How would you like to earn 120 shekels per hour? No takers? Not among the country’s elementary and preschool teachers, who are somewhat less than enthusiastic about the idea of giving up part of their vacation to stay in the classroom and teach this summer, even if they are paid significantly higher wages.
Meanwhile, the end of the academic year is approaching and the Education Ministry’s flagship program, ambitiously titled, “In school, we’re learning this summer,” is about to kick off. According to the Israel Hayom newspaper, the Education Ministry has launched a campaign to recruit teaching staff – including preschool teachers and teachers from first and second grades – to join the program in July, in return for bumped-up wages. But the teachers still don’t want to work during the summer – most prefer to stay at home – and therefore, it’s more than likely that your schoolchildren will end up having a stranger teaching them.
The Ministry’s program was first presented by the previous Education Minister, Yoav Galant, who announced that special focus would be placed on children in the last preschool class who are due to enter first grade next academic year, helping them with language skills, mathematics, and other core subjects.
Nonetheless, the head of at least one local education authority has admitted that the program has essentially failed in its efforts to recruit teachers. “What we’re going to be seeing is babysitters, not teachers,” she told Israel Hayom. “The regular staff isn’t going to be there. Teachers are worn out from the year of coronavirus that took a huge toll on them. They don’t want to come in to work during the summer, even if you offer them 120 shekels per hour – especially as they get paid for the summer months in any case.”
According to her, “It’s like this all over the country. Something between 20 to 40 percent of preschool teachers and teachers from first and second grades will be going in to school to work, mostly younger teachers who are in greater need of the added income.”
Another principal of a school authority confirmed her assessment. “We are not counting on our regular teachers coming in,” he said. “We already saw in past years that they barely come to work in the long summer vacation – and they certainly won’t come after this year of coronavirus, and certainly not when the skies are open, as are the hotels, and they can travel abroad. Parents should definitely not assume that during the three weeks of the summer program their child is going to suddenly learn all the letters of the alphabet, just as a child who’s having problems learning to read in first grade isn’t going to make up the lost material. That’s something we can’t do – we’re not magicians.”