Israel's Education Ministry Closes Student Support Program Amidst Declining Test Scores

The Israeli Ministry of Education has decided to discontinue its "HaMakpeitza" (The Springboard) program, a flagship initiative that provided free private and group tutoring to struggling students, particularly in peripheral areas. The program, which operated with an annual budget of approximately 8 million shekels, was launched in 2023 but saw significant cuts in 2024-2025 before its complete closure this year. The decision has prompted complaints from parents to Knesset member Merav Cohen.

The Ministry stated that the "HaMakpeitza" budget will be reallocated to more targeted support programs, including "Personal Makpeitza" for small group learning, "Bagrut" for matriculation exam preparation, and "Zoom for Science." The Ministry emphasized its continued commitment to strengthening core subjects like mathematics, English, and science, and that the full budget remains dedicated to student support.

This closure comes at a particularly sensitive time, coinciding with the release of the latest PISA international assessment results. The PISA 2025 report revealed a dramatic decline in the performance of Israeli 15-year-olds, with nearly half failing to reach basic proficiency in mathematics, 41% struggling with reading, and 40% with science. These figures place Israel in the bottom quartile of OECD countries and represent the highest levels of difficulty recorded in Israel over the past two decades.

The PISA results showed a significant drop in average scores for Israeli students compared to 2022, with reading scores falling by 38 points, mathematics by 25 points, and science by 23 points. This decline is particularly concerning as it is the second-largest drop among OECD countries in reading and science, and also the second-largest in mathematics. The report noted that Israeli students' scores have regressed to levels seen in 2006 for reading and mathematics, and 2009 for science, marking the lowest scores in twenty years.

Furthermore, the PISA report highlighted a widening gap in performance, with a significant increase in students not reaching basic proficiency levels. While Israeli students reported high life satisfaction, a substantial percentage, 37%, viewed school as a "waste of time," significantly higher than the OECD average. The assessment was conducted during the ongoing war, with some adjustments made to the sampling to account for displaced students and those affected by the conflict, though the report cautioned against assuming direct causality between the war and the performance decline.