Education in Israel
Encyclopedia
Education in Israel refers to the comprehensive education system of Israel
. Expenditure on education accounts for approximately 10% of GDP, and most schools are subsidized by the state.
) and Arab. There are also private school
s which reflect the philosophies of specific groups of parents (Democratic Schools) or are based on a curriculum of a foreign country (e.g. The American School). The majority of Israeli children attend state schools. State-religious schools, catering to youngsters from the Orthodox
sector (mainly Religious Zionist / Modern Orthodox), offer intensive Jewish studies programs and emphasize tradition and observance. The Chinuch Atzmai schools focus almost entirely on Torah study
and offer very little in terms of secular subjects. Schools in the Arab sector teach in Arabic and offer a curriculum that emphasizes Arab history, religion and culture.
The education system consists of three tiers: primary education
(grades 1-6, approx. ages 6–12), middle school
(grades 7-9, approx. ages 12–15) and high school
(grades 10-12, approx. ages 15–18). Compulsory education
is from kindergarten through 12th grade.
In 1984 the first integrated schools which had both Jewish and Arab students to coexist in a classroom were built by the residents of Neve Shalom – Wāħat as-Salām, a cooperative village founded by Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel. Today this school receives some support from the state. Two more integrated schools were opened in Jerusalem and Galilee (Galil Jewish-Arab School
) in 1997 by Hand in Hand: Center for Jewish Arab Education in Israel
. By 2010 there are in total five integrated schools in Israel including that of Neve Shalom.
The school year in Israel
begins on 1 September and ends, in elementary school on 30 June, and in middle school and high school on 20 June.
From the school year of 2012, in Israel every school year will start on 26 August.
Secondary education prepares students for the Israeli matriculation exams
(bagrut). These are exams covering various academic disciplines, which are studied in units (yehidot limud) of one to five on an ascending scale of difficulty. Students with a passing mark on the mandatory matriculation subjects (Hebrew language
, English language
, mathematics
, scripture
, history
, state studies and literature
), who have been tested on at least 21 units, and passed at least one 5-unit exam, receive a full matriculation certificate. In 2006/7, 74.4% of Israeli 12th graders took the bagrut exams while only 46.3% were eligible for a matriculation certificate. In the Arab and Druze sectors, the figures were 35.6% and 43.7% respectively.
Below is a table illustrating the percentage of matriculation certificate recipients in Israel's largest cities, according to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics
(graduation year of 2002).
The Adva Center
, a social issues think tank
in Israel, says that about 15% of the matriculation certificates issued do not qualify the recipient for admission to Israel's universities.
After secondary education, students are generally conscripted into the Israel Defense Forces
(IDF), but may request an extension of the conscription date to study at a pre-service Mechina
, or in a college or university. Those who study in a university at this stage generally do so under a program called atuda
, where the tuition for their Bachelor's Degree
is paid for by the army. They are however obligated to sign a contract with the army extending their service by 2–3 years.
Universities generally require a certain amount of bagrut matriculation units (as well as a certain grade average) and a good grade in the Psychometric Entrance Test
, which is similar in many respects to the American SAT. All of Israel's eight public universities, and some colleges, are subsidized by the state, and students pay only a small part of the actual cost as tuition.
in Israel
, generally taken as a higher education
admission exam. The PET covers three areas: quantitative reasoning, verbal reasoning
and the English language
. It is administered by the Israeli National Institute for Testing and Evaluation (NITE) and is heavily weighed for university admissions.
The test may be taken in Hebrew
, Arabic
, Russian
, French
, Spanish
, or combined Hebrew/English.
ranking, six of Israel's universities place in the top 100 schools of Asia. Four universities place in the top 150 in the world according to the Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Academic Ranking of World Universities
, and three are in the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings (i.e. amongst the "Top 200 World Universities").
In addition, Israeli universities are among 100 top world universities in science and engineering: mathematics
(TAU
, Hebrew University and Technion); physics
(TAU
, Hebrew University and Weizmann Institute of Science
); chemistry
(TAU
, Hebrew University and Technion); computer science
(TAU
, Hebrew University, Weizmann Institute of Science
, BIU and Technion); Engineering
(Technion); Life sciences
(Hebrew University).
In the social sciences, TAU and the Hebrew University rank in the top 100, these universities are also ranked in the top 100 for economics
; also for economics, Israel as a country is ranked 23rd on RePec
's Country and State Ranking .
