Ensuring quality public education for children from birth until the age of three is one of the most important issues facing Israel today.
As a first step toward this goal, we’re pushing for government investment in the training of staff members in daycare centers and preschools.
Today, most early childhood education workers in Israel, including those working in government-subsidized settings, do not receive the necessary training to equip them for their challenging roles. The result is felt in the poor quality care that many children receive, as well as in the high turnover among the staff.
The care that a child receives in their first three years profoundly shapes the course of their life.
By training the staff in early learning environments and improving the quality of the care they provide, we can help give children what they need to learn, develop, and thrive.
This sets them up for achieving their full potential in school and life. It also helps reduce the achievement gaps between children from different social and economic backgrounds.
Training daycare staff also benefits the workers themselves, by enhancing their professional status as well as their employment horizons.
What we’re doing
We’ve conducted in-depth research involving many stakeholders in the field: Daycare center managers, institutions that train caregivers, academic and professional experts, and social change organizations.
Drawing on this research, we’ve developed a proposal for a government program to provide practical and relevant training and instruction to early childhood education professionals.
We’ve also established a partnership among relevant organizations, activists, and experts.
Together, we’ll create public campaigns and engage in advocacy to ensure that all Israeli children receive quality early education.
Our Policy Goals
All the childcare workers in the subsidized and private daycares will undergo professional training and regular trainings funded by the state
A broad government investment, which will ensure quality education for toddlers as well as appropriate wages and working conditions for early childhood educators
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Actions and Achievements So Far
1. We established the "In Good Hands" partnership, which currently includes 60 educational and social organizations, parent groups, academic experts, and operators of infant daycare centers.
2. In collaboration with our partnership members, we developed proposals for government models focused on investing in vocational training and high-quality ongoing education for teams working in infant daycare settings. These models include detailed cost analyses and comparisons to international standards in the field.
3. We successfully convinced decision-makers in the Ministries of Education and Finance to adopt our proposed models and to allocate a significant budget for training and coaching educators working with children from birth to three years old in both subsidized and private daycare centers.
4. In 2022, the government invested over NIS 150 million in training for more than 11,000 preschool teachers and in funding educational training for all early childhood educators in both subsidized and private daycare centers. The training models are grounded in our policy proposals, which include the accumulation of undergraduate courses and compensation for training participation.
5. In 2023, the government introduced a new program for early childhood education, incorporating many of our proposals. This included budget approval to raise salaries for teachers in subsidized daycare centers and improve the teacher-to-toddler ratio. Additionally, a budget of NIS 400 million per year was allocated for the professional development of early childhood educators, ensuring that 13,000 educators annually receive professional training, with all educators in supervised daycare centers participating in ongoing government-funded educational training averaging 10 hours per month.
6. Following our intervention during the Iron Swords War, the Ministry of Education relaxed the criteria for establishing daycare centers in evacuee centers.
7. We are in the process of building a community of parents, with dozens already engaged in ongoing activities that include meetings, roundtables, conferences, and social network engagement.
We note that the government recently decided to cut the preschool education budget by NIS 200 million for 2024, and we are actively working to reverse this decision.
Projects Status
The project is ongoing. Over the past year, following the Iron Swords War and its budgetary, political, and social impacts, we’ve adjusted our efforts to reflect the evolving realities on the ground and within the Knesset. We have continued to advance the objectives of the "In Good Hands" project, while developing new solutions to the emerging challenges, all while staying focused on the original goals of the partnership.
Partners
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