Yoav Kisch's changes to the education ministry follow growing concern about the new government's educational policy in recent weeks
Just two weeks after taking on the position, Dr. Keren Raz-Netzer, the chairwoman of the Education Ministry’s pedagogical secretariat, announced her resignation on Tuesday after Yoav Kisch, the new education minister, put pressure on her to do so, sources say.
According to the sources, Raz-Netzer’s resignation was done in connection with Kisch’s plan to reverse his predecessor, Yifat Shasha-Biton’s planned reform of high school matriculation-exams in social sciences and humanities.
Kisch’s associates said Raz-Netzer had decided to step down after a conversation with the minister that was conducted “in good spirit and with mutual respect.” Kisch also fired a staffer working in his bureau and moved two others to new roles, one of whom had been working in the bureau for 23 years.
Raz-Netzer had assumed the role, regarded as the third most powerful in the Education Ministry, after spending the last few months leading efforts to implement the matriculation exam reforms initiated by the previous education minister, Yifat Shasha-Biton.
After taking over the ministry earlier this month, Kisch announced that he was canceling the reform. Then, several days later he softened his stance, saying that “not everything in the reform needs to be thrown away.” In his conversation with Raz-Netzer this week, Kisch made it clear to her that he had no intention of preserving certain elements of the reform.
Based on Kisch’s softer stance, Raz-Netzer held meetings with coordinators of humanities and social studies in recent days telling them that although the reform would not go into effect this year, the system of external matriculation exams in all subjects would not be fully restored to the way it was before the pandemic.
In addition, Raz-Netzer sent a letter to school principals in which she stated that the ministry would set up teams to consult with teachers “out of a desire to promote skills and independent learning while maintaining a steady and gradual approach.”
Meanwhile, Kisch fired a staffer working in the minister’s bureau and moved two others to new positions. One of the transferred staff had seniority status and had worked in the bureau during the tenures of 11 education ministers, starting with Yossi Sarid in 1999. The staffer who was fired was a political appointee.
Kisch declined to respond to queries by Haaretz on the matter.
The reform of the social sciences and humanities matriculation exams, which was frozen, called for ending external examinations in the fields of Bible, history, literature and civics.
The final grade in these disciplines would instead be determined on the basis of assignments submitted by the students in the 10th and 11th grades. Towards the end of 11th grade, students would have been required to write a final paper in pairs or groups that would be graded externally.
Raz-Netzer had replaced Miri Schlissel, who had led the reforms over the previous four years.
“We had undertaken deep, serious work here, which came after much research and thought, so we are taking the cancellation hard,” Schlissel said in an interview with Haaretz last week.
Referring to Kisch, she asked, “What are you saying ‘no’ to? About the need to teach children to learn independently? About learning digitally? And what’s the alternative? It’s legitimate for a minister to say ‘I want to do something different,’ but first you have to listen. And it should be done by professionals, because pedagogy is an expertise.”
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