In 2010, Hebrew University reached 57th place in the global ranking list published by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China.
Israel is a signatory of the Convention against Discrimination in Education
, and ratified it in 1961. The convention has the status of law in Israeli courts.
Israel operates an Arab education system for Israeli-Arabs minority that teaches Arab students, in Arabic, about their history and culture. However, there have been claims that the Jewish education system get more resources. According to the Follow-Up Committee for Arab Education, the Israeli government spends an average of $192 per year on each Arab student and $1,100 per Jewish student. It also notes that drop-out rate for Israeli Arab citizens is twice as high as that of their Jewish counterparts (12 percent versus 6 percent). The same group also noted that in 2005 there was a 5,000-classroom shortage in the Arab sector.
In attempt to close the gap between Arab and Jewish education sectors, the Israeli education minister announced an affirmative action
policy, promising thshowed that obstacles at Arabs would be granted 25% of the education budget, more than their proportional share in the population (18%). He also added that the ministry would support the creations of an Arab academic college.
In 2001 a Human Rights Watch
report stated that students in government-run Arab schools received inferior education due to fewer teachers, inadequate school construction, and lack of libraries and recreational space. Jewish schools were found to be better equipped, some offering film editing studios and theater rooms. The report found substantial differences in many aspects of the education system.In 2009 Sorel Cahan of Hebrew University's School of Education claimed that Israel's Education Ministry
discriminates against Arabs in its allocations of special assistance for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Cahan wrote that the average per-student allocation at Arab junior high schools was one-fifth lower.
In 2007 the Israeli Education Ministry announced a plan to increase funding for schools in Arab communities. According to a ministry official, "At the end of the process, a lot of money will be directed toward schools with students from families with low education and income levels, mainly in the Arab sector." The Education Ministry prepared a five-year plan to close the gaps and raise the number of students eligible for high school matriculation.
A 2009 report showed that obstacles to Arab students participating in higher education resulted in over 5,000 moving to study in nearby Jordan. And in 2010 human rights groups and lawyers criticized a number of measures which were introduced to benefit Jewish secondary school leavers and adversely affected Arab students intending to enroll in higher education.
The Ministry of Education announced in April 2010 that the suggested curriculum for the coming school year will not include civics, democratic values or Jewish-Arab coexistence and focuses more on Zionist and Jewish values.
, concluded in 2004, that the key to improving Israeli education is not more money but better-quality teaching. The recommendations included a reform giving school principals the right to fire bad teachers and reward good ones with higher pay. These moves have been blocked by Israel's teachers' unions, which have paralyzed schools with a series of long strikes, mostly blocking the proposed reforms.
, a professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
has published Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education, an account of her study of the contents of Israeli school books. She asserts that the books promote racism
against and negative images of Arabs, and that they prepare young Israelis for their compulsory military service. After examining "hundreds and hundreds" of books, Peled-Elhanan claims she did not find one photograph that depicted an Arab as a "normal person". She has stated that the most important finding in the books she studied concerns the historical narrative of events in 1948, the year in which Israel fought a war to establish itself as an independent state. She claims that the killing of Palestinians is depicted as something that was necessary for the survival of the nascent Jewish state. "It's not that the massacres are denied, they are represented in Israeli school books as something that in the long run was good for the Jewish state." After reviewing a previous paper by Peled-Ehanan, "The Presentation of Palestinians in Israeli Schoolbooks of History and Geography 1998-2003" in which only seven books were examined, Arnon Groiss of the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, a schoolbook monitoring organization, disputed Peled-Elehan's findings in that paper. Groiss concluded that "Peled-Ehanan's claim regarding this point is clearly false ... This heavily politicized and thus biased approach distorts the material to produce a picture to her liking." Groiss further criticized the work of Peled-Elhanan in that paper for stretching the definition of racism to include cases that researchers would normally categorize as ethnocentrism
.
In a report published in 2000, the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace stated that in textbooks of both the general state-run network and the religious state-run network, there was a genuine effort to remove stereotypes and to build a foundation for coexistence and mutual respect between the two peoples. There are many stories that describe friendships between Jews and Arabs in Islamic countries and in Israel even in times of war. There are stories of Jews helping Arabs in daily life and in war as well as stories of Arabs rescuing Jews from physical harm and helping Jews to maintain their religion and identity. In many literary anthologies there are stories about the daily life of Arabs written by Arab authors. Some stories deal with the tensions created by the transition from a traditional society with its values and customs, to a modern western society. In some books in the ultra-orthodox network relations between Arabs and Jews were portrayed in negative terms.
