Poor schools churn out poor workers

An elementary school in the Arab neighbourhood of Umm Tuba, in East Jerusalem in December 2011. Arab Israeli schoolgirls receive a sub-standard education. The educational qualifications earned by most Arab children fit them only for casual labour or the worst-paid jobs. Palestinian children in Jerusalem may go to Israeli schools, or schools run by the UN or Palestinian National Authority. Photo by Kobi Gideon/Flash90

Is the Education System to Blame for Israel’s Economic Woes?

Calls for Overhaul of Entire Education System

By Katie Beiter, The Media Line
November 15, 2016

It seems counterintuitive, but a new study posits that education is to blame for the growing gap between the rich and poor in Israel. Researchers at the Shoresh Institute, an Israeli socioeconomic research centre, have shown that improving the education system in the country by focusing on weaker students would increase Israel’s GDP by some 300%.

“In general, the schools in Israel are terrible,” Dan Ben-David, a professor at Tel Aviv University, an analyst at the Shoresh Institute and the author of the study, told The Media Line. “And, they are even worse among the Arabs and the Haredim (the ultra-orthodox).”

In the early 2000s with the second intifada, which was a period of Palestinian attacks that killed hundreds of Israelis, the country was faced with one of the worst recessions ever in its history. Tourism plummeted and foreign investment dried up, amid fears of instability. The government was forced to spend money to kick start the economy, creating huge deficits while also increasing the national debt from 80% of GDP to 93%, according to Shoresh research.

To combat this, the Israeli government scaled back many of its initiatives including slashing welfare benefits in three programmes: income maintenance, child benefits and unemployment benefits. The cuts in these benefits forced many unemployed people to enter the workforce, which seemed like a positive outcome to the economic crisis. However, according to the study, the policy changes had unintended consequences.

According to Ben-David, whose study was able to “get a bird’s eye view of what has transpired (in Israel) since the major recession (of 2002-2003),” while the government of Israel attempted to repair the economic situation by cutting welfare, the country did nothing to fix its educational system. Therefore, while the rate of employment increased dramatically, it primarily increased in the number of unskilled and uneducated workers, who are largely unqualified to work in a modern job market.

“It essentially forced a huge increase in the number of less educated workers,” Ben-David said. “Many people who had been living off welfare were forced to enter the job market. The problem is that nothing was done to upgrade the skill and education level of these people.”

The Shoresh study shows that a third of Israeli children have scores in math, science and reading that are below the minimum level the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which Israel is a member of, says is required to work in a 21st century economy. This study does not include the ultra-Orthodox, who do not take the required academic tests.

“It’s a complicated question of what reflects what,” Michael Gillis, the director of the department of teaching at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, told The Media Line. “Does society reflect the education system or does the education system reflect society?”

Students at one of Israel’s many yeshivot. There has been concern for a long time that the religious education they receive has very little value in Israel’s economic life. Photo by Getty.

The school system is not just flawed in the secular system but in the ultra-Orthodox system as well. In most of these schools, which focus on Jewish texts, there is almost no secular education at all, seriously inhibiting their chances of securing a lucrative career. Several attempts to institute a “core curriculum” of math, science and English in the ultra-Orthodox schools failed due to political pressure.

“The issue is the lack of wanting to accept secular education as a necessity to thrive,” a 24 year-old former ultra-Orthodox man who asked that his name be withheld, told The Media Line. “If you aren’t going to work with your hands and you don’t have a secular education then you are stuck.”

“I don’t have a diploma or a GED, I didn’t get a high school education,” another former ultra-Orthodox man told The Media Line.

There are similar issues with some of the schools in Arab communities in Israel, which are largely disadvantaged because of economic reasons. According to the study, Arabic-speaking children, who make up some 25% of the population of school-kids, scored, on average, lower on math, science, and reading tests than many third world countries.

According to Ben-David, together, Arab and ultra-Orthodox children comprise about half of the population of children in Israel.

“You get this dynamic that educational achievement reflects social economic gaps,” Gillis said.

According to researchers and analysts, one of the biggest deterrents to a thriving educational system are the teachers, especially the system in which the country chooses, trains, and compensates them. Israeli teachers are not paid well, and many leave the profession.

Michael Gillis, who is responsible for teacher training at the Hebrew University, lamented at the difficulty in attracting people into the teaching profession who have high quality academic backgrounds.

“The status of the teacher in Israeli society remains an issue,” Gillis told The Media Line. “One expression of status is salary and there are other things as well as how the profession is regarded. There is a problem in Israel.”

Once hired, teacher retention is difficult as they often deal with large class sizes and a general lack of discipline in the classroom, Gillis added.

Researchers say that along with changing the way the country hires, trains and pays teachers, introducing a core curriculum that is mandatory and uniform in all schools as well as reforming how the system operates on an administrative and fundamental level, would bring some hope to not just education but the economy as well.

Closing the gap between the rich and the poor can only be accomplished if the inequalities in the education system are addressed.

Recently, the ministry of education released a report citing improvements in fifth grade exam results for the 2015-2016 school year; however, the system has a long way to go. Without changing the education system, the country will not be able to produce children who understand basic levels of education, thus perpetuating the issue of increased employment rates in unskilled sectors.

According to the study, if Israel reformed its system and focused on educating only its weakest students, the country’s rate of productivity would increase dramatically, the rates of poverty would drop and GDP would rise by some 301%.

“We need an overhaul of the system,” Ben-David told The Media Line. “The focus in policy needs to not be on quantity, but on quality.”