The American ORT Federation released today a report on the activities of the organization in Israel stressing that more technicians will be trained by ORT vocational schools in Israel during the new school year which starts after the High Holidays.
“An enrollment in trade and technical courses of well over 5,000 during the coming school year is anticipated by ORT in Israel,” the report said. “Besides an increase in the number of trainees, ORT also envisages extension in the range of vocational education in line with the economy’s steadily increasing need for trained workers.”
These services, the American ORT Federation stated, will be offered at 45 trade schools, plus between 35 and 40 adult courses conducted in cooperation with the Ministry of Labor. The schools are located in 20 communities throughout the country and employ a staff of 250 instructors, many of them graduates of the Central ORT Teachers’ Training Institute in Switzerland.
A program of industrial training schools for immigrant youngsters, which ORT recently instituted with the aid of a U.S. government grant, will be enlarged, the report said. Increased immigration from North Africa during the first half of 1956 has intensified the demand for these classes, which are specially designed to prepare newcomers for jobs in Israel.
Other new projects include the opening of Israel’s first Textile Institute at Ramat Gan and establishment of a post-secondary school level training center for technicians for the construction trades at Givatayim. Ground has just been broken for a new vocational high school to be erected on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, which will be one of the largest in the country.
Although the capacity of ORT schools has risen over 25 percent in the last two years, and the number of graduates these schools send into the labor force has increased proportionately, the report indicates that trade schools are having a hard time keeping up with industrial requirements for skilled people.
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