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Israel’s chemistry crisis

Op-ed: State of Israel hurting itself by depriving southern children of chemistry education

My fellow citizens,

 

This letter is meant for those of you who assume that the State of Israel offers your children equal opportunities. You should know that if the Chemistry Nobel Prize will ever be awarded again to an Israeli scientist, the winner will not be a member of your communities, simply because your schools do not teach chemistry at all.

 

The Israeli government knows that you hit the streets with fury if bread and milk prices are raised; so they make sure that the prices of bread and milk will not. Although lack of science education is far more serious and has long-term implications that are graver than price hikes of basic foodstuffs, it does not bother members of Israel’s government much, because they assume it will not bring you out into the streets or even change the way you vote.

 

Those living in Israel’s upscale neighborhoods would not hit the streets if anyone tries to deprive their children of science education. They will simply make sure it won’t happen, and if necessary open their purses to ensure their children would not remain at a disadvantage compared to children in advanced countries.

 

Unlike the citizens of advanced countries, most citizens of Israel do not understand why chemistry is so essential and why children cannot climb up the socioeconomic ladder without science education. Most do not know that chemistry is the foundation of biology, medicine, materials engineering, earth sciences, agriculture and all that is produced by the global industry and is the basis of what we eat, wear, see around us and touch every day.

 

Our children must know what atoms and molecules are, what acids and bases are, what energy is and how proteins are constructed, not in order to be professors at the Technion or at the Weizmann Institute. They need this knowledge to succeed in any career they choose, be connected to reality and the world around them, be better citizens and better parents, and make sure that shrewd sales agents and advertisers cannot take advantage of their ignorance and convince them to spend their money on products that may damage their health, education and personal welfare.

 

The principle of equality of opportunity requires every child to receive basic education in science and be given the opportunity to choose whatever career they prefer. Those who have never been exposed to science education and never allowed to open up the door to this wonderful world will not choose it as a way of life.

 

Your children may grow up not knowing that behind that locked door there is an amazing world of science and technology, a world where citizens of the advanced nations speak science - the international language of the 21st century. The only consolation I can offer you, fellow citizens, is that in the near future not only the children of the south will be excluded from studying chemistry, so your troubles will be shared by many others.

 

Intellectual starvation

Your children do not study chemistry and will not study it in the foreseeable future because there is no one to teach them. Throughout Israel there are now fewer than 800 chemistry teachers, almost half of them over the age 50; many of them will retire soon. The entire State of Israel has only 16 chemistry teachers younger than 31.

 

Chemistry teachers are disappearing and our education system is failing to attract young people to choose science instruction as a respectable career. Talented young people do not set foot any more in teacher training colleges, probably because the Ministry of Education has other preferences.

 

The absence of chemistry studies in the south is another chapter in our government fiasco. The government deserves much credit for the establishment of the outstanding industrial park in Ramat Hovav, which hosts only chemical industries. This is a huge economic anchor that exports $3.5 billion a year in the form of life-saving drugs, fire-prevention materials, smart materials for the microelectronics industry, innovative technologies for protecting the environment, agricultural materials, animal and plant protection and plenty of unique products to the State of Israel.

 

Modern enterprises at Ramat Hovav enable more than 10,000 families in the Negev to make a living and still cry out for additional manpower of chemists and chemical engineers. According to some hidden logic, the same government that established Ramat Hovav deprives the pupils of neighboring towns, your children, of chemical education.

 

A malicious joke, prevalent in the United States, defines the legendary figure of the Jewish mother (Yiddishe Momme) as someone that cares to satisfy the body but starves the soul. This joke could fit many of our politicians, who make sure that your children do not lack bread and milk, but starve them intellectually and damage their competitiveness in modern society. To be fair, there is no need to ascribe malicious intent to what can be explained by a myopic policy that is based on ignorance and simple considerations of a short-term cost-benefit analysis.

 

Dear citizens of the south, it is important to fortify your cities against missiles, it is important to keep the price of cottage cheese reasonable, and it is important to build apartments for young couples. But the quality of your children’s education is even more important and less expensive. Lack of proper education is not Force Majeure; it is the result of wrong priorities. You can most certainly take care of your children's future if you wish.

 

Ehud Keinan, Professor of chemistry at the Technion, President of the Israel Chemical Society, Editor-in-Chief of the Israel Journal of Chemistry, Chairman of the Chemistry Committee of the Ministry of Education and a Member of the Executive Board of EuCheMS - the European association of Chemical Sciences

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 01.02.12, 18:09
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