New government regulations will enable Israelis with only a religious education to be considered for jobs offered by municipal governments even if the job requirements demand an academic degree.
Interior Minister Aryeh Deri spearheaded the change, calling it a “revolution” in employment prospects for ultra-Orthodox men that would allow them to better integrate into key positions in local authorities, Haaretz reported Monday.
However, critics reportedly said the move diminished the value of an academic education and the range of skills that it endows, and would create an opening for inappropriate appointments. [...]
The new guidelines would apply to anyone who holds rabbinical ordination from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, or a certificate testifying that he studied for at least six years starting from age 18 in a yeshiva and has passed three tests set by the Chief Rabbinate. In effect, the change applies only to men.[...]
Experts at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem-based think-tank, lamented the development.
Gilad Malach, head of the institute’s Haredi program and developer of a master plan for ultra-Orthodox employment, criticized the move for not taking into consideration the breadth of skills that academic education provides but that do not feature in religious studies, the report said.
“Rabbinical ordination or study… for six years doesn’t include the writing of academic papers, knowledge of English, or the study of statistics,” Malach noted. “If there are specific positions in local authorities that don’t require these skills, then an academic degree wouldn’t have been required for them” in the first place.
For me this is good news. In the debate around the Tochnit Libah or Core Curriculum very little time and effort has been devoted in showing how a Talmudic education provides critical skills for someone entering the job market. Progressive educators and opponents of Core Curriculum in the USA focus on the skills the Talmud teaches. The requirement for an academic degree in the job market is merely to indicate that the applicant is teachable and can think. As far as knowledge of English goes, the university courses don't buy much and of course the average Frenchman doesn't know much English and gets by. Mathematics – well even accountants whose business is figures maybe will use the most basic of algebra.
ReplyDeletethis is a success for the Hareidi worldview - since it has managed to refute the concept of Y-U , ie Yeshiva + University, since Yeshiva alone can now land a person a high paying government job.
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