{"id":214821,"date":"2025-09-10T06:27:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T06:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/214821\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T06:27:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T06:27:19","slug":"israel-has-2nd-most-crowded-classrooms-but-pupils-get-above-average-hours-oecd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/214821\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel has 2nd-most crowded classrooms, but pupils get above average hours — OECD"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel has the second-most crowded classrooms among OECD countries, after Chile, according to a\u00a0study<\/a> by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)p ublished Monday.<\/p>\n

Israel pays teachers close to the OECD average, although starting salaries are in the bottom third of countries, and it spends 24% of its per capita GDP on education, below the OECD average of 25.3%, the study found.<\/p>\n

The latest figures showed that Israel\u2019s average elementary school class size stood at 27 students in 2023 \u2014 unchanged from a decade earlier.<\/p>\n

For middle school, class sizes have grown from 28 in 2013 to 30 in 2023.<\/p>\n

The OECD noted that in most of its countries, the average class size in elementary schools was 21 students, and that all had fewer than 25, with the exceptions of Chile, Israel, Japan, and the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

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According to an Education Ministry circular sent out in August last year, the maximum number of pupils allowed in a class was set at 34 for grades 1 to 7, 33 for grade 8, and 32 for grades 9 to 10.<\/p>\n

The OECD\u2019s annual \u2018Education at a Glance\u2019 report is considered the most comprehensive international comparison of education systems, covering access, outcomes, financing, and teaching conditions across the developed world. However, it does not examine the differences within the Israeli education system in terms of schools serving different sectors of the population.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Children arrive to their first day of school at the Gamla School in the northern Israeli town of Katzrin, on September 1, 2025 (Michael Giladi\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

Most of the underlying statistics are from 2022 or 2023, since these were the latest full datasets available when the report was compiled.<\/p>\n

The report found that Israeli pupils received 941 hours of compulsory instruction per year in primary education and 1,002 hours in lower secondary education \u2014 above the OECD average of 804 hours in primary and 909 hours in lower secondary education.<\/p>\n

It also said that 68% of the fully qualified teachers who resigned in 2022-23 had been in the profession for less than five years.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Israeli teachers demonstrate for better pay and conditions in Tel Aviv on May 30, 2022. The placard roughly translates as \u201cOur sense of mission shouldn\u2019t mean lousy conditions\u201d (Tomer Neuberg\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

It spent $11,166 per student from primary to post-secondary non-tertiary levels in 2022, placing it in the middle of countries that were members or prospective members of the OECD. The sums spanned from less than $2,000 in Peru, an official candidate country for accession, to more than $27,000 in the case of Luxembourg.<\/p>\n

At the tertiary level, Israel lagged behind other countries, spending an average of\u00a0 $7,311 per tertiary student compared to the OECD average of $15,102.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Students at the Mount Scopus campus of Jerusalem\u2019s Hebrew University on the new school year, October 23, 2022. (Olivier Fitoussi\/FLASH90)<\/p>\n

Responding to the findings, Education Minister Yoav Kisch said that the ministry is working with the Finance Ministry and the Prime Minister\u2019s Office \u201cto re-examine the staffing model and [take] measures to reduce class sizes,\u201d in order to address overcrowding and teacher burnout.<\/p>\n

In other findings, the report said that the share of young Israeli adults (25-34-year-olds) without upper secondary education (available to ages 16 to 18) remained unchanged at 9% between 2019 and 2024, compared with an average of 13% OECD across the OECD.<\/p>\n

Focusing this year on tertiary education and issues such as equality of access, the report revealed that only a quarter of Israeli graduates aged 25 to 34 years came from families where neither parent had completed high school education.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Education Minister Yoav Kisch at the Ministry of Education in Jerusalem, in preparation for the opening of the school year, August 31, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

The figure for Israel (25.5%) is close to the OECD average of 25.6%.<\/p>\n

Denmark had the highest percentage of students from such backgrounds out of 26 countries surveyed \u2014 48.53% \u2014 while the Slovak Republic came in last with 2.83%. The figure for the US was 22.33%.<\/p>\n

Among Israeli students, just under two-thirds (62.62%) had at least one parent with a high school education, which was below the OECD average of 69.7%.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnequal opportunities are holding back some learners who would benefit from a tertiary education,\u201d the report said. \u201cIn all countries, children from disadvantaged backgrounds are far less likely to reach higher levels of education than those from more advantaged backgrounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Israel, 8% of 25-34-year-olds held a master\u2019s or equivalent degree in 2023 \u2014 the same as in 2019, and far below the OECD average of 16%.<\/p>\n

Israeli students in higher education also took longer to complete their first degrees than the OECD average, with just under eight out of ten having finished three years after the end of their courses.<\/p>\n


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