Free education from age 0 was an election promise of most parties.
Some promised and said that the promise constitutes a huge subsidy for the ultra-orthodox and Arab sectors, some promised due to a divisive-socialist leftist ideology and belief in the idea of a guardian state that takes care of all our material and mental needs.
Unfortunately, the national-liberal party, Likud, was dragged by a similar promise, given under election pressure and using incorrect calculations.
Despite the promises, this program should be thrown into the shredder.
When we come to examine economic policy, we must look at four factors:
The cost: according to calculations by my colleagues at the Ecclesiastical Forum for Economics, Dr. Michael Sheral and Abraham Nissen, the cost of education can reach NIS 32 billion a year, which means a dramatic increase in the tax burden. These billions do not include the cost of the buildings - to house half a million toddlers At the age of 3-0 in classes of 20 toddlers, 25 thousand new classrooms need to be built at a cost of tens of billions more; all this provided that there is land for the classrooms. In our reality, as we know, there is none. Even in the most optimistic situation, parents will have to travel many kilometers to the outskirts of the cities to find A place for their children, the logistics alone are a warning sign against the plan.
Benefit: Controversial.
Supporters believe that it will encourage mothers to go to work, but the number of women who can be encouraged in this way is low - few women in Israel stay at home due to the lack of arrangement, and the subsidy increases the earnings of wealthy women who already go to work today.
Compared to OECD data, Israel leads in terms of maternal employment, and the gap in employment between mothers of toddlers and mothers of older children is minimal.
Resources: The issue is critical.
The Israeli economy is at full employment, there is nowhere to get nannies for half a million babies aged 0-3, not even in the ultra-orthodox and Arab sectors.
This is not only a financial question, but also a national one.
Applying free education from age 0 will flood Israel with tens of thousands of nannies from the Palestinian Authority, or alternatively, it will be necessary to open borders to nannies from Eastern European countries or the Far East.
The State of Israel will have to entrust its children to foreign workers who do not know the language and culture in the most basic ways.
There is no financial feasibility for free education from the age of zero (picture for illustration), photo: Ami Shoman
Finally we must also understand the incentives:
Free education for toddlers is a crazy birth incentive.
Already today, Israel leads in the number of children per woman, and free education will further increase the number of children in each family.
On top of that, Israel is one of the densest countries in the world.
The high birth rate exacts a heavy price from us, and an additional birth rate incentive will lead to enormous economic and social crises, will require greater investment in education and infrastructure, will harm the quality of education and opportunities, and will increase the tax burden but reduce the government's return to the resident.
So what can be done?
To help mothers of toddlers who wish to go out to work in a variety of ways that are not destructive to the economy and society.
increase tax credit points for mothers of toddlers at the expense of credit points for men and for older children;
Expand job grants given to those with low wages - a policy that has been proven to be particularly effective in encouraging people to go to work.
A correct policy should match the goals to the resources, costs and benefits.
Israel cannot act like we are Norway, with billions in oil and one baby per family.
Israel should be aware of the birth incentives, the potential of going to work and the astronomical budgetary costs.
Israel must focus on its acute problems, such as the low level of the existing education system, low labor productivity, labor relations from the Soviet era and burdensome regulation.
Better jobs will give better value to the young mothers than tens of thousands of government-sponsored children's warehouses.
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