Teachers slam ulpan cuts

Education Ministry's intention to cut more than 50% of instructors at immigrant language schools blasted

Reuters | Published: 01.09.08, 21:12

The Education Ministry's announcement regarding its intention to fire more than half of ulpan teachers in Israel has raised the fury of officials and language school instructors.

The Ministry is cutting costs in order to finance education reforms and it looks like new immigrants to Israel will be paying the price. At this time there are about 120 ulpans and 700 teachers in Israel, but officials intend to fire more than half of them, close some immigrant language schools, and privatize others.

"The Education Ministry has already ordered us to close down all evening classes in the coming month," said Esther Perron, the director of Ulpan Akiva in Netania. "It defies all logic."

Immigrantion Absorption Minister Jacob Edery has also slammed the move, saying that "Hebrew is the entry ticket of new immigrants into Israeli society. A failure in acquiring the language will lead to a failure to absorb the immigrants."

Ulpan teacher Liora Lifshitz, who has been teaching immigrants for 18 years characterized the decision as a "national disaster" and said it will have grave implications for Israel's future. "Immigrants will be arriving, they won't speak the language, and won't be productive," she said.

Source of pride

Ulpan instructor Alona Goldberg said she cried for two days when she heard the news. "I cried at home and I cried in the classroom with my students," she said. They're going to ruin infrastructure that we built over 20 years by firing teachers who specialize in teaching adults a foreign language."

"There's nobody in the world who can do it as well as we do, and now we're being thrown to the dogs," she said.

Meanwhile, leaks to the media claimed that the instruction level at ulpans across the country is mediocre. According to Central Bureau of Statistics data, the Hebrew level of almost half of all immigrants who moved to Israel since 1996 is low or very low.

Yet Education Ministry Director General Shlomit Amihai rejected the claims. "It is very easy to criticize," she said, but noted that language studies in Israel are a "source of pride."

"We have people from many countries in the world coming here to learn how to do it," she said. "The problem is not the level of ulpans, but rather, the budgets."