At the end of a very challenging year for education in Israel, which ends with another nightmare show from Yaffa Ben David's seminary, we convened three heads of leading education departments in the local authorities, for a free and in-depth conversation about the current state of the Israeli education system.
Shirley Rimon Bracha, Head of the Education Administration at the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality;
Shlomi Dahan, Director of the Education Department of the Hadera Municipality;
Vali Meiri, head of the education department at the Tiberias municipality.
All three are veteran educators, with certificates and accomplishments.
Just before the Corona the three thought that evil was still ahead of us, but they claimed that the plague had provided them with a tremendous opportunity for change.
Two years of a global epidemic were challenging, but forced all involved to revive an outdated and sleepy system, and it took the opportunity with both hands.
Now, they say, it's all over and we're all back to a form of thinking that is not appropriate for the children of Israel in the 21st century.
After two years of epidemic, teachers are trying to rehabilitate the system (archive), Photo: Yehoshua Yosef
Oh, and there is another motif that will be repeated throughout the conversation with them: it is not the money, or at least it is not just the money - because the money is in the system, and the State of Israel knows how to distribute money to education.
"Even if we go up, and the salary has to be raised en masse throughout the system, this is not the satisfactory answer," Rimon Bracha, Dahan and Meiri explained.
"We need to forge a new alliance between us and the Ministry of Education. What was, can not continue to be. Everything needs to change from start to finish, along the entire boulevard."
As for how the horizontal change in the Ministry of Education must look, the three agree that "everything has to be broken and shattered, and then something completely new is built from the ground up. Otherwise, we will find ourselves in a situation we did not think we would be in.
"The system must be broken - nothing more can be done about it. Even if they pay teachers a silence fee, another ten percent, that's not it."
The educators have revealed to us for the first time the alarming data for the coming school year, when a shortage of hundreds of teachers and kindergarten teachers, psychologists, communication clinicians and even maintenance personnel, who are not ready to open the next school year, is expected.
"It's time for a rehabilitation prime minister here to say: the education system is important to me. But no one is saying that."
The full article will be published on Friday in the "Israel Hashavua" supplement.
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