Most young Israelis would consider private school for kids
LAST UPDATED: 05/12/2011 02:41
Fifty-two percent of those under 35 support a state-run school voucher program in which the education budget would be allocated to parents, who would use it to pay for their children’s school.
Children at the Hadar school Photo: Courtesy
The majority of Israelis under 35 believe the quality of the public education
system has deteriorated in recent years and would consider sending their
children to private schools, according to a survey released on Wednesday by the
Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies.
The researchers polled 1,000
Jewish Israelis.
Fifty-two percent of those under 35 support a state-run
school voucher program in which the education budget would be allocated to
parents, who would use it to pay for their children’s school.
While
overall, 53% of those polled were opposed to vouchers, among those aged 18-25,
62% support vouchers, and only 29% were against.
Among respondents aged
26- 35, 49% said they support such a system with 41% opposed.
The highest
level of opposition to a voucher program came from those over the age of 65,
among whom 65% were against this kind of initiative.
According to the
institute’s executive director Corinne Sauer, the survey “found no correlation
between a family’s income and the probability that parents will consider the
private school option. The lower a family’s income, the more likely it is to
support school vouchers that would allow parents greater freedom in choosing
their children’s school.”
The survey also showed that 53% of those polled
feel that the state education system has deteriorated, while only 12% said it
has improved and 25% said it has neither declined nor improved.
The
highest proportion of respondents who believe the system has deteriorated was
found among those aged between 26 and 35, at 61%.