Parental participation fees in school expenses in Israel

Purpose – Many countries throughout the world provide all children with free education. However, sometimes there are user charges in publically funded schools worldwide. The purpose of this paper is to explore parental participation fees in school expenses in Israel, depicting the current situation and analyzing its implications. Design/methodology/approach – Public documents from Israel were explored, such as guidelines of the CEO of the Ministry of education, laws, court rulings, publications of the Central Bureau of Statistics, reports of State Comptroller and reports of various committees. Document analysis was a three-stage process – condensing, coding and categorizing. The analysis was based on interpretation of the documents collected, attempting to detect explicit and implicit meanings concerning the topic at hand. Findings – Findings show that the Israeli policy in regard to parental payments has three main characteristics: first, high basic payments; second, payments for learning activities; and third, insufficient enforcement. Practical implications – According to the findings of this study, it would be advisable to re-examine the Israeli policy in regard to school charges that parents are required to pay. Originality/value – There is not much research to be found on the subject of parental participation fees in school expenses. The findings of this study expand the limited knowledge existing on this topic.