Implementation of Compulsory Education Law for Ages 3-4: Challenges and Recommendations

The current paper looks at the practical implications of the decision to fully implement the law.  It presents a methodology for projecting the number of children who will be added to the preschool system, as well as their distribution by sector and type of school regulation.  It also calculates the number of new preschools that will have to be built, as well as the number of new preschool teachers who will have to be hired and the accompanying cost.

One of the main findings of the study is that the majority of the new children who will enter the public system live in the more well-established cities, principally Tel-Aviv, or in Jerusalem (mainly in East Jerusalem).

The final section of the work presents some suggestions that could reduce the expected costs significantly, as well as initial data on the implementation of the law thus far.