Action Plan – Education System

The first group includes recommendations concerning central-government policy measures that may not require budget allocations but may affect the performance, social status, and quality of the education system. This group includes Recommendations 1-3 and Recommendation 10.

The second group focuses on resource allocations for measures that may narrow disparities in inputs for the various sectors, in consideration of each sector’s different needs, in order to narrow gaps in scholastic achievements. Recommendations 5-7 belong to this group.

The third group concentrates on resource allocations for pedagogical measures meant to enhance the educational process and the system’s outputs. At issue here are Recommendations 4, 8, 9, and 11.

We do not offer a yardstick for use in prioritizing the recommendations. However, to fulfill three of the recommendations – applying the State system to all children countrywide, paring the executive functions of the Ministry of Education, and aiming for a 50 percent rate of matriculation-certificate eligibility among members of the relevant age group by the end of the incumbent government’s tenure – immediate decisions and preparations seem to be necessary.

This paper appears as a chapter in the Center’s annual publication, Israel’s Social Services 1999-2000, Yaakov Kop (editor).