Changes in the characteristics of preservice students: A retrospective analysis and a prospective outlook

The recent reform in teacher education in Israel was aimed at raising the level of the teaching core mainly by elevating student admission standards in order to select better candidates, lengthening and improving the curriculum, and granting an academic degree to the graduates. In order to learn whether the reform succeeded in attracting better teaching students, this paper reports findings from a study of a wide sample of first-year students in all the teacher education programs under the reform, before and after. An improved educational level in the general population has enabled Israeli academic teacher colleges to become more selective and raise their admission requirements. At present, students who are accepted have a higher entry level than in previous years, but they represent a similar social and educational stratum as before the academization of teacher education. The assumption that raising admission requirements and granting an academic degree would attract a qualitatively different group of candidates was not fulfilled.