STANDARD OF ACHIEVEMENTS

עמוד:42

effective . With this method , two students study together , and analyze and debate each item in the learning material . In some Yeshivot , every student has a junior as a pupil . In keeping standards high , prizes or other rewards might be offered to high achievers . The textbooks should be of high quality . And the training of the educators should be more rigorous and more demanding . We have noted that 85 per cent of the elementary school teachers , 50 per cent of the intermediate school teachers and 30 per cent of the secondary school teachers have no academic qualifications . No education system could hope to achieve high learning standards unless the teachers themselves are highly qualified . Let me add a description of the learning system at the Yeshivot . The students their total number might vary from 50 to about 1 , 000 are generally graded into four or five forms . They all learn together in one or more large halls , something that provides a sense of cohesion . Most of the students are boarders and study long hours every day , seven days a week . Their motivation is , in general , high ; the intellectual ( and physical ) efforts demanded of them are almost exhausting . The rabbinical educators give a few master-lessons , usually one a day , on the Talmud ( the oral law ) , Torah ( the written law ) and ethics . They also give individual tutorials to the students . For the rest , the students learn on their own , or with a colleague who is of about the same level but not necessarily of the same age group . There are two basic streams . Most students learn for learning's sake , to become familiar with the sacred texts . They do not seek any diploma or recognition . They submit to regular oral tests but there are no end-of-term examinations . A small number , on the other hand , seek ordination as rabbis or diplomas to become religious judges . They must first go through the learning stage , and thereafter , they pursue specific courses of study , at the end of which there are rigorous examinations . The Yeshivot seem to be efficient in producing learned young talmudic scholars . They are also cost effective ; the average ratio of students to rabbinical educators varies from about forty to one to eighty to one . If the universities decided to adopt the learning sys-

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