Major Planning Activities in Israeli Education: Politically Dictated Improvisations

Abstract

Planning is a formal act of looking at the future by way of technically weighing the alternatives. An interesting contrast in Israel is the existence of a relatively high value placed on educationⁱ and the absence of long range educational planning. Political considerations may explain the contrast, and, thus, one purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze selected features of the relationship of political forces and educational planning in Israel. To that end, educational planning activities are first shown to be primarily short term in nature. On the basis of examples of developments in the national administration of education, it is then argued that major proposals advanced by the Ministry of Education constituted in large part responses by the politicians to societal demands which were channeled through the Ministry. The argument is supplemented by descriptions of the primary effects which political variables have had on rapid national development and of the high degree of influence which political realities have had on major developments within the Ministry of Education.