Many of the 816,<> middle and high school students who ended the school year this week did not receive end-of-year certificates due to sanctions imposed by the teachers' union.
Earlier this year, the organization's sanctions included the cancellation of annual trips and trips to Poland, and the failure to provide protective grades for matriculation exams.
The teachers' union, headed by Ran Erez, is fighting to raise teachers' salaries. The organization is demanding a salary of NIS 12,<> per teacher at the beginning of his career, and an increase in the salaries of veteran teachers at a similar rate. The Treasury, on the other hand, argues that these demands are unreasonable. Which of them is right? Do teachers really deserve such a salary?
The question of teachers' salaries can be examined in many ways. The Finance Ministry claims that the increase demanded by the teachers' union deviates from the framework of other agreements signed in the economy. The teachers' union, for its part, emphasizes not only the investment required of teachers and the many difficulties involved in teaching work, but also the fact that teachers' salaries in Israel are lower than those of teachers in other countries around the world.
The important question is one: Is it possible to attract enough quality teachers to the education system at the given salary? And the answer to that question is unequivocal: no. There is a significant shortage of teachers, and school principals are struggling to fill vacancies.
The low attractiveness of the teaching profession probably has more than one reason. The Ministry of Education is required to improve the handling of personnel, the physical conditions in the teachers' work environment, and more. But there is no doubt that salary is a particularly significant component, and reality shows that the current salary does not attract quality personnel to engage in teaching.
The shortage of teachers is particularly pronounced in the core subjects – English, science and mathematics, the fields of knowledge that determine our status in international rankings and which directly affect the future employment and income of high school students. Unfortunately, the ways in which schools deal with the shortage directly harm teaching and learning, including assigning teachers without proper training or giving up teaching required disciplines.
Even more than the shortage of teachers in the education system is hurting now, it threatens its future. From year to year, the number of teachers needed for the education system increases, while the number of those interested in teaching dwindles.
In recent years, the number of female students completing education studies at universities and colleges has been decreasing, and has recently fallen from 10,000 graduates a year. In addition, less than 70 per cent of those who graduate from education studies actually integrate into teaching in the education system, while the remainder pursue other occupations.
New teachers are also leaving the education system at higher rates – from about 13 per cent five years ago to more than 20 per cent in the past two years.
High school students who did not receive end-of-year certificates this week paid the price of the teachers' union's sanctions. This is the way of fighting for workers' rights in a democratic society: the general public pays a price to enable workers to defend their working conditions. Now the students fear that the next school year will not start as usual, and from the experience of previous years, we know that uncertainty can accompany us until the last moment.
In order to prevent the aggravation of the students, and in order to stabilize the education system, the Finance Ministry would do well to offer educators an appropriate salary. The education system is the key to the prosperity and resilience of Israeli society as a whole, and therefore the state must invest all the necessary resources to ensure that there is no shortage of quality teachers in our children's classrooms.
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