The negotiations between the teachers and the Ministry of Finance are still deadlocked, and the latter publishes this morning the salary expenditure report of the education system for 2021, from which it appears that there are large salary gaps between young teachers and veteran teachers, and that they are among the highest in the world. This problem has been known in Israel for years, and within The current negotiations at the Ministry of Finance mainly want to raise the salary of the new teaching staff - something Shipa Ben David, Secretary General of the Teachers' Union, opposes.
The government education system (kindergartens, elementary and middle schools) employs approximately 137,000 teaching staff: kindergarteners, teachers and administrators, and the cost of their wages in formal education is approximately 27 billion, which is 6.3% of the State of Israel's budget.
This is an actual reality, since these are teaching hours for two million students.
The data shows that the average monthly salary for a teaching employee is NIS 12,423, but it is influenced by veteran teachers who earn higher salaries compared to their colleagues, this after decades in the system.
The median salary is NIS 11,551.
As mentioned, in the system there is a wage gap between young and veteran teaching staff, and young people earn about a third of the salary of veteran teaching staff.
This gap stems from two reasons: the first is gaps in the basic salary, which are among the highest in the world.
The second problem is that young teachers do not work 100% of a job, and managers only employ them in parts of it.
The average salary of a teaching employee in his first year is about NIS 5,000.
"This combination means that the salary for an employee in the first years is very low compared to the rest of the economy," they wrote in the report. The report paints a picture according to which young teachers leave the system at higher rates.
"The coming school year will not be able to open without an optimal salary agreement."
Yaffe Ben David (archive), photo: Noam (Dabol) Dvir
Disputed vacation days
The Ministry of Finance claims that the OECD data shows that teachers' salaries are similar to what is accepted in the world compared to similar workers, and it is not low in international comparison.
However, it should be said - teachers in the world work fewer hours and their classrooms are less crowded.
The Ministry of Finance itself wrote in the report that "the number of hours the students study in Israel and the number of school days are high compared to the other countries in the organization." One of the issues that is still in dispute is the students' vacation days. The Treasury wants to take five vacation days (Isro Hag, LJ Boomer, etc. ') and transfer their time off to Friday, as well as transfer three days of vacation before Passover - to the bridge between Yom Kippur and Sukkot.
As mentioned, the report shows that students in Israel study more days than all the countries in the European Union. Despite the relatively large number of school days, the vacation gap between students and the rest of the economy stands at 75 days, which is about 30% of the working days of the year - that is, the problem is not in the days The freedom of the students, but those of the parents.
Kobi Bar-Nathan, who is in charge of wages: "The report emphasizes the need for significant compensation for the young teachers, for the possibility of personal contracts in popular professions and for an agreement that will move the education system forward.
" In relation to the OECD countries regarding the number of students in the class, the salary of teaching staff and face-to-face teaching hours.
For months now we have been warning that the upcoming school year will not be able to open without an optimal salary agreement."
were we wrong
We will fix it!
If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us