council schools. Be’eri residents are due to start going home in December.

Kibbutz Nir Oz, which only agreed on its funding package in August last year, will return sometime in 2027.

Up north, where towns and villages have been largely devastated by years of war with the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon, some schools were opened for the first time since 2023, including the border town of Metula, which reopened its Hanadiv Elementary School with 36 students in grades one to six and 18 in kindergarten.

Police secure Jerusalem secular school targeted by Haredi extremists

In Jerusalem, police moved to secure a new secular school opening Tuesday in the Kiryat Yovel neighborhood, after ultra-Orthodox extremists protested Monday night outside the institution.

המתיחות סביב המרחב הציבורי בירושלים עולה מדרגה: אחרי המחאות בקפה בסטמה וחסימת האוטובוסים בכניסה לעיר, הערב חרדים קיימו עצרת מחאה מול בית ספר ממלכתי חדש, שצפוי לפתוח מחר את שעריו בשכונת קריית יובל. pic.twitter.com/EGI0q3wcf7

— לירן תמרי | Liran Tamari (@liran__tamari) August 31, 2026

Dozens arrived outside the school, scrawled “Stop the immodesty” on the walls, covered windows with stickers with slogans against enlisting in the IDF, and left paint and trash near the entrance gate, according to the Ynet news site.

The report cited a notice sent by the school to parents, saying that due to the vandalism, police were set to secure the area.

The opening of the new schools comes amid longstanding conflicts between secular and ultra-Orthodox citizens over education, especially in Jerusalem, which is home to hundreds of thousands of Haredi Jews.

East Jerusalem private schools strike

Elsewhere in the capital, dozens of private schools in East Jerusalem went on strike Tuesday and did not open for the new school year, in protest over what they say is Israel’s failure to allow teachers from the West Bank to enter East Jerusalem to work at the schools. The strike is set to continue until further notice.

The schools serve some 15,000 students, according to data from Ir Amim, an organization that monitors developments in East Jerusalem. Many are Christian schools run by churches and other Christian institutions. The institutions are considered prestigious within Arab society in Israel generally, and particularly in Jerusalem.

Over the past three years, since the October 7 Hamas-led attack in southern Israel, there have been increasing reports of difficulties faced by Palestinian teachers from the West Bank seeking to enter Jerusalem for work, amid sweeping restrictions on the issuance and renewal of entry permits for West Bank residents. In early January 2026, several private schools in East Jerusalem held a one-day strike to protest the failure to renew permits for teachers who live in the West Bank.

A law that took effect in February 2026 bars holders of degrees from Palestinian Authority higher education institutions from being authorized to work as teachers in Israeli schools, including private schools.

However, the law exempts teachers who were already employed before it took effect, as well as those who had completed at least one year of their degree studies before the law came into force.

Municipal schools in East Jerusalem opened as usual Tuesday.

Northern town honors missing girl

Meanwhile, a middle school in Migdal HaEmek marked the first day of the 2026-2027 school year by honoring Haymanut Kasau, who disappeared at age 9 from an absorption center in Safed more than two years ago and has not been found since.

Students in the incoming sixth-grade class, which Kasau would be joining, gathered with teachers to pray for her safe return, and release dozens of red balloons to commemorate their missing classmate.

The mayor of the northern town, Yaki Ben Haim, participated in the ceremony at the school, where he said said that “the entire city of Migdal HaEmek embraces the Kasau family and strengthens their hand without ceasing. Together we offer a prayer full of faith for Haymanut’s speedy return home safely.”

"במקום שהיימנוט תעלה לכיתה ו', משפחתה מחכה בציפייה כואבת": תלמידי קמפוס שיא במגדל העמק פתחו את שנת הלימודים בהפרחת בלונים בזעקה ובתקווה למציאתה של היימנוט קסאו, שנעדרת כבר שנתיים וחצי @lirankog
צילום: דוברות עיריית מגדל העמק pic.twitter.com/cTCOeSBuEW

Advertisement

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) September 1, 2026

Kasau was last seen on February 25, 2024, in Safed on security camera footage at 7:45 p.m., handing out municipal election leaflets with her friends outside the Jewish Agency absorption center, where she had lived since her family arrived in Israel three years prior.

Since then, there have been no concrete leads or progress in determining how she went missing, who was involved, or where she was taken. The Shin Bet has since joined the search efforts, well over two years after she went missing.