According to a 2011 report by the Arab Cultural Association, Arabic textbooks provided to third grade to ninth grade students in Israeli schools contained at least 16,255 mistakes. The report was based on a study and examination of textbooks in all subjects by a committee, headed by Dr. Elias Atallah. Association director Dr. Rawda Atallah said the findings were not surprising, since they were similar to the findings of a previous study published in November 2009, which reported that more than 4,000 mistakes in language and syntax were found in textbooks for second grade students in Arab schools. Researchers also spoke about the way in which Arab students' cultural and national identities are covered. For example, whilst textbooks state that Jews and non-Jews live in the Galilee, the word "Arab" is never mentioned. Dr. George Mansour, who examined the history textbooks, reported that they ignored the presence of the Arab-Palestinian people in Israel and stressed the Promised Land of the Jewish people: "There is a process of de-Palestinization, instilling of the Zionist narrative and minimizing of Arab culture," reported Dr. Mansour.
After three weeks of strikes the presidents of the universities tried to break the strike with the threat that all students who failed to return to their studies on 8 May would have to retake the semester. The student leadership responded by intensifying the strike. On 7 May students prevented the reopening of the universities by sealing off university entrances with chains. Student leaders rejected a compromise proposal by the Israeli Prime Minister which would have exempted current students from the fee rises. Divisions amongst students have been reported in the Israeli media. Some students also started a hunger strike.
Negotiations between the Students and the Israeli government have failed to end the strike, despite reported breakthroughs.
The strike ended on May 14 after Student leaders narrowly agreed a compromise with the government which accepted the implementation of the controversial Shochat reforms. This agreement was unpopular with grassroots student activists.
The senior faculty of the universities were on strike between the opening of the 2007 autumn semester and mid-December 2007 after the Jewish holiday of Hannukah. The school year, for all the schools who struck, was extended until July 10, 2008.
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. Expenditure on education accounts for approximately 10% of GDP, and most schools are subsidized by the state.
Educational tracks
Israeli schools are divided into four tracks: state (Mamlachti), state-religious (Mamlachti dati), Independent (Haredi) schools (Chinuch AtzmaiChinuch Atzmai
Chinuch Atzmai was founded in 1953 by the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah to serve as an alternate school system for Orthodox children in Israel. It was initially led by Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin....
) and Arab. There are also private school
Private school
Private schools, also known as independent schools or nonstate schools, are not administered by local, state or national governments; thus, they retain the right to select their students and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students' tuition, rather than relying on mandatory...
s which reflect the philosophies of specific groups of parents (Democratic Schools) or are based on a curriculum of a foreign country (e.g. The American School). The majority of Israeli children attend state schools. State-religious schools, catering to youngsters from the Orthodox
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
sector (mainly Religious Zionist / Modern Orthodox), offer intensive Jewish studies programs and emphasize tradition and observance. The Chinuch Atzmai schools focus almost entirely on Torah study
Torah study
Torah study is the study by Jewish people of the Torah, Hebrew Bible, Talmud, responsa, rabbinic literature and similar works, all of which are Judaism's religious texts...
and offer very little in terms of secular subjects. Schools in the Arab sector teach in Arabic and offer a curriculum that emphasizes Arab history, religion and culture.
The education system consists of three tiers: primary education
Primary education
A primary school is an institution in which children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as primary or elementary education. Primary school is the preferred term in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth Nations, and in most publications of the United Nations Educational,...
(grades 1-6, approx. ages 6–12), middle school
Middle school
Middle School and Junior High School are levels of schooling between elementary and high schools. Most school systems use one term or the other, not both. The terms are not interchangeable...
(grades 7-9, approx. ages 12–15) and high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
(grades 10-12, approx. ages 15–18). Compulsory education
Compulsory education
Compulsory education refers to a period of education that is required of all persons.-Antiquity to Medieval Era:Although Plato's The Republic is credited with having popularized the concept of compulsory education in Western intellectual thought, every parent in Judea since Moses's Covenant with...
is from kindergarten through 12th grade.
In 1984 the first integrated schools which had both Jewish and Arab students to coexist in a classroom were built by the residents of Neve Shalom – Wāħat as-Salām, a cooperative village founded by Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel. Today this school receives some support from the state. Two more integrated schools were opened in Jerusalem and Galilee (Galil Jewish-Arab School
Galil Jewish-Arab School
Galil Jewish-Arab School is the first joint Arab-Jewish primary school in Israel, founded in 1998 by the Hand in Hand: Center for Jewish Arab Education in Israel, which also runs three other bilingual schools in Israel...
