Education

Class Size Reduction Reform: Budgetary and Educational Implications

Author: Nachum Blass, published under Education
a17 Mar 2008

The study was conducted following the agreement, signed in December 2007, that ended the lengthy teacher’s strike of the secondary school system. In this agreement, the government committed itself to working towards a reduction of class size to a maximum of 32 students. The research has two levels: one examines the expected advantages and disadvantages of fulfilling the government’s commitment. This includes a discussion of the educational advantages of small classes — particularly the ability to give students attention according to their needs, the opportunity to raise student achievement, and the chance to improve the atmosphere in the schools. The second level presents detailed estimates of the resources required to fulfill this commitment based on simulations. The estimates are analyzed in terms of the budgets and manpower required at each educational level. It was estimated that some 17,000 new teachers and 7,500 classrooms will be necessary to implement the class size reduction. The total costs will be somewhere between NIS 5.7 and 9.3 billion, of which some NIS 2 billion are current expenses and the rest are one-time expenses for construction and training of the new teachers that will be needed.

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