Bennett family
Bennett familyOded Karni

More than 2,272,000 students across the country began the first day of the 2017/2018 school year Friday morning.

The nearly 2.3 million Israeli students include some 163,000 first graders, and 123,500 12th graders who are beginning their last year of secondary schooling.

Teaching Israel’s students are 180,000 Education Ministry-certified teachers.

The Education Ministry has chosen the 70th anniversary of the State of Israel’s founding as the theme of the 2017/2017 school year. The State of Israel will celebrate its 70th independence day in spring 2018 (April 19th for the Hebrew calendar anniversary, May 14th for the Gregorian anniversary).

The theme of the 2016-2017 school year was the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) lauded the smooth start of the new school year during a visit to the ministry’s offices in Jerusalem. Under his ministry, there have been no crippling strikes as there were in the past.

“The headline of the beginning of this academic year is ‘No drama, no strikes’. There is good dialogue between everyone.”

Bennett boasted that this academic year featured “smaller classes, extra teaching assistants, subsidized afterschool programs, great kindergarten teachers, and unprecedented increases [in allocations] for science, mathematics, and English.”