Trends in the Development of the Education System

The professional education qualifications of teachers have improved, and the great majority of them now have higher education. The learning achievements of Israel’s pupils have also improved, as is evident from the results of the Meitzav tests, matriculation exams and international testing. Furthermore, the achievement gaps between pupil populations have narrowed, including those between Jewish and Arab Israeli pupils. Improvement is also evident in the educational environment of schools. Despite these changes, the financial allocation per pupil in Israel is still low relative to the OECD countries, and despite the narrowing of gaps between various population groups, they remain among the largest of the OECD countries. There is still a long way to go until the quality of what the education system provides to its pupils and until pupil achievement, in both learning and educational terms, meet the standards of the countries that Israel seeks to emulate.

This paper appears as a chapter in the Center’s annual publication, State of the Nation Report 2014, Dan Ben-David (editor).