Twelve Years of the National Task Force for the Advancement of Education in Israel (the Dovrat Committee): What has Changed?

Twelve years have passed since the National Task Force for the Advancement of Education in Israel (the Dovrat Committee) submitted its recommendations to the government. In that time, the education system has gone through unprecedented change: the teacher’s unions have signed new agreements that changed their employment conditions and improved their salaries; the Ministry of Education’s budget has grown in absolute terms as well as in terms of budget per pupil; the National Authority for Measurement and Evaluation (RAMA) was established to monitor student achievements and the Israel Institute for School Leadership (“Avnei Rosha”) was established for enhanced training of school principals; and after a lengthy teachers’ strike, there has been slow movement toward reducing classroom size.

Not all of the committee’s recommendations were implemented – some were rejected or not carried out – yet , Blass found similarities and sometimes almost correspondence between the recommendations and real developments, albeit with a lag of several years. This does not necessarily indicate a direct and immediate causal relationship between the two.

Among the Dovrat Committee’s main recommendations related to teachers’ working conditions and training were: a substantial wage hike, a 36-40 hour work week, changes in the teacher promotion track, and improvement of the teacher training process. In actuality, real wages of teachers in Israel increased between 2005 and 2013 – by 26% for primary school teachers, 19% for middle school teachers, and 10% for high school teachers. Jewish primary school teachers increased their average work time from 75% of a full-time position to 78% while for Arab Israeli teachers it increased from 80% to 85%. Applications to teacher training institutions have increased in recent years, most notably among those applying for academic tracks, with an 81% rise in graduates as compared to 2009.

Between 2000 and 2016, the nominal Ministry of Education budget grew at an unprecedented rate of 142%, and the real budget by 86%. The number of pupils per full-time teacher position dropped from 13.8 in 2007 to 12.7 in 2014 – a 9 percent drop. Taking into account the growth in the number of teachers and average teaching hours, it is clear that the number of hours per pupil also rose – evidence of the increase of educational spending directly for pupils.

These changes have been reflected in improved pupil achievement on Meitzav exams and in Israel’s ranking in international exams, as well as higher satisfaction rates among teachers with their salaries and their status. In turn, there has been a rise in professionals seeking retraining in the field of education.

This paper appears as a chapter in the Center’s annual publication, State of the Nation Report 2016, edited by Prof. Avi Weiss.