Bennett upbeat ahead of school year

Education Minister Naftali Bennett in an interview on Channel 2 TV says his ministry is working hard to improve the salaries and work conditions of teachers.

Visibly upbeat ahead of the school year — which is due to start tomorrow after he convinced Israel Teachers’ Union head Ran Erez to call off a planned strike — Bennett admits that the salary of teachers is still not high enough. He asserts, however, that it has risen considerably and will continue to rise.

He boasts that the Education Ministry has concluded a massive effort to locate spaces inside schools that can be converted to classrooms, so that there are more classes in each school. “For the first time in Israel’s history,” claims Bennett, “the average number of children per class will be 28.9.”

Bennett also says his ministry drafted 4,600 assistant teachers in kindergartens, and rejects criticism that many of them are untrained.
“They told me to wait a year and then hire them,” Bennett reports, but adds that he prefers that they start teaching as soon as tomorrow.
“Because of the tight schedule, some of them did not undergo training, but will do so in the first few weeks of the school year,” he adds.

Bennett claims he has a five-year plan to transform Israel’s education system.