) in 1997 by Hand in Hand: Center for Jewish Arab Education in Israel
Hand in Hand: Center for Jewish Arab Education in Israel
Hand in Hand: Center for Jewish-Arab Education in Israel is a network of award-winning bilingual schools where Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel can study together...
. By 2010 there are in total five integrated schools in Israel including that of Neve Shalom.
The school year in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
begins on 1 September and ends, in elementary school on 30 June, and in middle school and high school on 20 June.
From the school year of 2012, in Israel every school year will start on 26 August.
Israeli Pupils’ Rights Law
Israeli Pupils’ Rights Law of 2000, prohibit discrimination of students for sectarian reasons in admission to or expulsion from an educational institution, in establishment of separate educational curricula or holding of separate classes in the same educational institution, and rights and obligations of pupils.Matriculation (Bagrut)
Bagrut
Te'udat Bagrut is the official Israeli matriculation certificate. The bagrut is similar to the British A-levels, German Abitur, French Baccalauréat, and Austrian Matura...
(bagrut). These are exams covering various academic disciplines, which are studied in units (yehidot limud) of one to five on an ascending scale of difficulty. Students with a passing mark on the mandatory matriculation subjects (Hebrew language
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, scripture
Religious education
In secular usage, religious education is the teaching of a particular religion and its varied aspects —its beliefs, doctrines, rituals, customs, rites, and personal roles...
, history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, state studies and literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
), who have been tested on at least 21 units, and passed at least one 5-unit exam, receive a full matriculation certificate. In 2006/7, 74.4% of Israeli 12th graders took the bagrut exams while only 46.3% were eligible for a matriculation certificate. In the Arab and Druze sectors, the figures were 35.6% and 43.7% respectively.
Below is a table illustrating the percentage of matriculation certificate recipients in Israel's largest cities, according to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics
Israel Central Bureau of Statistics
The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , abbreviated CBS, is an Israeli government office established in 1949 to carry out research and publish statistical data on all aspects of Israeli life, including population, society, economy, industry, education and physical infrastructure.It is headed by a...
(graduation year of 2002).
The Adva Center
Adva Center
-History:Adva was founded in 1991 by activists from three social movements: the movement for equality for Mizrahi Jews, the feminist movement, and the movement for equal rights for Arab citizens. The director of the center is Barbara Svirski and its chairman is Yossi Dahan.-Objectives:Adva Center...
, a social issues think tank
Think tank
A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
in Israel, says that about 15% of the matriculation certificates issued do not qualify the recipient for admission to Israel's universities.
| City | Recipients (%) |
|---|---|
| Jerusalem | 36 |
| Tel Aviv Tel Aviv Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with... |
60.3 |
| Haifa Haifa Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher... |
64.3 |
| Rishon LeZion | 59.2 |
| Ashdod | 55.9 |
| Ashkelon Ashkelon Ashkelon is a coastal city in the South District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, south of Tel Aviv, and north of the border with the Gaza Strip. The ancient seaport of Ashkelon dates back to the Neolithic Age... |
58.5 |
| Bat Yam | 49.5 |
| Beersheba Beersheba Beersheba is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the seventh-largest city in Israel with a population of 194,300.... |
51.5 |
| Holon | 55.3 |
| Netanya Netanya Netanya is a city in the Northern Centre District of Israel, and is the capital of the surrounding Sharon plain. It is located north of Tel Aviv, and south of Haifa between the 'Poleg' stream and Wingate Institute in the south and the 'Avichail' stream in the north.Its of beaches have made the... |
52 |
| Petah Tikva Petah Tikva Petah Tikva known as Em HaMoshavot , is a city in the Center District of Israel, east of Tel Aviv.According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, at the end of 2009, the city's population stood at 209,600. The population density is approximately... |
57 |
| Ramat Gan | 65.3 |
Higher education
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
(IDF), but may request an extension of the conscription date to study at a pre-service Mechina
Mechina
A Mechina is an Israeli educational program that prepares high school graduates for serving in the Israeli Army or study at an institution of higher learning in Israel...
