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Israeli schoolchildren received a low ranking on reading comprehension, mathematics and sciences among western nations, a recently released international comparison study reported on Tuesday. Israeli education officials said they plan to conduct internal investigations into the causes of the poor results and promote programming to help middle school students improve their skills.

A survey of the Programme for International Student Assessment, conducted jointly by UNESCO and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and considered "the most comprehensive and rigorous international effort to date" to assess student performance, tested between 4,500-10,000 10th grade students in 41 countries and evaluated the students' abilities to contend with problems in areas like reading comprehension, math and science, fundamental to their becoming functional members of modern society.

In reading comprehension, Israel ranked 30th. The category was led by Finland, Canada and New Zealand, with the United States in 16th place. In mathematics, Israel ranked 31st, with Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea taking top marks. Canada was listed 7th, and the U.S. was listed 20th in math. In the sciences, Israel ranked even lower, in 33rd place. The top marks went to South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong, with Canada in 6th place and the U.S. in 15th place.

Only students from Latin American countries, Bulgaria and Albania received consistently lower marks than Israeli students in the international survey.

Professor Zemira Mavrech of Bar-Ilan University, who conducted the study in Israel, admitted her disappointment in the results. "Obviously my eyes darkened when I saw the results. But there are no decisive gaps between males and females in contrast to international standards. In addition, despite low reading achievement, Israeli students were successful at more difficult tasks requiring decision making skills, and failed at more simple tasks of identifying information. This is a gap we can easily narrow," Mavrech said.

On the positive side, Mavrech said that Israeli school enrollment rates are high, dropout rates are low, and students expressed strong feelings of connection to their schools. "Israeli youth and teachers feel good at school and whoever feels good succeeds at his studies. Unfortunately the economic climate does not broadcast a desire to achieve... We must communicate to students that there is no task too difficult and that they should never give up," Mavrech stated.

In the international survey, Israel was ranked first for poor attendance records, with 60% of the students involved in the study missing between one to five days of school in the two-week period prior to testing. Israel was also found to have large achievement differences between students based on their economic backgrounds.

Education Minister Limor Livnat said she planned to thoroughly investigate the reasons for the low Israeli ranking "We are working hard to identify the reasons for the problems and are determined to act to repair them through joint efforts between professional and public bodies," she stated. Livnat cited several experimental programs recently implemented for middle school students including a new Hebrew phonetics approach and increasing the number of hours of math studied a week.

Ronit Tirosh, director-general of the Ministry of Education, admitted that Israeli education is facing a serious crisis and suggested re-evaluating the middle school system. "Since the 1960s no one has checked how the middle schools are functioning. We plan to set up a committee to check if the schools should be shut down and we should return to the old system of eight years of elementary schools and four years of high school," Tirsoh said.

Director of the Teachers Union Yossi Wasserman said he was not surprised by the dismal results and stressed the importance of improving conditions for educators. "The first step has to be the advancement of teachers in order to create a situation where the most talented youth are recruited into the field," he said.

Chairman of the Knesset Education Committee MK Ilan Shalgi (Shinui) said he planned to launch a parliamentary committee to check into the results of the study. "The achievements of Israeli students on the international test reveal a serious failure of the education system. It is impossible to accept that despite the large budgetary investments in education, the students ranked so low among the world's developing nations," he said.