Peace Now
The teachers are right. So are the medical doctors, the social workers, the nurses, the policemen, and basically every civil servant in Israel’s public service. They all should be paid much better. Also right, of course, are the ‘beaurocrats’ from the ministry of finance. The only one that’s wrong is the head of the teacher’s organisation, who declared recently that he’s about to lead a “social revolution” and that this is no longer a teacher’s strike but a “war for the future of a welfare society”.
The truth, the way I see it, is plain simple. Israel is no longer the idealistic or recruited society that many people like to think it was 50 years ago. If a teacher earns a salary that is comparable to that of road cleaners, than in the long run those who come to work as teachers will be those whose alternative is to be road cleaners; not those that have better alternatives. Thus, you get in the long run education in that level - and we see this is already happening: it is no coincidence that over the past few decades Israel deteriorates in every international comparison at the education field. All the negotiation stuff of how many hours your work and the convenient vacations is irrelevant: at the end of the day, everybody knows that teachers are underpaid.
As is most if not all of the rest of Israel’s civil service. The health ministry pays outrageous salary, so is the welfare service, and I haven’t mentioned the more “elitistic” things, such as the academic system. The reason is obvious but nobody says it: Israel’s expanses on security, namely the army, are uncomparable to those of any western country, I doubt about other countries. If yopu want to have a decent civil system, you have to solve this - otherwise there is simply not enough money for everyone. This is the sad truth that the teachers don’t tell the public: the pityfull state of the education system is a direct cost of Israel’s state of war.
This is just another, long time scale, cost, of Israel’s inability to make peace with it’s neighbours. If we want to have an advanced society, peace is mandatory. The lack of peace hurts us in so many ways, that people don’t even begin to grasp; certainly not those who claimed that they “don’t need to eat Hummus in Damascus” - this is not the eesence of peace; just a by-product.
But there is no peace; we can take that right now as a given. Even if we manage to make peace in a relatively short time (which seems highly improbable right now, but we should hope), it will still take a lot of time - probably decades, before the security budget is free for the better causes. So what is the practical solution? What to do?
Here is one alternative, that will make everybody angry so it probably has some truth in it. The main problem is to attract good people in the long run - so make the solution a long-time solution. Don’t give the old teacher anything. The youngs, that still have many years to contribute to the system, can get some money more to their salary - in exchange for them all returning to school and studying properly to make sure we have good teachers. New teachers should have much harder studies to make sure their initial level is higher (for example: right now, there is basically no requirement for a teacher to really know what he teaches, no need for an academic degree in a relevant field whatsoever), and should have at least double the salaries they have now. Also, their level should be routinely checked to verify it is kept and that they don’t use their lesson structure from 30 years ago, as so many present ‘old’ teachers do.
This will enable us to make a solution for the long run, with most of the budget cost suspended for the future years. Hopefully, by then both us and our neighbours will become reasonable and be able to make some sort of peace. Its benefits for all are so profound, that it amazes me every time how many people simply don’t see them.
November 27th, 2007 at 13:07
Really good and really interesting post. I expect (and other readers maybe
) new useful posts from you!
Good luck and successes in blogging!
November 27th, 2007 at 14:29
ֵMaybe its a good idea, but it ignores the main problem which is that all civil servants are poorly paid. Or rather - all low level civil servants are paid meager salaries - government officials and clerks (such as ministry of finance employees) get very good salaries: better then most high-tech jobs. Rabbis are also paid handsomely, as well other officials. The problem is as always that the cat guards the milk - in my opinion most low level civil workers could get a significant raise just by cutting the salaries of the most high-paid civil workers to a reasonable level w/o any other budget increase.
December 11th, 2007 at 14:19
Great post. Was very interesting to read.