Teachers on personal contracts program yields zero results

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Despite an agreement with the Teachers Union, a huge shortage of maths and science teachers, and a flood of candidates, the Education Ministry has yet to hire a single teacher on a personal contract.

In October 2022, the government came an agreement with the Israel Teachers Union that included hiring of specialized teachers on personal contracts, because of the shortage of teachers of a high standard in mathematics and science. More than two years later, and despite the fact that hundreds of people registered interest, the Ministry of Education has not hired a single teacher on a personal contract.

The Ministry of Education claims that the regulatory permit for the program was received after the school year had started, and so it was not possible to operate it on time. There are however those who believe that the reason is pressure by the Teachers Union. "They very much did not want it, it damages their monopoly on workers in education and the power they wield."

The Teachers Union agreed to the hiring of staff on personal contracts amounting to up to 6% of the education workforce, in exchange for a precedent-setting collective agreement signed towards the end of the period of the previous government. Under that agreement, the teachers received a substantial pay rise, and the system of annual pay rises for long-service was preserved. The agreement on hiring teachers on personal contracts did not however materialize, because of a dispute over its interpretation, and also because of bureaucratic difficulties, at least according to the Ministry of Education.

700 high-quality candidates

In July 2024, a call for applications was published for an initial pilot scheme involving just 200 jobs in the Tel Aviv and central districts. "There were more than 700 high-quality candidates, without a campaign and without advertising," a source at the Ministry of Education said. "Many doctoral students applied, a high quality group of people whom it suits to combine study with teaching for extra income, and also several technology workers. Many of them wanted to switch to part-time work and to teach in parallel. We were surprised at the quality of candidates."

Natan Meisels, a programmer by profession and father of four from Givatayim tried to enter the education system as a teacher on a personal contract, and was blocked. "I discovered that at my children’s school there were no English teachers at native speaker standard, so I tried to get in myself," he relates. "It took me three months just to obtain the salary scale, and I encountered weird conditions, such as a requirement to hold a second degree. As it happens, I have a second degree, but what has that to do with anything?"

The whole project was closed before it had begun. "In mid-August, representatives of the districts said they would not continue to deal with it until the Ministry of Education resolved the dispute, because there was strong pressure on them from the Teachers Union not to cooperate," a Ministry of Education source said. "We had to close it. There’s a shortage of teachers for mathematics, science, and English, people came along for whom these subjects are their professions, and we turned them away. The bottom line is that the Teachers Union won, and the pupils lost."

"They pretty much made me give up," says Meisels. "I have no expectations of the Teachers Union; my complaints are against the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Education." Until the matter is resolved, the education system will continue to suffer from a shortage of teachers. The consequences of that were seen a month ago, when it turned out that Israeli school pupils had received their lowest scores in 17 years in the TIMSS international tests in mathematics and science.

The reason for the need for personal contracts is the teachers’ pay model. Beginning teachers earn very little, regardless of the subjects they teach and their personal qualifications, and practically the only way of advancing to a good salary is to be a teacher for twenty years. In such a situation, it’s difficult to attract people for subjects in demand, to teach for just a few years. The deal on personal contracts allows monthly salaries of NIS 14,500-16,500, without a rank or long-service requirements.

The main dispute is over the provision in the agreement that the number of teachers on personal contracts will be up to "6% of the total number of teachers employed in the civil service." The Teachers Union argues that this is meant to be in addition to existing allocated teaching hours, and not at their expense. An Education Ministry source said, "If the hours are manned, you won’t bring in another teacher. All their claims are about matters that they say ‘were agreed orally.’ The section in the agreement, and the correspondence to which it refers, were very laconic and concise. And according to officials at the Ministry of Finance who dealt with the matter, there were no oral agreements."

Sources familiar with the matter say that the issue is solely an administrative problem and not one of substance: "In any case there’s a shortage of teachers, it’s not that the allocated hours are currently filled. If only we could get to a situation in which we had a surplus of teachers and had to decide to whom to award the job slot. There’s a huge shortage of teachers, certainly in Tel Aviv and the center."

The Ministry of Education claims that the reason for shutting down the program was not opposition by the Teachers Union but a bureaucratic failure: "The new employment format requires special approval from the Civil Service Commission. The regulatory approval was received after the school year had opened, and so it was not possible to operate the program at the planned time," the ministry said. "We are ready to operate the program as a pilot in two selected districts in the 2025-2026 academic year." The response does not explain why the call for applications was opened in July and closed in August, before the start of the school year. Sources familiar with the matter testify that there actually was a difficulty over approval of the contracts, but that "the real obstacle is the Ministry of Education."

The Israel Teachers Union stated in response: "We are not aware of the claims. The Teachers Union acts in accordance with the collective agreement."

Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on January 26, 2025.

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