🏫 בלי בית ספר בימי שישי? ישראל בודקת שבוע לימודים של חמישה ימים

In recent weeks, news reports revealed that Israel's Ministry of Education is starting a new pilot program called "From Quantity to Quality." The program will test what a school week without any Friday classes would look like. Right now, most schools in Israel have six days of classes each week. The idea is to switch to a five-day school week instead, just like in most countries that belong to the OECD, a group of developed countries where almost nowhere else has school on Fridays. The first pilot is starting in about 30 classrooms and kindergartens in central Israel, including in the city of Ra'anana, where parents have already been told through school WhatsApp groups. To make up for the lost Friday classes, the Ministry of Education plans to start the school year earlier, on August 15 instead of September 1, so the total number of school days stays about the same even without Fridays. Education experts also say starting earlier will give students a longer stretch of learning without the disruption of the fall holidays like Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot, which currently arrive right at the start of the school year. If the pilot succeeds in central Israel, the program could expand nationwide as early as the 2027-2028 school year. Not everyone agrees on every detail, though. The head of Israel's teachers' union has said she supports a five-day week, but only if it comes together with a four-day work week for teachers themselves, with an extra day set aside for lesson planning and professional development. For now, this is still an early trial stage, but if the program catches on, many Israeli kids could end up with an extra day off every week within a few years, along with a summer that starts winding down a bit earlier.