Expanding the Rate of Graduates with a Tech-Matriculation to 18% by 2026

Be’er Sheva, which comprises 215,000 residents, is the largest in the Southern District and the ninth populated city in Israel. With a university, a hospital, a developing high-tech industry, and an improving education system, Be’er Sheva succeeded in recent years to climb up to group 5 (out of 10) on the national socio-economic index. Among 45,000 children who are enrolled in the city’s schools, 15,000 study in the city’s 19 high schools.

In partnership with the foundation, the municipality increased the rate of high school graduates with five units in mathematics, from 5.4% in 2012 to 14.3% in 2022 (still below the national average of 17.3%). Their efforts in high school focused on providing professional development to the teachers and support to the school principals.

To further widen the pipeline, the municipality decided to expand the circle of excellence as of middle school and in 2019, it opened an additional 16 excellence classes on top of the nine existing ones. In collaboration with the foundation, the curriculum in these classes included advanced applied mathematical tasks and the teachers were provided with professional support.

The effort in middle school resulted in 31% of the ninth-grade students completing their middle school studies in an excellence class. In most of these excellence-classes, students learned mathematics and physics at a high level, leading to a very high rate of 13.4% of the students who majored with five units in physics in high school.

The high rate of mathematics and physics students led to 11.3% of the city’s graduates that have completed their high-school studies in 2022 with the full tech-matriculation package. However, it turned out that only 7.8% majored in computer science. Therefore, as part of joining the national program, the city’s excellence classes in middle school will now include designated learning hours dedicated to computer science as well.

The municipality approached the foundation once again, stating that they defined a goal for 18% of the high school graduates to acquire a tech-matriculation by 2026. They aim for 25% of the tenth-grade students to choose a combination of five-units in mathematics and five units in physics and/or computer science, and are planning the following steps:

1. Providing professional support to the 70 mathematics, physics and computer science teachers of middle school excellence classes. The teachers will meet in four professional communities for 30-60 hours a year, over a period of three years;
2. Mentoring the school-based “excellence coordinator” to lead the school team in focusing their efforts on student-data, providing students with individual assistance and enlisting professional support;
3. Engaging the homeroom teachers of the excellence classes in supporting the students with promoting their self-efficacy, keeping high motivation, and developing character traits needed in the process of learning at high levels;
4. Operating an existing forum of school principals to become exposed to the goals and challenges of expanding the circle of excellence in their schools, and administrating management routines to support it.

The program will be led by the municipality’s education department, which will assign a designated manager of excellence and a team of mathematics and science coordinators. The program will be guided by a steering committee, with advice from academic consultants.

* The text above shows the grant as approved by the Foundation’s Board of Directors / Grant 531