School system has become irrelevant, education minister charges

Israel’s education system isn’t fit to teach students in the 21st century, Education Minister Shai Piron said Tuesday at a conference in Jerusalem.

The country’s “education system is not relevant for the 21st century,” said Piron, who has long advocated for a series of far-reaching reforms in the school system.

Children in school read less and think less, while some teachers are knowingly teaching information that isn’t always relevant, Piron said. Teachers either “know they’re cooperating with a problematic manipulation,” or they’re not aware of the problem, he added.

“I’m not promising to do the right things, but I am committed to only doing things that have to do with long-term planning and infrastructure of the Education Ministry,” Piron continued. “We’re strong enough to change our position… open to new ideas… not get locked on certain concepts.”

A comprehensive plan to reduce the number of matriculation exams was reaching its final stages, Dalit Stauber, the director general of the ministry, told Army Radio on Tuesday. Instead of many national tests, the system would give teachers and principals more power, enabling them to teach and educate instead of only preparing for tests, she explained.

As part of the reform, schools would be able to choose other methods of grading students besides tests, Stauber said. “This way, students will be graded based on exams, papers, and in-depth research.”

Another aspect, according to a first draft of an education bill put before the government, is major budget cuts to ultra-Orthodox schools that do not recognized by the state and that don’t teach the core curriculum. The leaked bill indicated that schools that teach less than 55% of the required mathematics, Hebrew and English courses will get half their budgets cut, Ynet reported. The schools will also be subject to standardized testing.