The People of the Book and our lack of education

Jews are known as the People of the Book. We're known for valuing education. It started with an obligation we have to learn Torah on a regular basis, daily if possible.

It expanded into learning medicine, law, philosophy, and just about anything else. We have one of the highest percentages of college degrees of any people in the world.

So it's bizarre and ridiculous that in the Jewish State, we don't seem to give a damn about education anymore.

We've had two major strikes going on for the last two months.

The high school teachers were on strike, and the university professors are still on strike.

The high school teachers wanted more money and school reforms. Class size has gotten ridiculously high, in part because teachers don't make any money, so not enough people want to become teachers. There were other issues, too, but I'm not as familiar with them so I don't want to comment on them.

The university professors say that their average salaries have actually gone down, when we take into account the raises in the cost of living over the last decade or so.

The high school teachers returned to work on the day after Chanukah, having finally reached some sort of an agreement with the government.

But the damage done by the strike is irreparable. For more than two months, high school students were lucky to get two or three hours a day of class time. High school seniors will not be able to make up the learning they missed in time to take their exams next summer. The scores will inevitably be lower for lower-income students, because they will not be able to afford private tutoring or special classes to try and catch up.

The military will suffer, because the students won't have the same education level as past inductees.

And now, the university strike threatens to cause a cancellation of the entire academic year. This means that the people who are planning to apply as first year students next year may not have places, because the students from this year will still be first-year students.

Even if this semester is canceled, and next semester does, in fact, take place - it still means that the universities will be a semester behind.

The teachers and professors have been warning the government of the possibility of this strike for months, and they weren't taken seriously... or the government just didn't care.

(With the current government, anything's possible. They seem to be spending more time kissing up uselessly to the governments of Western countries and the Palestinian (non-)Authority, and scheming to keep from being indicted for corruption than they do actually caring about the country and its people.)

Meanwhile, many of the teachers and professors have had to find other work... work which usually pays more than the teaching itself, so when it's time to return to teaching, we'll lose many of those educators to other professions.

I'm glad the high school kids are finally going back to school... and I hope the university students can return/begin classes soon... but many of us are wondering how long the ramifications of these strikes are going to last.