The Knesset Committee for the Rights of the Child and Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) signed a new condition for future teachers to undergo personality tests as part of the profession’s framework.
The pilot is due to begin next year with 1,500 new hopeful teachers who want to enter training collages. Each candidate will build a character profile based on a biographical questionnaire, a personality questionnaire, a teaching dilemmas test, a personal interview and group exercise.
The aim is to improve the teaching staff in the Israeli school system and to filter candidates that are not suitable for teaching.
The decision to hold the personality tests was due to the fact that educational colleges and academies are concerned that many students choose the teaching profession just because of convenient working hours, so they want to make a rigorous screening process in selecting students.
"Israeli students deserve excellent teachers. Our goal is to provide classrooms with the best and most suitable teachers. This is the first step in a range of measures that we intend to implement in order to enhance the teaching profession,” said Bennett.
“Lawyers and accountants go through a stringent screening process to qualify, so there is no reason why teachers should not do the same. I believe that we are addressing the most significant factor for the future of education in Israel – the teachers.”