|
Israel
EDUCATION
Education in Israel has been characterized historically by the
same social and cultural cleavages separating the Orthodox from
the secular and Arabs from Jews. In addition, because of residential
patterns and concentrations--of Orientals in development towns,
for example--or because of "tracking" of one sort or another,
critics have charged that education has been functionally divided
by an Ashkenazi-Oriental distinction, as well.
Before 1948 there were in the Jewish sector alone four different,
recognized educational systems or "trends," each supported and
used by political parties and movements or interest groups. As
part of the prestate status quo agreements between Ben-Gurion
and the Orthodox, this educational segregation, favored by the
Orthodox, was to be protected and supported by the state. This
system proved unwieldy and was the source of intense conflict
and competition, especially as large numbers of immigrants arrived
between 1948 and 1953. The different parties fought over the immigrants
for their votes and over the immigrants' children for the chance
to socialize them and thus secure their own political future.
This conflict precipitated several parliamentary crises, and in
1953 resulted in reform legislation--the State Education Law--which
reduced the number of trends to two: a state-supported religious
trend and a state-supported secular trend. In reality, however,
there were still a few systems outside the two trends that nevertheless
enjoyed state subsidies: schools run by the various kibbutz federations
and traditional religious schools, yeshivot (sing., yeshiva--see
Glossary), devoted to the study of the Talmud, run by the ultra-Orthodox
Agudat Israel and others. In the 1986-87 school year, about 6
percent of all Jewish primary school students were enrolled in
yeshivot, about 22 percent in state religious primary schools,
and about 72 percent in state secular primary schools. These figures
remained constant throughout secondary education as well. Throughout
this period and in 1988, Arab education was separately administered
by the Ministry of Education and Culture and was divided by emphases
on Muslim, Christian, or Druze subjects (see table 3, Appendix
A).
Israeli youth were required to attend at least ten years of school,
in addition to preschool. The education system was structured
in four levels. Preschool was available to children between the
ages of three and six; it was obligatory from age five. Primary
education ran from grades one through six; grades seven, eight,
and nine were handled in intermediate or junior high schools.
Secondary education comprised grades ten through twelve. Secondary
schools were of three main types: the general academic high school,
which prepared students to take the national matriculation examination,
passage of which was necessary to enter university; vocational
high schools; and agricultural high schools. The latter two schools
offered diplomas that allowed holders to continue in technical
or engineering fields at the postsecondary level but did not lead
to the matriculation exam. The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry
of Agriculture shared with the Ministry of Education and Culture
some responsibilities for curriculum and support of vocational
and agricultural schools. Education through the intermediate school
level was free. Before 1978 tuition was charged in secondary schools,
and many argued that this discriminated against the poor, especially
Orientals. A January 1984 reform imposed a reduced monthly fee
of approximately US$10 in secondary schools.
Israeli education has often been at the center of social and
ideological controversy. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, sociological
surveys indicated that youth attending the state secular system
were both ignorant of and insufficiently attached to "traditional
Jewish values," which included a sense of kinship with Diaspora
Jewry. A Jewish Consciousness Program was then hastily implemented,
but results were considered mixed. Most observers of Israeli education
believed that the events of the June 1967 War, and the subsequent
trauma of the October 1973 War, from which followed the increasing
political isolation of Israel, did more than any curriculum to
reinstill a sense of Jewish national identity in Israeli youth.
Meanwhile, in the 1960s the state religious system, particularly
at the high school level, underwent its own transformation, which
many analysts considered to have had far-reaching effects on Israeli
society. The state religious system has always included a high
proportion of Oriental students from traditional homes. Middle
class Ashkenazim began to complain of the "leveling effects" the
Orientals were having, and more specifically of the teachers (who
were accused of not being pious enough) and the curriculum (criticized
for giving insufficient attention to the study of the Talmud).
In response to this dissatisfaction, activists from the youth
organization of the National Religious Party, the Bene Akiva (Sons
of Rabbi Akiva), in the 1960s fashioned an alternative religious
high school system, in which academic and religious standards
were much higher than in the usual state religious high school.
This alternative form soon attracted many middle class, Ashkenazi
youth from the older state religious high schools. In addition
to having a more rigorous academic curriculum, the new system
was also strongly ultranationalistic, as reflected in the form
known as the yeshiva hesder, which combined the traditional
values of the European talmudic academy with a commitment, on
the part of its students, to serve in the IDF. These institutions
have turned out a generation of self-assured religious youth who
are not apologetic about their piety--something they accused their
elders of being. Israelis referred to them as the "knitted skullcap
generation", after their characteristic headgear (as distinguished
from the solid black cloth or silk skullcaps of the ultra-Orthodox).
Over the years, they have been more aggressive than their elders
in trying to extend Orthodox Judaism's political influence in
the society at large as well as within the territorial boundaries
of the Jewish state. Many of these graduates have been instrumental
in shaping the New Zionism.
Arab education in Israel followed the same pattern as Jewish
education, with students learning about Jewish history, heroes,
and the like, but education is in Arabic. Arab education in East
Jerusalem and the West Bank followed the Jordanian curriculm and
students sat for Jordanian examinations; the textbooks used, however,
had to be approved by Israeli authorities. After the outbreak
of the intifadah (uprising) in December 1987, frequent
school closings occurred so that students attended school only
infrequently (see The Palestinian Uprising, December 1987- , ch.
5).
Data as of December 1988
|
