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Photo: Channel 8
Professor Aaron Ciechanover
Photo: Channel 8

Education revolution needed

Education system needs sweeping change to become top national priority

The school year opened Sunday, and had I been in the education minister's place I would have stepped down.

 

It's not because of the education system's failure, which for the main part cannot be attributed to the Education Minister, but rather, because of the certainty that succeeding in such a position is impossible. The ills of the system are multiple and any physician would have pronounced it deathly ill.

 

One ailment derives from the fact that the person in charge of the education system is frequently changed, and this is a system in which implementing reforms and evaluating their success takes many years. An even graver ailment perhaps is the lack of consensus regarding the curriculum – i.e what is required to prepare the next generation of leaders.

 

In a country torn between ethnic groups, religions and worst of all between sectors with vastly opposing views, which more often than not seems like a shaky confederation than a country facing an existential threat for whom unity is a an existential necessity – consensus regarding the curriculum cannot be reached. There are even differences of opinions regarding the significance of the State of Israel being a democratic state.

 

Every proposal for change made by a fleetingly appointed minister is perceived by the opposing sectors as an attempt to enforce political power and rewrite history. Entire sectors decide for themselves what's good or bad and they proceed to set up subsidiary educational systems for their children, thus making the entire system's leadership impossible.

 

Added to this fatigued and divided system is the deterioration in the status of teachers, who are supposed to be its main axis. The teaching profession has almost become a profession that bears a mark of disgrace. The responsibility for some of the deterioration also falls on the shoulders of parents and students, who have become a threat to teachers, who in turn are afraid to confront them and to enforce their agendas and discipline in classrooms.

 

This is not about individual behavior of parents and students, but rather, about the development of a culture of verbal and physical violence that has spilled into every aspect of our lives (just look at the doctors who have become defenseless against the families of patients) and which is rooted in the loss of leadership.

 

Look at China and Singapore

Occasionally the question of whether a future Nobel Prize laureate is being bred in today's educational system is asked – this is an irrelevant question. Perhaps such a laureate is being cultivated and perhaps he isn't. When talking about a Nobel Prize, even as a metaphor, we are talking about personal achievements in limited areas that only provide partial testimony to the required background needed for their development.

 

The Jewish people throughout the generations have cultivated great scientists, religious scholars and humanists while sitting in exile and being persecuted. The personal acumen exists and its light has not been extinguished.

 

The purpose of a state-run education system is not the cultivation of Nobel Prize laureates, but rather, a generation of leaders in all areas who in addition to their talents - because of the unique history of the Jewish people and Israel - have a deep-set awareness of the place in which they create and of their vocation.

 

Such people will not be nurtured because today's educational system is not built to equip them adequately, and the State lacks a leadership that would outline their paths and objectives. These people have no one to emulate, nor anyone to spark their imagination.

 

Is there any hope of a cure to this ailment? There must be, because if there isn't Israel's fate is doomed. We have no quarries for export or for self sustenance, and our only resource is our ability to create. Our advantage vis-à-vis our neighbors and in the international arena in general is being eroded.

 

Countries such as China and Singapore, and even Muslim Malaysia, realized that the key to their success lies in an advanced educational system, and they are investing in it heavily. Western countries, whose magnificent educational systems are receding, are spearheading in-depth reforms to revive them.

 

In Israel's current state, it's no longer about establishing another committee – the Shohat or Dovrat commissions in another edition – whose conclusions are designed for partial and sectorial implementation anyway. It's about revolutionizing the educational system – from nursery school to university – and making it the foremost objective on the State's national list of priorities.

 

The Israeli cabinet has not presented the public with any social topic on the national level that it plans to promote. Its affairs today, even those which are supposed to be crucial to our existence, such as an agreement with the Palestinians, are perceived as survival and intimidation exercises and are of no interest to the majority of the people. The sense of the government's detachment from the people is at an all-time high.

 

Had the prime minister announced a revolution in the educational system, had he lead it seriously and shown his sincerity, he would have placed an existential goal - which transcends borders and sectors and is the most important of all - at the top of our national list of priorities. Perhaps then his popularity would have taken a turn for the better as well.

 

The writer is a member of the teaching staff at the Technion's medical faculty, an Israel Prize laureate in biology (2003) and a Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry (2004)

 


פרסום ראשון: 09.02.07, 13:30
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