If Israel's education system was a mother, the court would most likely rule for the children to be removed from the physical custody of such a parent and be sent to foster care due to the mother being unfit to protect them.
The kind of mother that wouldn't think twice about sending her kids to schools and risking infecting them with COVID or putting them under unnecessary quarantine.
But she deserted not only her children, but also kindergarten and school teachers, teaching assistants and caregivers, and as a result she sentenced them to being hated by the public while barely making enough money to make ends meet.
It seems like our education system steadily falling below global indices and approaching the lowest point it has ever been in.
This system also degrades its 16,000 mothers and teenage daughters who have not set foot on the academic floor but whose hands scrub giant pots every day, and their back and knees are being damaged daily.
It violates the rights of cooks, caregivers, educators and principals within the system who have taken on the sacred role of caring for young children, ignoring the fact that they work twice as hard as any caregiver in most OECD countries. In Israel every caregiver takes care of six children in one kindergarten, in comparison to OECD countries where one caregiver looks after four babies at most.
The education system lost its authority within the government and can't even raise NIS 1.4 billion a year to fix afternoon childcare centers. Its parenting instincts are too weak to throw the truth in the faces of our leaders and tell them they don't care about our children's education. She also won't dare to say out loud that the amount of public money being invested in Israel in children under the age of three is significantly lower than in other countries.
For comparison, Israel invests only $2,700 a year on each child, while most other OECD countries spend around $12,400.
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Children walk at The Creche, a house sheltering children, in Bethlehem
(Photo: Reuters)
If the education system was a mother, it wouldn't pass the ultimate parenting test, and fail in her ability to put her children's needs ahead of her own. This is a mother who lost her grip, sank under the weight of the tasks she was given and lost its power as the one in charge of nurturing the next generation.
Therefore, Israel must find a quick way to assist her with extensive assistance and professional support before it's too late.