The vocational schools of ORT in Israel will record the highest student enrollment in their history during the school year now commencing, according to a report issued here today by the American ORT Federation. The report likewise notes that Israel ORT schools will admit their largest freshman class.
The report cites a Jump of 1,000 pupils in the three and four-year vocational high schools alone, an increase of 25 percent since last year. An enrollment of almost 5,000 is anticipated in such schools. Apprenticeship, a relatively recent development for Israel, is expected to double this coming year to reach a figure of 3,000 young people who will be assigned to on-the-job learning, supplemented by classroom and workshop study at special centers established in Jaffa, Jerusalem and Ramat Gan.
These projects, plus evening classes for adults, instruction provided to immigrant youth in the upper levels of primary schools and training given in yeshivas, are expected to bring the total overall enrollment in all ORT training facilities in Israel to between 12,000 and 13,000 during the coming year. The nationwide ORT system maintains educational installations in 20 cities and towns throughout the country.
The trend among Israeli youth toward technical studies which these figures indicate is regarded as particularly significant at this time in the light of the large and growing need in Israel for persons with training and skill. Government officials have expressed concern lest the shortage of skilled workmen and technicians become a bottleneck handicapping plans for industrialization.
The report calls attention to a number of new schools just opened. These include a school in hotel trades at Natanya to be conducted jointly with the Government Tourist Corporation, a secretarial school at Ramat Gan, and a school for general mechanics at Kiar Ata in the Haifa industrial zone. New departments just installed in existing ORT vocational centers include technical drawing and electronics at the ORT school in Natanya, a department for telephone technicians in conjunction with the postal authorities at the large Syngalowski ORT Center at Tel Aviv, and one in interior decorating at the Ramat Gan center.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
