LOD – In order for the state to continue to excel and develop in the 21st century, Israel’s educational institutions will have to focus on preparing students for employment in a shifting landscape where the ability to learn new skills and change career direction is crucial, instead of stressing rote learning and temporary “Band-Aid” solutions for deeper educational issues, according to Rabbi Shai Piron, educator, author, and former education minister and Knesset member (for the Yesh Atid party).
Many educators have long called for a comprehensive reboot of Israeli schools, and recent reports have shown an unprecedented drop in math and science abilities among Israeli middle-school students and a critical lack of English teachers in the system, among other issues, calling into question the often-assumed preparedness of Israelis to excel in the modern, technological age.
To address these issues, Piron, among other roles, recently began serving in an unpaid, advisory position as president of the Israel Professional College (IPC), a private institution based in Jerusalem. Functioning largely online, the IPC does not offer degrees but grants professional certificates in subjects such as web and graphic design, digital promotion, computer programming, and other tech-related fields. Additionally, the IPC has tracks to prepare students to become registered real estate agents, accountants, and mortgage advisers.
According to the IPC office, the college currently has 15,000 students and has experienced a 30 percent increase in registration since the start of the Israel-Hamas war last year.
Piron, who has become a well-known public thinker since he left the Knesset in 2015, recently met with The Times of Israel in the Lod offices of Pnima, the policy think tank he directs, to discuss the state of Israeli education, his latest book, and the importance of professional training institutions such as the IPC.
The following conversation, held in Hebrew, has been translated and edited for clarity.
The Times of Israel: It’s great to meet you. First of all, what can you tell us about the Israel Professional College and your involvement there? You once served as education minister and could be involved with many institutions, so why this one?
Shai Piron: I think there’s an interesting, general phenomenon, a shift in the world of higher education and professional qualifications, and the IPC is one of the responses to this.
Once, a person would learn a profession and then work 40 or 50 years in that profession. Today, it’s not only that people are changing their places of work, they want to change careers. They want to do a few things in their life. People’s hybridity in the 21st century creates a change. Long-term tracks to receive professional qualifications don’t address the needs of a large portion of the population, or a large portion of professions.
The other thing is, if you look at the world, it turns out that there are more than a few people who have achieved success without the normal educational track. So you ask yourself, do I need to go to Harvard to get into a top-10 hi-tech business? And the answer is no.
Another point is that with the war, a lot of people need to create a source of income for themselves quickly. People have been in the reserves for a year and they need to make a living now. They can’t wait. They need something engaging, where they can learn remotely in their own time, at their own pace, and I think the IPC provides a very real answer.
The rising interest in vocational training stems from these factors. For the first time, people are saying, “I don’t want to choose a life-long profession right now, I want to choose a profession I want to work in for the next five years.”
IPC courses are distance learning at first and then in-person, practical studies in the field. So it’s not exactly a place where you come to classes and sit. It seems that’s good for young people, but also for someone who changes professions at age 40.
That’s one aspect. There are young people who need a quick income and want a profession, adults who want to change professions, but also a third type: people who can’t get into university.
Even when I was education minister [2013-2014], I thought that vocational and technological education was very important, and it is relatively very weak in Israel. So I joined [the IPC] to help, especially this last point, to help the population who doesn’t qualify at universities.
Let’s talk a bit about the general state of the education system in Israel. People are doing the best they can, but it has been a year of war, of reserve duty, with all that entails. Plus, there were certainly issues before the war began. How do you see things, and what should be done for the future?
First of all, it all hurts me very much, but I suggest not getting hysterical. That’s not to say there aren’t problems that need to be addressed, but it does mean that it should be understood that the crisis the education system is going through is very natural.
Beyond the psychological damage of course, [especially] for the evacuees from the north and south, I don’t think there is a crisis in education now. What has happened has revealed the crisis that was there before, and there is a very, very big crisis in education.
When there’s a crisis, there are two options. One is to apply a Band-Aid, and the other is to do a root canal. Israel specializes in Band-Aids. The story of what happened to us with Hamas and Hezbollah is also because for many years we have been dealing with Band-Aids and not with the root.
What do you mean when you say “a very big crisis in education”?
The discussion now should not be about, what is being done in schools X or Y or grades Y and Z, but something completely different: is school in its current format still relevant? I think it’s not.
