Early childhood education in Israel: History, policy, and practice

This chapter focuses on early education in Israel for children between the ages of three and six. Education in Israel from age three is compulsory and free and provided by the State. At the end of 2013, 2.7 million children under the age of 17 were living in Israel, comprising 33% of the country’s population. Approximately 40% of children are under the age of six, and nearly 12% of these are between the ages of three and six (Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, 2014; Rabinovitch, 2015). Of these children, 70.6% are Jewish, 26.4% are Arab, and 3% are Christian or from other backgrounds. The early childhood education system operates according to a common curriculum for all children in the country, unaffiliated with any particular party or other political body, and is under the auspices of the Minister of Education. There are three streams in the early education system: general Jewish education; religious Jewish education where the religious atmosphere is maintained and an additional focus on religious aspects is included in the curriculum; and an Arab educational stream geared toward the Arab, Bedouin, Circassian, and Druze communities. The first two streams operate in Hebrew, while the latter operates in Arabic (Government of Israel, 1953).