, or in a college or university. Those who study in a university at this stage generally do so under a program called atuda
Atuda
Atuda, or Academic Atuda , is a program of the Israeli Defense Forces which enables youngsters who are intended to join the army as soldiers, to study academic studies prior to their military service...
, where the tuition for their Bachelor's Degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
is paid for by the army. They are however obligated to sign a contract with the army extending their service by 2–3 years.
Universities generally require a certain amount of bagrut matriculation units (as well as a certain grade average) and a good grade in the Psychometric Entrance Test
Psychometric Entrance Test
The Psychometric Entrance Test is a standardized test in Israel, generally taken as a higher education admission exam. The PET covers three areas: quantitative reasoning, verbal reasoning and the English language...
, which is similar in many respects to the American SAT. All of Israel's eight public universities, and some colleges, are subsidized by the state, and students pay only a small part of the actual cost as tuition.
Psychometric Entrance Test
The Psychometric Entrance Test (colloquially known in Hebrew as "the Psychometry" - ha-Psixometri, הפסיכומטרי) is a standardized testStandardized test
A standardized test is a test that is administered and scored in a consistent, or "standard", manner. Standardized tests are designed in such a way that the questions, conditions for administering, scoring procedures, and interpretations are consistent and are administered and scored in a...
in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, generally taken as a higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...
admission exam. The PET covers three areas: quantitative reasoning, verbal reasoning
Verbal reasoning
Verbal reasoning is understanding and reasoning using concepts framed in words. It aims at evaluating ability to think constructively, rather than at simple fluency or vocabulary recognition.-Verbal reasoning intelligence tests:...
and the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. It is administered by the Israeli National Institute for Testing and Evaluation (NITE) and is heavily weighed for university admissions.
The test may be taken in Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, or combined Hebrew/English.
Comparisons and rankings
According to the WebometricsWebometrics
The science of webometrics tries to measure the World Wide Web to get knowledge about the number and types of hyperlinks, structure of the World Wide Web and usage patterns...
ranking, six of Israel's universities place in the top 100 schools of Asia. Four universities place in the top 150 in the world according to the Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai Jiao Tong University or SJTU), sometimes referred to as Shanghai Jiaotong University , is a top public research university located in Shanghai, China. Shanghai Jiao Tong University is known as one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in China...
Academic Ranking of World Universities
Academic Ranking of World Universities
The Academic Ranking of World Universities , commonly known as the Shanghai ranking, is a publication that was founded and compiled by the Shanghai Jiaotong University to rank universities globally. The rankings have been conducted since 2003 and updated annually...
, and three are in the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings (i.e. amongst the "Top 200 World Universities").
In addition, Israeli universities are among 100 top world universities in science and engineering: mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
(TAU
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University is a public university located in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel. With nearly 30,000 students, TAU is Israel's largest university.-History:...
, Hebrew University and Technion); physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
(TAU
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University is a public university located in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel. With nearly 30,000 students, TAU is Israel's largest university.-History:...
, Hebrew University and Weizmann Institute of Science
Weizmann Institute of Science
The Weizmann Institute of Science , known as Machon Weizmann, is a university and research institute in Rehovot, Israel. It differs from other Israeli universities in that it offers only graduate and post-graduate studies in the sciences....
); chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
(TAU
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University is a public university located in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel. With nearly 30,000 students, TAU is Israel's largest university.-History:...
, Hebrew University and Technion); computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
(TAU
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University is a public university located in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel. With nearly 30,000 students, TAU is Israel's largest university.-History:...
, Hebrew University, Weizmann Institute of Science
Weizmann Institute of Science
The Weizmann Institute of Science , known as Machon Weizmann, is a university and research institute in Rehovot, Israel. It differs from other Israeli universities in that it offers only graduate and post-graduate studies in the sciences....
, BIU and Technion); Engineering
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
(Technion); Life sciences
Life sciences
The life sciences comprise the fields of science that involve the scientific study of living organisms, like plants, animals, and human beings. While biology remains the centerpiece of the life sciences, technological advances in molecular biology and biotechnology have led to a burgeoning of...
(Hebrew University).
In the social sciences, TAU and the Hebrew University rank in the top 100, these universities are also ranked in the top 100 for economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
; also for economics, Israel as a country is ranked 23rd on RePec
Řepeč
Řepeč is a village and municipality in Tábor District in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic.The municipality covers an area of , and has a population of 267 ....
's Country and State Ranking .
In 2010, Hebrew University reached 57th place in the global ranking list published by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China.
