From Israel to Cambodia, kids can’t get no education

In Israel, hundreds of thousands of youngsters have been wandering the streets, and it’s not because they’re skipping school. Rather, it’s because the country’s public secondary schools have been shut down since their teachers went on strike on Oct. 9 to protest low salaries and poor working conditions. Starting teachers make $600 monthly (less than the rent for a decent one-bedroom apartment in Tel Aviv), and classrooms have 38 to 40 students.

On Monday, Knesset member Avishay Braverman called on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to help resolve the situation. “Mister prime minister, Annapolis is important. Finding a solution to this strike is more important than Annapolis,” he said, referring to a Middle East peace meeting the United States is arranging in Annapolis, Maryland.

The strike is symptomatic of an educational breakdown that some say will hurt Israel’s high-tech industries, which generate 12 percent of the country’s gross domestic product and more than one third of its exports. In the 1960s, Israeli kids ranked near the top in international assessments of math and science. By 2002 though, Israel was 33rd out of 41 countries. Additionally, potential math and science teachers have been ditching schools for more lucrative jobs in the high-tech sector.

Israel’s education problem extends to universities as well. Up to 3,000 professors have left for jobs abroad in the past decade. Meanwhile, funding for Israel’s seven universities has fallen 20 percent in four years, and the number of instructors has held steady, while the number of students has jumped 50 percent in the last decade.

Let’s hope Israel’s low-paid teachers don’t have to resort to what Cambodia’s teachers have to do. At schools that are supposed to be free, they have been reduced to charging students “informal fees” to top up their salaries, which can be as low as $30 a month. In a country where one third of the people live on less than 50 cents per day, many Cambodian parents can’t afford the fees—which for one student were almost 25 cents per day—and kids have to drop out of primary school.