Israel

2025 highlights at a glance

🌎 Geopolitical context: The ongoing conflict that began in October 2023 continues to shape Israel’s social, economic and institutional landscape. Large-scale mobilisation, population displacement, pressure on public services and growing concerns around social cohesion have affected education, training and labour market systems. The conflict has also intensified debates on governance, public trust and fiscal priorities.

🎓 Education and training: Israel continues to invest heavily in education, maintaining expenditure levels above many OECD and EU countries. Reforms remain guided by the Education 2030 agenda, with continued emphasis on digital learning, hybrid delivery, early childhood education and teacher development. Despite strong participation rates across compulsory education, significant disparities persist between population groups, particularly among Arab Israeli and ultra-Orthodox communities. Lifelong learning participation continues to decline, highlighting the need for stronger adult learning provision.

👩‍🎓 Qualifications and recognition: Progress continues on the development of the Israeli National Qualifications Framework (INQF), intended to improve transparency, mobility and recognition of qualifications across education and training pathways. Work is also ongoing to strengthen recognition of non-formal and informal learning and align qualifications more closely with labour market requirements. However, the framework has not yet been formally adopted.

📈 Learning outcomes and educational equity: Participation in education remains high, but learning outcomes continue to reveal important inequalities. International assessments show persistent achievement gaps linked to socio-economic background, geography and population group. Mathematical proficiency remains a concern, while educational outcomes among Arab Israeli and ultra-Orthodox learners continue to lag behind national averages.

🏫 Vocational education and training (VET): Israel continues strengthening vocational and technological education through curriculum reforms, stronger employer engagement and expanded post-secondary vocational pathways. New funding models increasingly reward labour market outcomes, while reforms seek to improve progression routes between vocational and academic education. Nevertheless, VET governance remains divided across several institutions, limiting overall system coherence.

🛠️ Work-based learning (WBL): Work-based learning continues to expand gradually, supported by employer partnerships and participation in the European Alliance for Apprenticeships (EAfA). Apprenticeships and practical training opportunities are growing, particularly in technical and industrial sectors, although most VET provision remains predominantly school-based.

💼 Labour market: Israel maintains comparatively high employment and low unemployment rates. However, substantial disparities remain across different population groups. Labour market participation among Arab women and ultra-Orthodox men continues to lag behind national averages, while skills shortages persist in key sectors such as technology, engineering and health. The conflict has also affected sectors including tourism, hospitality and construction.

🤝 Inclusivity and outreach: Expanding labour market participation among underrepresented groups remains a core policy priority. Targeted programmes continue to support Arab communities, ultra-Orthodox populations, women, persons with disabilities and people living in peripheral regions through training, employment services, entrepreneurship support and tailored activation measures.

💻 Digital skills development: Digital transformation remains a national priority. Initiatives such as Campus IL, digital education strategies and expanded technology training continue to strengthen digital skills among learners and workers. At the same time, evidence suggests that more advanced digital and problem-solving skills remain unevenly distributed across the adult population, particularly outside the high-tech sector.

🌿 Green skills development: Environmental sustainability is increasingly reflected in education and training policies. Climate education has been integrated across the curriculum, while vocational programmes in renewable energy, environmental technologies and sustainable agriculture continue to expand. Pilot initiatives are beginning to support skills development linked to Israel’s long-term climate and sustainability objectives.

Priorities for 2026

👉 Advance the formal adoption and implementation of the Israeli National Qualifications Framework, strengthening qualification transparency, mobility and recognition of prior learning.

👉 Expand work-based learning and apprenticeship opportunities, strengthening cooperation between training providers and employers.

👉 Improve labour market participation among underrepresented groups, particularly Arab women and ultra-Orthodox men, through targeted education, training and employment measures.

👉 Strengthen adult learning and lifelong learning participation, including flexible and modular learning opportunities and digital training pathways.

👉 Promote digital and green skills development to support innovation, sustainability and future labour market needs.