How Many Pupils Does an Attendance Officer in Israel Handle?

114 to 169 pupils were handled per attendance-officer post, on the State Comptroller of Israel’s 2022 local government audit of how local authorities locate, prevent and address pupils dropping out of education. The Ministry of Education states 100 pupils per post as the desirable figure, and the audit reports the actual load above it. The audit is the work of Israel’s state audit institution, which reports to the Knesset, and its figures cover the school years 5780 (2019/20) and 5781 (2020/21).

Figure	What it counts	Period
114 to 169	Pupils handled per attendance-officer post, the range the audit prints	As at the audit
100	Pupils per post the Ministry of Education states as desirable	As at the audit
628.7	Attendance-officer posts on establishment, a fractional post count rather than a headcount	School year 5780 (2019/20)
622	Attendance-officer posts filled	School year 5780 (2019/20)
About 90,000	Pupils in the education system handled by attendance officers	School year 5781 (2020/21)
2,356,000	Pupils aged 3 to 18 in Israel’s education system	School year 5780 (2019/20)
0.5%	National average dropout rate	School year 5780 (2019/20)

Source: State Comptroller of Israel, Local Authorities’ Actions to Locate, Prevent and Address Pupils Dropping Out of Education, local government audit, 2022.

Attendance officers handled 114 to 169 pupils per post

The State Comptroller reported a load of 114 to 169 pupils for each attendance-officer post in the local authorities it examined. The figure the audit publishes is a range rather than a single number, and it is the state auditor’s own finding about Israel’s local authorities, drawn from the authorities examined in that audit.

The Ministry of Education states 100 pupils per post as desirable

The Ministry of Education states 100 pupils per attendance-officer post as the desirable caseload, and the State Comptroller records that figure as the Ministry’s own standard rather than as a measurement of anything. What the audit measured is the load actually carried, which it puts at 114 to 169 per post.

• The 100 is a standard set by an Israeli government ministry for its own system.
• The 114 to 169 is the audit’s finding about the load carried in the authorities it examined.
• The audit sets the two side by side; neither figure is a national average of pupils per officer.

622 of 628.7 attendance-officer posts were filled in 5780

The State Comptroller published 628.7 attendance-officer posts on establishment in school year 5780 (2019/20), of which 622 were filled. Posts are counted in fractions because the role is worked in part-time positions, so 628.7 is a count of posts and never of people. The same audit records 2,356,000 pupils aged 3 to 18 in Israel’s education system in that year.

• 628.7 posts on establishment, 5780.
• 622 posts filled, 5780, a shortfall of 6.7 posts.
• 2,356,000 pupils aged 3 to 18 in the system, 5780.

About 90,000 pupils were handled by attendance officers in 5781

The State Comptroller reported that about 90,000 pupils in Israel’s education system were handled by attendance officers in school year 5781 (2020/21). That is a flagged subset of the system rather than every pupil in a school, and the “about” is the audit’s own hedge. The audit also reports non-registration at an educational institution in Israel against an average across OECD member states.

Measure	Figure	Period
Pupils handled by attendance officers	About 90,000	School year 5781 (2020/21)
High-school-age pupils not registered at an educational institution in Israel	5.17%	2018
High-school-age pupils not registered, OECD average	7.65%	2018

Source: State Comptroller of Israel, 2022 local government audit on pupils dropping out of education. The OECD figure is an average across member states on their own reporting conventions.

The audit publishes no caseload figure for any single authority

The State Comptroller publishes no attendance-officer caseload for an individual local authority, school or officer. What it does break down by authority is dropout, and it names two authorities with rates above the national average.

Authority	Dropout rate	Period
Al-Kasoum regional council	1.7%	School year 5780 (2019/20)
Bnei Brak municipality	2.2%	School year 5780 (2019/20)
National average	0.5%	School year 5780 (2019/20)

Source: State Comptroller of Israel, 2022 local government audit on pupils dropping out of education.

Which figures here may not be divided into one another?

Every figure on this page comes from one chapter of the State Comptroller of Israel’s 2022 local government audit, except where a source line says otherwise.

The 628.7 and 622 posts are school year 5780; the roughly 90,000 pupils handled are school year 5781. About 90,000 across 622 filled posts is about 145 per post, which is arithmetic on two published counts from consecutive school years, and it sits inside the 114 to 169 range the audit prints.

The 100 is the Ministry of Education’s stated desirable figure and is not a measured caseload. The 2,356,000 pupils in the system is not the denominator of an attendance officer’s caseload, because officers handle flagged pupils rather than the whole system. The Al-Kasoum and Bnei Brak rates are two named authorities reported against the national average, not a ranking of authorities.

Questions readers ask

How many pupils does one attendance officer handle in Israel?

The State Comptroller of Israel reported 114 to 169 pupils per attendance-officer post in its 2022 local government audit on pupils dropping out of education.

Is there a single official number?

The State Comptroller published a range rather than one figure, and the Ministry of Education states a separate figure, 100 pupils per post, as desirable.

Where does the 100 come from?

The State Comptroller records 100 as the caseload per post that the Ministry of Education itself states as desirable.

How many attendance-officer posts are there?

The State Comptroller published 628.7 posts on establishment in school year 5780 (2019/20), of which 622 were filled.

Why is the number of posts a fraction?

Posts are counted in fractions because the attendance-officer role is worked in part-time positions, so the State Comptroller reported 628.7 posts rather than 628.7 people.

How many pupils do attendance officers deal with in total?

The State Comptroller reported that about 90,000 pupils in the education system were handled by attendance officers in school year 5781 (2020/21).

Does that mean officers track every pupil?

The State Comptroller counted about 90,000 pupils handled against 2,356,000 pupils aged 3 to 18 in the system in 5780, so the caseload is a flagged subset rather than the whole enrolment.

What is Israel’s dropout rate?

The State Comptroller published a national average dropout rate of 0.5% in school year 5780 (2019/20).

How does Israel compare with other countries on pupils outside education?

The State Comptroller reported that 5.17% of high-school-age pupils were not registered at an educational institution in Israel in 2018, against 7.65% across OECD countries.

Which local authorities are named?

The State Comptroller named the Al-Kasoum regional council at 1.7% and the Bnei Brak municipality at 2.2% in school year 5780, against the 0.5% national average.

Is there a caseload figure for a specific school or town?

The State Comptroller publishes no attendance-officer caseload for an individual local authority, school or officer in that audit.

Do other Israeli audits publish education supervision caseloads?

The State Comptroller reported in its 2020 audit of Haredi education and its supervision that 84 inspectors supervised 6,664 institutions in school year 5779; that counts institutions per inspector, not pupils per post, and the two are different measures.

Does the Comptroller publish caseloads for other local authority services?

In its local government audit on services to people with disabilities, the State Comptroller published a range of 10% to 38% across the authorities examined for disability cases as a share of all cases handled by social service departments, which is a share of cases rather than a caseload per post.

Sources

• State Comptroller of Israel, 2020. The Ministry of Education: Haredi Education and Its Supervision. Annual Report 70b, chapter 210. mevaker.gov.il. Official or primary record.
• State Comptroller of Israel, 2022. Local Authorities’ Actions to Locate, Prevent and Address Pupils Dropping Out of Education. Local government audit, printed pp. 101 onward. mevaker.gov.il. Official or primary record.
• State Comptroller of Israel. Services Provided by Local Authorities to People with Disabilities, Centre against Periphery. Local government audit, printed pp. 434 onward. mevaker.gov.il. Official or primary record.