Some 2.6 million students and preschoolers returned to school Tuesday morning at some 28,000 institutions around the country, as Israel marked the beginning of the 2026-2027 school year.
The number includes some 180,000 new first graders.
“We are opening the school year with a great sense of responsibility and a clear direction: to strengthen Israeli students’ sense of belonging and resilience and deepen their identity, values and heritage, while at the same time providing them with the knowledge and tools that will enable them to lead and succeed in a rapidly changing world,” Education Minister Yoav Kisch said ahead of the start of the school year.
But national education is facing numerous challenges, with a recent study finding that Israeli teachers perform considerably worse than their OECD counterparts in literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills at every level of the education system.
There is also a shortage of capable teachers. The Central Bureau of Statistics recently assessed that schools are lacking some 31,000 teachers qualified to teach the subjects they have been assigned. The Education Ministry insists the shortfall is only several hundred educators.