Educational disparity
Convention against Discrimination in Education
Convention against Discrimination in Education is a convention adopted by UNESCO in 1960 aiming to combat segregation and discrimination in the field of education. It has entered into force in 1962. There is an additional Protocol Instituting a Conciliation and Good offices Commission, adopted in...
, and ratified it in 1961. The convention has the status of law in Israeli courts.
Israel operates an Arab education system for Israeli-Arabs minority that teaches Arab students, in Arabic, about their history and culture. However, there have been claims that the Jewish education system get more resources. According to the Follow-Up Committee for Arab Education, the Israeli government spends an average of $192 per year on each Arab student and $1,100 per Jewish student. It also notes that drop-out rate for Israeli Arab citizens is twice as high as that of their Jewish counterparts (12 percent versus 6 percent). The same group also noted that in 2005 there was a 5,000-classroom shortage in the Arab sector.
In attempt to close the gap between Arab and Jewish education sectors, the Israeli education minister announced an affirmative action
Affirmative action
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...
policy, promising thshowed that obstacles at Arabs would be granted 25% of the education budget, more than their proportional share in the population (18%). He also added that the ministry would support the creations of an Arab academic college.
In 2001 a Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
report stated that students in government-run Arab schools received inferior education due to fewer teachers, inadequate school construction, and lack of libraries and recreational space. Jewish schools were found to be better equipped, some offering film editing studios and theater rooms. The report found substantial differences in many aspects of the education system.In 2009 Sorel Cahan of Hebrew University's School of Education claimed that Israel's Education Ministry
Ministry of Education (Israel)
The Israeli Ministry of Education is the branch of government charged with overseeing public education institutions in Israel. The political head of the department is the Minster of Education, currently Gideon Sa'ar....
discriminates against Arabs in its allocations of special assistance for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Cahan wrote that the average per-student allocation at Arab junior high schools was one-fifth lower.
In 2007 the Israeli Education Ministry announced a plan to increase funding for schools in Arab communities. According to a ministry official, "At the end of the process, a lot of money will be directed toward schools with students from families with low education and income levels, mainly in the Arab sector." The Education Ministry prepared a five-year plan to close the gaps and raise the number of students eligible for high school matriculation.
A 2009 report showed that obstacles to Arab students participating in higher education resulted in over 5,000 moving to study in nearby Jordan. And in 2010 human rights groups and lawyers criticized a number of measures which were introduced to benefit Jewish secondary school leavers and adversely affected Arab students intending to enroll in higher education.
The Ministry of Education announced in April 2010 that the suggested curriculum for the coming school year will not include civics, democratic values or Jewish-Arab coexistence and focuses more on Zionist and Jewish values.
Status of teachers
Over the years, government budget cuts and underpaid teachers have taken their toll. Israel was amongst the top-ranked nations in international rankings for science and mathematics performance in the 1960s, but dropped to 33 out of 41 nations in the 2002 survey. Wages for Israeli teachers are low compared to other industrialized countries, especially due to the small amount of frontal teaching hours with respect to other developed countries (The salary per hour is similar to that of the OECD standards), according to a survey of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.Dovrat Commission
The government-appointed Dovrat Commission, led by Shlomo DovratShlomo Dovrat
Shlomo Dovrat is an Israeli high-tech entrepreneur. He spearheaded the recovery of ECI Telecom and in January 2005, sold Tecnomatix to the American software company UGS Corp. for about $227.7 million, making made about $10 million from the deal. He is also co founder of Carmel Ventures...
, concluded in 2004, that the key to improving Israeli education is not more money but better-quality teaching. The recommendations included a reform giving school principals the right to fire bad teachers and reward good ones with higher pay. These moves have been blocked by Israel's teachers' unions, which have paralyzed schools with a series of long strikes, mostly blocking the proposed reforms.
Claims textbooks contain bias
Nurit Peled-ElhananNurit Peled-Elhanan
Nurit Peled-Elhanan is a Professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, an Israeli peace activist, and one of the founders of the Bereaved Families for Peace...
