Published: 6 December 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
A REPORT RELEASED TUESDAY by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that the gap between the abilities of Hebrew-speaking students and their Arabic-speaking peers in Israeli schools is the largest between socioeconomic groups in the 79 countries that participated in a periodic assessment.
The results of the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment tests, known as PISA, showed a significant gap between Hebrew- and Arabic speakers in all three of the educational skills assessed — reading, mathematics, and sciences — and revealed that the divide was even bigger than found in the last such test in 2015.
In each of the three areas tested, the Education Ministry acknowledged, Israel’s overall performance was below the OECD average.
FULL STORY OECD finds record educational gulf between Hebrew, Arabic-speaking Israeli kids (Times of Israel)
EDITORIAL: Israel's real existential threat is the gap between Jewish and Arab students (Haaretz)
Major drop for Israeli students on international test, exposing growing gaps within society (Haaretz)
Students' performance on latest PISA exam fell in all three subjects tested – reading, math and science – with Jewish, wealthier students scoring much higher than Arab, poorer ones
Photo: Arab Israeli school students, March 2016 (Melanie Lidman/Times of Israel)
