Education for All: The Israeli Ultra-Orthodox Schools

More than two decades ago, the world made a promise to children presented and signed up in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Yet the hidden tradeoff between children’s right to education in terms of development, and the minorities’ right to sustain their own ethno-culture characterizations via education, has challenged this global promise. The tradeoff is even more dominant in multicultural states competing in global era. This paper aimed to explore the tradeoff between competitiveness and multiculturalism, using the right to education of the Israeli ultra-Orthodox students as an interesting case study. On the one hand, ultra-Orthodox student indeed have a right to education, moreover, the state is obligated to its provision and finance; on the other hand the quality of education remains vague. Thus, multiculturalism might be achieved as these children indeed are enrolled in ultra-Orthodox schools financed by the state; yet, competitiveness might be hindered, as the quality of their education is questionable. The research question is to what extent, if at all, equality of educational opportunity is achieved in a multicultural nation-state. The method of analysis is two way ANOVA. The results reveal that the extent of equality of educational opportunity (EEO) is low for students enrolled in ultra-Orthodox schools in comparison to their counterparts. Furthermore, the extent of EEO is declining along the schooling level (from grade 2 to grade 5). In the light of the incremental trend of students enrolled in ultra-Orthodox schools, the low extent of EEO might hinder the acceleration of state competitiveness. This paper has implications for other countries with diverse populations that strive to achieve both the sustainability of multiculturalism and in the same time, the acceleration of state competitiveness.