Israeli teachers lag significantly behind their OECD peers in literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving skills across every level of the education system, according to a new study released Wednesday.

Conducted by Yael Melzer at the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research, the study relies on questionnaire data gathered by the OECD’s Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) between 2022 and 2023. Meltzer extracted the statistics to compare Israelis in and out of education with their counterparts in 18 other industrialized countries.

The findings, issued a week before the new school year begins, follow poor school test results in Israel in science and English reported earlier this year.

The research emphasized that teacher quality, far more than class size, is “a necessary condition for strengthening human capital and ensuring the competitiveness of an economy based on knowledge-intensive industry and on a high-tech sector that serves as a leading engine of growth.”

Melzer told The Times of Israel she was particularly surprised to discover that while overseas, skills levels match evenly between teachers and non-teachers with identical university qualifications, Israeli teachers lag noticeably behind their non-teaching peers.

She suggested that this gap stems partly from the private market selecting candidates rigorously on actual skills, whereas teaching relies heavily on formal academic credentials.

Furthermore, lucrative free-market alternatives attract talented men, leaving the education sector with weaker overall human capital. Highly skilled women are more likely to remain teachers because the convenient hours and vacations let them raise their children, Meltzer explained.

Looking at academic backgrounds, 37 percent of teachers in Israel hold a master’s degree, compared with an OECD average of 49%, though a higher percentage hold an undergraduate degree (41% versus 35%). A greater proportion of Israeli educators focus their degrees specifically on education (64% versus 54% internationally), while similar shares — 9% and 11% respectively — hold undergraduate degrees in STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and math.

However, a troubling........

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