, a professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
has published Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education, an account of her study of the contents of Israeli school books. She asserts that the books promote racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
against and negative images of Arabs, and that they prepare young Israelis for their compulsory military service. After examining "hundreds and hundreds" of books, Peled-Elhanan claims she did not find one photograph that depicted an Arab as a "normal person". She has stated that the most important finding in the books she studied concerns the historical narrative of events in 1948, the year in which Israel fought a war to establish itself as an independent state. She claims that the killing of Palestinians is depicted as something that was necessary for the survival of the nascent Jewish state. "It's not that the massacres are denied, they are represented in Israeli school books as something that in the long run was good for the Jewish state." After reviewing a previous paper by Peled-Ehanan, "The Presentation of Palestinians in Israeli Schoolbooks of History and Geography 1998-2003" in which only seven books were examined, Arnon Groiss of the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, a schoolbook monitoring organization, disputed Peled-Elehan's findings in that paper. Groiss concluded that "Peled-Ehanan's claim regarding this point is clearly false ... This heavily politicized and thus biased approach distorts the material to produce a picture to her liking." Groiss further criticized the work of Peled-Elhanan in that paper for stretching the definition of racism to include cases that researchers would normally categorize as ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is the tendency to believe that one's ethnic or cultural group is centrally important, and that all other groups are measured in relation to one's own. The ethnocentric individual will judge other groups relative to his or her own particular ethnic group or culture, especially with...
.
In a report published in 2000, the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace stated that in textbooks of both the general state-run network and the religious state-run network, there was a genuine effort to remove stereotypes and to build a foundation for coexistence and mutual respect between the two peoples. There are many stories that describe friendships between Jews and Arabs in Islamic countries and in Israel even in times of war. There are stories of Jews helping Arabs in daily life and in war as well as stories of Arabs rescuing Jews from physical harm and helping Jews to maintain their religion and identity. In many literary anthologies there are stories about the daily life of Arabs written by Arab authors. Some stories deal with the tensions created by the transition from a traditional society with its values and customs, to a modern western society. In some books in the ultra-orthodox network relations between Arabs and Jews were portrayed in negative terms.
According to a 2011 report by the Arab Cultural Association, Arabic textbooks provided to third grade to ninth grade students in Israeli schools contained at least 16,255 mistakes. The report was based on a study and examination of textbooks in all subjects by a committee, headed by Dr. Elias Atallah. Association director Dr. Rawda Atallah said the findings were not surprising, since they were similar to the findings of a previous study published in November 2009, which reported that more than 4,000 mistakes in language and syntax were found in textbooks for second grade students in Arab schools. Researchers also spoke about the way in which Arab students' cultural and national identities are covered. For example, whilst textbooks state that Jews and non-Jews live in the Galilee, the word "Arab" is never mentioned. Dr. George Mansour, who examined the history textbooks, reported that they ignored the presence of the Arab-Palestinian people in Israel and stressed the Promised Land of the Jewish people: "There is a process of de-Palestinization, instilling of the Zionist narrative and minimizing of Arab culture," reported Dr. Mansour.
Strikes
Israeli schools and universities have been subject to repeated strikes over the years by faculty, and, occasionally, students.2007 student strike
The 2007 Israeli student strike started in April 2007 in protest at the government decision to increase tuition fees and the failure to implement the 2001 Winograd Committee recommendation that they be reduced by 25%. Students have clashed with police, blocked roads and been arrested.After three weeks of strikes the presidents of the universities tried to break the strike with the threat that all students who failed to return to their studies on 8 May would have to retake the semester. The student leadership responded by intensifying the strike. On 7 May students prevented the reopening of the universities by sealing off university entrances with chains. Student leaders rejected a compromise proposal by the Israeli Prime Minister which would have exempted current students from the fee rises. Divisions amongst students have been reported in the Israeli media. Some students also started a hunger strike.
Negotiations between the Students and the Israeli government have failed to end the strike, despite reported breakthroughs.
The strike ended on May 14 after Student leaders narrowly agreed a compromise with the government which accepted the implementation of the controversial Shochat reforms. This agreement was unpopular with grassroots student activists.
2007 teacher strike
Middle and secondary school teachers were on strike for over a month and a half. Their demands include an 8.5% pay raise, reducing class sizes to a maximum of 30 students, and increasing the length of the school day.The senior faculty of the universities were on strike between the opening of the 2007 autumn semester and mid-December 2007 after the Jewish holiday of Hannukah. The school year, for all the schools who struck, was extended until July 10, 2008.
See also
- Education Minister of Israel
- List of universities and colleges in Israel
- Science and technology in IsraelScience and technology in IsraelScience and technology in Israel is one of the country's most developed sectors. The percentage of Israelis engaged in scientific and technological inquiry, and the amount spent on research and development in relation to gross domestic product , is amongst the highest in the world...