The plan to curtail the Israeli summer vacation by four weeks has not succeeded to date. This year, schools opened on August 27th instead of September 1st, only a few days earlier but nevertheless, a significant change according to Ministry of Education officials.
Minister of Education Gideon Saar has called upon Shmuel Silvin to head a committee which he hopes will actualize the planned change, to cut four weeks from the summer vacation. That would cut summer vacation from ten to six weeks for most students.
Efforts to implement this radical change have failed to date. Clearly, the long summer vacation is trying for most families since children by and large are not in summer camps, which in Israel are too costly for many. For those attending camps, programs are frequently 2-3 weeks at most, leaving children with weeks of boredom.
The extra days of school this year will be made up by adding vacation days for the yomim tovim. However, Saar hopes that in the coming years, as soon as two years, the public schools will say goodbye forever to the 10-week summer vacation. Needless to say teachers’ unions are opposed to such a plan.
If Silvan is successful, elementary school students will have 16 additional days of school a year and junior high and high schools an additional 26 days. Silvin explains the plan will have a price tag since no teacher will volunteer to curtail vacation and to add weeks of work without being compensated for such a move. Silvin explains he has already entered into negotiations with treasury officials, who support the move, so the next hurdle will be the teachers.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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2 Responses
The vacation times for yom tovim are already too long and now they propose to make them longer??? Why do the kids need 2 weeks off for pesach or shavuos when yom tov only last 7 or eight days (if they overlap with shabbos)?? Let the kids stay in school and/or do some useful public service projects supervised by the schools rather then having them hang around at home or at the malls. Perhaps even offer a special program of limudei torah for these frei yidden who would not otherwise learn a yiddeshe vert.
This is something that the Charedi schools have gotten right for many years. School should start on Rosh Chodesh Elul, otherwise some years kids start school just two or three days before rosh hashannah, and then they come back for a few days before Yom Kippur, and then its back to two weeks of vacation for Sukkot. If school always started on Rosh Chodesh Elul, you are guaranteed a solid month of learning and getting organized in School before the chagim start. Right now in Israel, school is divided into two parts – Before the chagim, where there is no proper schedule, and nothing is properly organized – and After the Chagim, when the full schedule for the year is published, and the smooth running of the school has been worked out.