Learning to Teach in Israel: Policy and Practice of Initial Teacher Education Programs

• In Event: A Cross-National Examination of Knowledge, Policy, and Practice in Learning to Teach: Part II

Abstract

1. Objectives or purposes
This paper examines changes that occurred in the policy and practice of initial teacher education in Israel since the middle of the 20th century. It highlights the ideological political and social context within which these changes have occurred and brings together historical, theoretical and empirical work.

2. Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
Changes in the practice of teacher education reflect, to a large extent, a debate regarding the teaching profession. While it is commonly agreed that the role of teachers is essential to the well-being of society, less agreement exists as to how and where teachers should learn how to teach reflecting an existing debate between two approaches: one that calls for professionalization, academization and regulation and one that wishes to break up the monopoly of the profession by opening it to a wide audience through various alternative routes. We will lean on this debate as one of our theoretical perspectives.

3. Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
The paper analyzes official policy documents of two governing bodies: the Ministry of education and the Council of High Education (CHE). It also makes use of national statistical data annually published by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics and a number of seminal research studies conducted over the years.

4. Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials
The Ministry and the State's documents that were analyzed were published in 1971 (Yaffe commission), 1979 (Etzioni commission), 2001(Ben Peretz commission) and 2005 (Dovrat commission). The CHE documents that were used are the 1981 teacher training guidelines, the 2006 Ariav committee guidelines, as well as some more recent publication (e.g. Olshtain committee, 2012). We also relate to already existing reviews and research studies (e.g. Dror, 1991; Kfir et al., 1997; Kfir & Ariav, 2008; Hofman & Niederland, 2012).

5. Results and/or substantiated conclusions
The main changes that occurred in teacher education colleges in Israel since their days as teacher seminars (60s) are becoming academic institutions granting B.Ed. (80s), M.Ed. (2004-onwards), and currently promoting the Ed.D. programs. In spite of this academization process, colleges of education were never fully integrated in the mainstream of higher education. In the paper we will highlight the factors that inhibit their integration, among them those related to the social and public context, to the academization process and to the colleges themselves. Analysis of the documents reveals that one of the main obstacles to this integration is the duel subordination of the colleges to the two chief actors in the field - the Ministry of Education and the CHE, each holding contradictory perceptions regarding teachers and the teaching profession.

6. Scientific or scholarly significance
Nowadays teacher education in Israel faces cardinal decisions on various matters such as strengthening its research capacity, accrediting research degrees, a move from concurrent to consecutive models and being fully subordinated to the CHE. Our paper will provide policy makers in Israel with an adequate perspective for these missions. It will also contribute an additional perspective to the cross-national examination of policy and practice of teacher education this symposium is devoted to.

Authors

• Ruth Zuzovsky, Hakibbutzim College of Education, Technology & the Arts

• Smadar Donitsa-Schmidt, Kibbutzim College of Education