New Study: Israeli teachers rank near the bottom among developed countries

Disturbing new research has found that Israeli teachers rank near the bottom among developed countries. The comprehensive new study by the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research paints a troubling picture. Israeli teachers were ranked 17th among educators in the 20 developed countries surveyed. The study was conducted by Dr. Yael Melcer. It reveals significant gaps in the basic skills of Israeli teachers compared with their counterparts abroad. It also points to a systematic failure to attract highly qualified candidates to the teaching profession. Worrying indeed. So, for more, it's a pleasure to welcome Dr. Yael Melcer, researcher at the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Researcher and Lecturer at Ben-Gurion University and Sapir Academic College joining us now from Hatzeva here in Israel. Thank you so much. What worrying findings here including this disparity between teachers and other university graduates in Israel? Talk us through what has stood out for you in your research. >> Hi, and a good evening. And what immediately stand out is the teachers in Israel have lower levels of cognitive skills than teacher in most of the OECD countries participating in the study. But what I found most striking is the gap between Israel itself. In most OECD countries, teachers perform at a similar level to other academic workers. In Israel, however, teachers with academic degrees actually have lower skill levels than other employed people with academic degrees. >> Certainly is incredible and certainly not what one would expect, especially when you see that Israeli teachers lag behind when it comes to literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving, what are the implications long-term for the high-tech industry specifically? Teachers needed to teach very specific skills. Israel is known as a high-tech giant. >> Exactly. The findings raise some very important question about the ability of Israel's education system to attract and retain high-quality academic teachers. One of the reason is the way teachers are paid. There is very strong competition for skilled workers in the Israeli labor market with pretty low unemployment rate. At the same time, Israel is young country with a large number of children and therefore a very large demand for teachers. The problem is that in the public sector, where most teachers are employed, salaries are based on formal education and experience. And in the private sector, by contrast, there is much stronger link between skills and and earning. So, for highly skilled workers, the private sector can offer greater financial rewards for their skills. Um Other factors can be low entry requirements as well as strong teachers unions that allow unsuitable teachers to stay in the system. >> It certainly is very distressing to hear this and surprising, particularly when you talk about science and technology, engineering, and mathematics as well. What happens to these findings now? How does it get to authorities who can make a difference and incentivize, change the problems, as you alluded to with salaries? Who is going to translate your findings into a solution for the country? >> The key lesson is that we have an urgent need to improve the quality of teaching. Moving forward, the education sector should first changing the training and admission model. We need to raise the admission requirements for teaching. Secondly, reforming compensation. We must consider compensation models that create a stronger link between skills and pay. And finally, we must target the biggest gaps. The priority has to be improving skills in the Arab education system where the gaps are most severe. >> What about campaigns to encourage children to want to grow up to be good teachers? What does that look like? >> That will be great and there is also research that show that when you ask um students uh in elementary school who wants to be teacher, there's a lot of people who wants to be teachers. But as I said, the labor market in Israel is very tight and there's a lot of opportunities outside for the more skilled uh academic uh people and if we won't be able to uh make it uh the the education profession more attractive for the skilled academics, it won't work. Research shows that the must that if we took some of the inputs of education, education inputs as getting smaller uh classes or adding more hours, the factors that influence the most is the quality of the teacher that meet our kids in the morning. >> Right. We all remember our favorite teacher and the impact that they had. Dr. Yael Melcer, thank you so much for your time and we wish you the best of luck. I do hope your findings get into the hands of the right authorities who can do something and make a difference. Thank you for being with us on the rundown.