People Of The Book?

Jews have always prided themselves with valuing education.

Well, here's another sphere where Israel has succeeded in making us "a nation like all other nations." In fact, in the area of education, Israel has achieved the dream of some, and truly integrated into the Middle East.

In a debate about proposed massive cuts to the state's education budget(what else did you expect with Netanyahu in charge, a man who claims Margret Thacher as one of his role models) Gideon Saar, the new Minister of Education no less, told the Knesset that in 2007, Israeli pupils performed worse than Jordanian pupils and only slightly better than Iranian and Syrian students, in the sciences.

When you consider that 20% of the population (those that feed Israel's still booming high tech sector) get an excellent math and science education, and then consider how low the national averages are, you get a sense of:

a) how bad education is for the other 80%
b) how stratified Israeli society has become.