Teachers union chief in talks with Finance Ministry to move to five-day school week

By Ariela Karmel

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10 February 2026, 4:09 pm

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Ariela Karmel is a political correspondent at The Times of Israel. She previously reported for Calcalist and Haaretz. She holds an MA in Middle Eastern and African History from Tel Aviv University and a BA in Political Science from the University of British Columbia.

File: Children go to school in Sderot (Anna Kaplan /FLASH90)

Israel Teachers Union chief Yaffa Ben David says that she is negotiating with the Finance Ministry regarding shortening the school week, among other things, following Hebrew media reports that the ministry would be overhauling the elementary education system.

“I agree to shortening the week to five days, but I have conditions: teachers will work four days a week and have one day at home for errands and professional development,” Ben David says, speaking at the annual conference of the Association of Local Government Education Department Directors, held in Eilat.

Her comments follow a Ynet news report today that said that the Finance Ministry was planning to shorten the school week from six days to five days, and also shorten the summer break, so that the school year will begin as early as August 15 instead of September 1.

“Instructional hours in elementary schools need to be reduced to 23 hours, like in middle schools. That is what I will demand. We will fight to reduce teaching hours. In Israel, we study more than in all OECD countries,” she says.

Israel is currently one of the only OECD countries where students study six days a week instead of five.

While she expresses interest in shortening the work week, Ben David flatly rejects shortening the summer vacation period.

“Shortening the summer vacation will not happen, period,” she states, but declines to provide further details, adding that she “conducts negotiations with the Finance Ministry, not the media.”

According to the report, a pilot program is set to be implemented in the coming weeks that would see no classes on Fridays in elementary schools across 30 municipalities in central Israel, including Ra’anana, which the Education Ministry denies.

Teachers went on strike across the country last year over the Finance Ministry’s proposed cuts to teachers’ salaries, already among the lowest of OECD countries, to help finance the war in Gaza. The Israel Teachers’ Union reached an agreement with the Finance Ministry after a Tel Aviv Labor Court ordered teachers to return to work in May 2025.