Demographics in the Education System: Pupil Composition and Transfers between Education Streams

This paper discusses the demographic developments that characterized Israel’s education system between 2000 and 2015, focusing on transfers between the various educational streams  (based on individual tracking of the ideological affiliations of educational institutions that pupils attended over the years). The main findings are as follows:

A.   During this period, there were changes in the growth patterns of the various educational streams. The growth rates of the Jewish state and state-religious educational streams, which were very slow in the early part of the period (the state educational stream actually contracted), accelerated substantially during the latter five years. By contrast, growth rates of the Arab Israeli and Haredi (Jewish ultra-Orthodox) streams, which were very rapid in the earlier part of the period, slowed significantly and in the Arab Israeli sector growth actually halted.

B.   Parental choices based on school educational and ideological approaches are very stable during the years that their children spend in the education system – which means that, pupil transfers between educational streams are indicative of exceptional circumstances.

C.   Although the amount of between stream transfers is small, their direction was observed to be overwhelmingly in the direction of more-religious to less-religious.