The world has changed. For example, in school, each student is tested alone and has to know everything by themselves. In the world of employment, everything is in teams and each member has to specialize in one part and then work together.
As an employee, the most important thing is to ask questions. In school, the most important thing is to have the right answers. A good employee is a person who thinks out of context, knows how to challenge conventions, and introduces a new idea. In school, the students have to repeat what the teacher told them.
Schools today need to focus on completely different things. For the first time, they need to focus on teamwork abilities. They need to provide tools and focus on identifying each student’s skills and their key competencies. Schools should strengthen curiosity and instill learning as a way of life, [as] skills are more important today than the materials being taught.
Schools need to provide tools for their students to become a person who can integrate into the 21st-century employment world. I always say, jokingly, that the Israeli education system is preparing outstanding students for a world that no longer exists.
Isn’t this a global problem? And even if the school system could be changed that much, wouldn’t it be hard to find educators to do that?
Yes. And that’s right: there is a huge shortage of teachers all over the world.
Everything is connected, and it stems from the same point we discussed. A person no longer goes to study, graduates in their 20s, goes to work in a school and then retires at age 67. We haven’t understood yet that we need to look for teachers for 10-year cycles.
Then there is the lack of prestige, the status of teachers. When I was a child, my parents told me the teacher was always right. Today, the average child hears that the teacher is an idiot and isn’t right. And, of course, another thing is the low salaries for teachers.
Let’s shift gears and talk about your latest book, Homesh Ofakim [Five Horizons], a commentary on the Five Books of Moses, published in September.
This is part of a commentary on the Torah, all the chapters from beginning to end. This is my seventh book, but it’s not over. I am still writing. I finished Joshua and Judges, and now I’m in the middle of Samuel. It’s a long-term project.
I am an Orthodox rabbi. I write, am faithful to tradition, and want to make the Torah deeply accessible to everyone. I am not dealing with the interpretation of words and verses or the reader’s level of understanding, but with a kind of storytelling that has a message that can accompany you in life.
One of the most fundamental things that is happening in Israeli society is a question of identity and of who we are. We are very much evading this question. When the State of Israel was established, [first prime minister David] Ben Gurion understood that the Torah is a foundational book, and he stipulated that every [Jewish] soldier who enlists in the IDF, at the end of his basic training, swears an oath on the Torah.
Over the years, resulting from problems of religion and politics, the Torah became only a religious book for a large number of people. Bible studies have eroded… [and] lost some of the ability to be a great inspiring factor in shaping the identity of every boy and girl in Israel, religious and secular alike.
I think that one of the biggest tasks today is to make Judaism relevant again. And I say, in this, my job is for everyone to learn the Torah, but also to give everyone the opportunity to interpret it equally. I’m not saying that a secular school must learn the same Torah that is learned in a yeshiva in terms of interpretation, but rather the texts.
What are the answers? Read and tell me what your answer is! I won’t tell you what it is, but I’ll give you the context. This is the vision.
This also creates a national language. On October 7, we saw how Jews were taken prisoner and how they were transported through the streets of Gaza, and we saw pictures full of people standing in the street and clapping and cheering. We have all seen these pictures.
Then you come to the Book of Judges and you read chapter 11 and suddenly you see that they take Samson and take him down to Gaza and lead him down the city street and the whole city applauds. So you actually understand… You are part of a historical sequence, you are part of something, a people. You are actually part of a much broader story.
You are an Orthodox rabbi, part of a movement within religious Zionism that is more centrist. But in politics today, the more extreme side of religious Zionism is more influential.
I don’t talk about politics. Of course, I can’t identify with any separatist trend or one that creates divisions. I think that far too many politicians think about short-term gains, regardless of whether they are religious or secular or on the right or left. Too few think about the long term, and so I think all politicians in Israel are harmful to Israel in the long term.
Band-Aid thinking, like in the schools.
Yes.
If that’s the case, do you have any thoughts of trying to change this, of returning to politics?
No. No. Never say never, but… I don’t have this passion for politics. I don’t regret it for a moment and I think I have a very strong legacy, but you have to have passion.
If you ask me, what you miss? I don’t miss being education minister. I miss being a school principal, I miss that much more. That, I could still do.
