Education Ministry found a solution to the teacher shortage: just give up on teacher training | Prof. Arnon Hershkovitz
Prof. Arnon Hershkovitz attacks the Education Ministry's 'Teaching Fellows' program, which allows professionals from industry and academia to teach in classrooms without prior teacher training. The article argues that the program undermines the foundations of the teaching profession, ignores the need for pedagogical knowledge alongside content knowledge, and further weakens the status of teachers in Israel.
Prof. Arnon Hershkovitz, in an opinion piece in 'Maariv', sharply attacks the Education Ministry's 'Teaching Fellows' program. The program, launched a year ago and now being reactivated, allows individuals with academic degrees and professional experience in industry or academia to integrate into classroom teaching without any prior pedagogical training. Hershkovitz argues that teaching is a profession requiring two equally important components of knowledge: content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge, and that the program ignores the need for subject-specific pedagogical knowledge. He compares the program to hypothetical absurd initiatives in medicine, transportation, and construction, and states that the message emerging from the program is that no training is needed to become a teacher, further weakening the status of teachers in Israel. The article notes that existing academic retraining programs already fill these gaps and provide the necessary training, and that content experts can contribute as teachers only after appropriate training.