Honorable President of the Institute of Technology, Prof. Yitzhak Apeloig,
Honorable Minister of Education, Prof. Yuli Tamir,
Honorable Mayor of Haifa, Mr. Yona Yahav,
Head of the National Economic Council, Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg,
Chairman of the Committee for Planning & Budgeting, Prof. Shlomo Grossman,
President of the Tel Aviv University, Prof. Tzvi Galil,
University Presidents,
Chairman of the Committee of Academic Colleges, Prof. Shosh Arad,
Chief Scientist, Prof. Oded Avramski,
Distinguished Guests,

First of all I would like to share a secret or two with you.  I should really have been mad at Yuli. Do you know why? Because my dream was to be both Prime Minister and Minister of Education, and she deprived me of the opportunity to fulfill this role.  Jerusalem has the highest number of students, there are 216,000 students in Jerusalem, and when I was elected Mayor of Jerusalem I said that in addition to being Mayor, I very much wanted to be responsible for the education portfolio, and that is what I did. I never regretted it for a moment, and I was eager also to serve as Minister of Education in the coalition formed. Then all of a sudden Yuli Tamir arrived, and it was really rare to see someone enter into politics for the sole purpose of dealing with education.  However, she had the perfect background for it, both her involvement in the education system and the fact that she herself has been part of the Israeli higher education system for years, and it therefore made it easier for me to give it up.  However, I never abandoned the system and I continued to address these issues, and I never regretted any of them. 

The more I learned about nanotechnology, the more I came to realize two things: first, that this is an area in which we can achieve a breakthrough, and second, Israel is a world leader in nanotechnology research.  The State of Israel invested 250 million dollars in nanotechnology, and we are beginning to show signs that we are realizing our potential in this field.  Among the twenty most important researches in the world in the field of nanotechnology published by Scientific American, three are conducted in Israel. In other words, one sixth. Israel's part in the world population is in total disproportion to its part in the field of scientific development in areas of such strategic importance, and I believe our Government has the right to be proud.

Governments take action, contribute, invest and change people's lifestyles.  My decision this year to allocate 515 million NIS – 450 million to the regular framework and 65 million to development and construction – enabled the school year to be opened.  This may not have been the most important decision, but an urgent one because the school year needed to be opened.

The most important decision we took in the field of the education system was in three areas:

The "New Horizon" program led by the Minister of Education.  You spoke to me today about the fact that one of your problems is that the personal level of the high school graduates you are receiving is much lower than that which existed in the past. The crucial question therefore is how do we transform high school graduates into students who can meet the expectations, reflect the genuine abilities of Israeli society and fulfill the intellectual, spiritual and innovative potential which ultimately breaks out at a much later stage, but which could also break out on a much larger scale if we invest the right resources. This is what excited me about Yuli Tamir's plans.

The major decision was to invest billions of dollars in the New Horizon program, in agreement with the Israel Teachers Union.  By the way, the professional leadership of the Teachers Union, headed by Yossi Wasserman, has shown courage and foresight. They cooperated with us and they were representing a just cause.  There is no question that a State which pays less than the minimum wage to 1st grade teachers with a university degree cannot have a good education system. One cannot find good teachers who would be willing to earn less than a basic salary of 3,000 shekels. I believe that we have made a far reaching step.

This year, 810 schools are part of the New Horizon program.  This is an historic breakthrough.

It only shows that sometimes one must show courage.  The positions now held by Yuli and me will be manned by other people tomorrow, and ultimately the real test is the willingness to take chances and make decisions which may seem unreasonable, but which could bring the future into the present.  If we fail to understand it, we will not be able to move forward.  The very essence of the State of Israel is the ability to win against all odds, with imagination, boldness, creativity and courage.

