Israel: NIS 10 million for AI for education

The Ministry of Education and the Innovation Authority are launching an innovative experimental environment for the development and implementation of AI technologies for personalised learning.

That’s not much, but better than nothing. The press release of the Israel Innovation Authority explains: “The Ministry of Education and the Innovation Authority, as part of the National Program for Artificial Intelligence, announced today the launch of a “Regulatory Sandbox” – a first-of-its-kind experimental environment that will allow Israeli technology companies to test and implement innovative AI-based solutions within the public education system, with regulatory guidance and while providing designated incentives for experimentation. Sandboxes are a significant component of the National Program for Artificial Intelligence and their goal is to promote experimentation, remove barriers, and encourage responsible innovation in highly regulated areas. The establishment of the experimental environment is another step in a series of extensive steps that the Ministry of Education is taking to promote educational innovation and implement advanced technologies for the benefit of Israeli students.”

However, the most pressing problem is that Israel’s pupils are failing in the PISA tests and are dramatically falling behind. Another chapter is that more and more Israelis are not capable of speaking proper English, let alone understanding complex IT instructions, as is the case in Artificial Intelligence.

According to the Ministry of Education, of the 19,000 English language teachers in the education system, only 12,000 (about 40%) were trained to teach the English language, and there remains a shortage of 660 teachers.

The real scandal is that many Olim speak excellent English, but instead of teaching in schools, they have to sweep the floors of Israel.

Within a few weeks, even days, several thousand unemployed Olim could be recruited. I had to personally observe and hear in conversation how an academic from non-Russian Europe with perfect English had to wipe the floors of petrol stations, or how another, a trained surgeon, had to wipe floors in a health centre.

Two out of many examples encountered by chance in everyday life. Additionally, a blatant failure of the job placement service.

And the Bank of Israel (BoI) published the main results of the current PIAAC report, which is anything but impressive. Israel is losing ground dramatically in terms of skills and education.

Israel has some homework to do.