Education Minister, Dr. Yifat Shasha-Biton, has decided that in the coming school year, there will be an external assessment in the fourth grade of native language literacy and a wide school climate survey.The external literacy test will assess the level of proficiency of all fourth graders throughout the country in language skills, and will test their comprehensive reading and linguistic knowledge. Eighth graders will also be tested in native language literacy in an internal format.The decision to focus on language literacy stems from the importance of this field of knowledge, as the education minister believes it is the basis for the acquisition of required skills in other fields of knowledge. In addition, a survey to examine social and emotional aspects of the students will be sent out to all the schools and be given to students from fifth to eleventh grade as the education minister believes that there is a need to strengthen the students' personal resilience. The surveys will include aspects of emotional and social learning, such as: mental and personal resilience, social and emotional skills. In addition, they will include aspects of a school climate, including protection and an active and healthy lifestyle.For the first time, the surveys will be computerized and will include an unprecedented sample of about 750,000 students. This significant volume of participants will allow the Ministry of Education to generate in-depth insights on the wide range of aspects.
The ministry intends on continuing to strengthen internal evaluation processes, and will provide schools with a variety of tools for internal use, learning, school climate and socio-emotional aspects."Monitoring is one of the tools that will allow us to estimate the gaps and give them targeted responses. I intend to place special emphasis on the social aspects as well, and on cultivating the emotional aspects in order to create in each and every student a sense of ability, empowerment and mental and personal resilience" , the Minister of Education, Dr. Yifat Shasha-Biton, stated.