Ultimately, it is always about courage: Ben-Gurion's courage to declare the establishment of the State, our courage to establish the State, our courage to open new horizons in areas we never believed to be possible. A small state, consisting of 7 million people, surrounded by hatred, hostility and enemies threatening its existence.  What has always characterized us was the ability to show stamina and never to surrender, and I believe this is what we should do in the education system.  I will mention three things and then, unfortunately, I will have to conclude. I would have been happy to speak to you at length because these are the things that really make a difference. One is the New Horizon program. Two is the program to complete the construction of classrooms, change the entire balance with regard to constructing classrooms in the State of Israel, while placing special emphasis on the rights of minorities in Israel.  The field of the relations with the Arab population in the State of Israel is another field in which this Government has done more than any other government over the past 60 years.  Those who fail to understand that if we cannot live in peace with the 1,200,000 Arabs living in the State of Israel, we will not be able to live in peace with the Arabs living outside the State of Israel, fail to understand the reality in which we live, the constraints, risks, complexities or possible repercussions.  I have made a major effort to promote dialogue with the Israeli Arab population.  One of its manifestations is that 40% of the 8,000 classrooms built in the framework of the five-year program which will end in 2011 will be built in the non-Jewish sector.  This was the second issue.

The third issue is the treatment of infants and children at risk.  Sitting here is Prof. Ben-Zeev, President of the Haifa University, and his university has been very actively involved in promoting the ideas advocated by my wife, who has been the driving force, initiator and inspirer of this program.  More is now invested in infants and children at risk than ever before. No investment was ever made in infants.  Psychologists are sitting here, and who better than them know that the critical age for the development of a child's personality is from birth to age three. We keep talking about training 1st grade teachers, graduates of this or that seminar, but we send our children at the tender age of two to people who have no qualifications, and by the time they reach the age of 15, the State of Israel has to invest considerable resources to try and save these children, while all of this could have been prevented had we taken care of them properly, diagnosed them, examined them, examined what was happening in their families, in the relations between the parents, in the relations between the parents and the children, the number of children in the family, what their living conditions were or what their disabilities, capabilities or strong points were.  Imagine a mathematics genius in a certain class, who has the potential to win the Nobel Prize, but the class he is in and the conditions under which he studies can only turn him into a juvenile delinquent who will never realize his potential because of his inability to adapt to the norms of his surroundings and because no one was able to recognize his potential.  All of this must be done. This has never been done before in the State of Israel, but it is being done today. Israel is investing hundreds of millions of shekels in children at risk. Never before have we invested in this.  We always talk about peace, and I could have given you a pretty good lecture about peace, but no one ever mentions these issues. I am proud of the fact that my Government did it.  I did it, among other things, because I had a good partner who cared and who had the courage to think and the foresight to understand, and that is Prof. Yuli Tamir.  I also had other partners with whom I enjoyed working, and they are the mayors. Yona is just one example, but I am referring to many mayors across the country.  People do not understand that the best agents of change in the State of Israel are not Government ministries, which are overly bureaucratized, and will continue to be so until one day, hopefully, we will wake up in a reality in which a Government can actually rule, but in the meantime, the people who do it most efficiently are the mayors, and they have been excellent partners to a considerable part of the reforms we have made.

It starts at birth, continues in 1st grade, through junior high school and senior high school and it reaches its peak here.  Ultimately, Israel's face as a quality state, a leading state, a state whose scientific and educational power    is the basis of its strength, is being shaped at the universities, research institutes and colleges – each with their own special angle, each with their own special aspect, each with their own individual contribution.  I am proud of you. I am proud to be travelling to different places across the world and being able to say that despite this or that international achievement test, we are leaders in ingenuity, we are leaders in the number of patents, we are leaders in important researches, we are leaders in important scientists, even maybe in the number of Nobel Prize winners in relation to the size of the population. All this is a source of pride, but also a source of challenge, a warning sign and a signpost, which I hope every Israeli government will be able to address.  I hope that they will continue what we have begun doing in these fields, and if they do, we will come a long way and mainly move forward.

Thank you very much.