Israeli Students Rank School a Waste of Time Yet Lead OECD in Life Satisfaction
A new PISA report reveals that 37% of Israeli 15-year-olds consider school a waste of time - more than 13 percentage points above the OECD average - while the same students rank among the happiest in the developed world.
The latest PISA report shows 37% of Israeli 15-year-olds consider school a waste of time - well above the 24% OECD average - while 45% skipped at least one class in the two weeks before the test. Yet Israeli students ranked third globally in life satisfaction, with 30% reporting they are completely happy, nearly double the OECD average.
Should Israel overhaul its school curriculum to better address students' sense that school is irrelevant?
- Yes
- No opinion
- No
The latest PISA report, published last week, paints a complicated picture of Israeli education. According to Israel Hayom, 37% of Israeli 15-year-olds describe school as a waste of time, compared with a 24% OECD average - placing Israel second only to Poland on that measure. Truancy is also high: 45% of Israeli students reported skipping at least one class in the two weeks before the test, and 63% reported arriving late, both well above OECD norms. More than half - 57% - said school did very little to prepare them for life, against 49% across OECD countries. The figures have prompted renewed debate about whether the Israeli curriculum is meeting students where they are. Those who favor an overhaul argue that such widespread disengagement signals a structural mismatch between what schools teach and what students feel they need, and that high absenteeism will compound the country's already declining scores in reading, mathematics, and science. Opponents of a rapid overhaul caution that correlation is not causation: Israeli students are living through years of war and ongoing security stress, factors that Education Minister Yoav Kish has cited in explaining the score declines. They also point to the report's striking counterpoint - Israel ranked third among 33 OECD countries in student life satisfaction, with 30% of students reporting they are completely happy, nearly double the OECD average of 16%. Critics of curriculum-focused reform argue that this resilience suggests social and family factors matter more than course content, and that poorly planned changes could disrupt what is working without fixing what is not.
Answering yes means you believe the gap between what schools teach and what students feel is relevant to their lives is wide enough to require a formal redesign of the curriculum - one that addresses engagement, real-world preparation, and the reasons so many students see little value in attending. Answering no means you think a curriculum overhaul is not the right response - whether because the disengagement stems from factors outside the classroom, because the data reflects wartime disruption rather than a permanent trend, or because the risks of hasty reform outweigh the benefits. The poll is trying to surface where public opinion stands on the trade-off between educational continuity and the pressure to reform.