Productivization, Economics and the Transformation of Israeli Education, 1948-1965

In more or less a single decade, the common view in Israel regarding the relation between education and the economy underwent a radical shift. Academic secondary schooling, which was commonly and explicitly depicted as economically harmful, became the consensual goal of educational policy. This article argues that this relatively clear-cut shift is an instance in which new economic thinking (above all, the Investment in Human Capital approach) swiftly gained acceptance and was implemented in governmental policy. Following this shift, education was assigned a central role in economic and social policy, a role it has maintained ever since.