This report presents guidelines for implementation within the education system during persistent emergency scenarios necessitating population evacuations.
The presented analysis and recommendations aim to ensure uninterrupted educational routine for all Israeli pupils, with a specific focus on those evacuated. This report was written following the Iron Swords War eruption on October 7, 2023 for about three months (from November 12, 2023, to January 28, 2024). This war and the crisis that followed it, posed the education system with multifaceted and complex challenges previously unencountered, but will most probably will face in future crisis situations, such as earthquake events in Israel.
The report was written by a panel of experts operating under the Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy Research, the report’s objectives were:
- Assessing the consequences of the emergency on Israel’s education landscape.
- Formulating guiding principles for ensuring educational continuity in an ongoing emergency, including a preliminary preparation before the occurrence of the next emergency.
- Presenting recommendations (presented in this report) to safeguard educational stability during sustained emergencies, thus contributing to the Israeli society.
The team’s activities included a literature review dealing with the subject of education in crisis and ways countries applied in ongoing crisis (whether caused by nature or by human); meetings with stakeholders involved in the current emergency in the education system; testimonies of team members involved in the education system in various roles during the war; a questionnaire distributed among parents and teachers from the conflict zones; and a Delphi survey to examine the risks and opportunities facing the education system during this crisis.
The report presents three risks and four opportunities facing the education system in emergencies, accompanied with strategies to mitigate risks and exploit the opportunities. Risks are presented based on their severity, while opportunities are ranked their significance:
Risks
- Inability of the education system to manage efficiently its operation during crisis situations.
- Pupils-related risks.
- Teacher-related risks.
Opportunities
- Significant organizational change of the education system
- Society engagement in the education system
- Advancing value-based social education initiatives
- Improving the physical infrastructure and the buildings of the education system
Furthermore, the report offers recommendations for further investigation of the topic.
Head of the Forum: Prof. Orit Hazzan
Forum Members: Dr. Anat Even Zahav, Lilach Ayaly, Dr. Yoav Armony, Tzipi Buchnik, Shlomi Dehan, Yossi Zamary, Prof. Orit Hazan, Tal Yalon, Prof. Reuven Katz, Tzafit Lukatz, Dr. Maggie (Margalit) Mualem, Rachel Perlman.
