Mathematics competitions for Arabic-speaking students

Every school grade in Israel comprises approximately 140,000 students, of whom about 30,000 are Arabic-speaking students. In the 2012 PISA cycle, only 0.5% of them reached the top levels (5-6) of performance, representing about 150 students in total. Additionally, 3% (~900) of the Arabic-speaking students achieved the medium level 4, representing the future potential pool for advancement into the excellence levels. These numbers constitute a very disturbing situation for Israel’s education, but they provide an opportunity for focused efforts that could lead to improvements.

To address this issue and in anticipation of the 2025 cycle of PISA, we approached the Israel Center for Excellence Through Education (ICEE). ICEE is proposing to hold a special competition for excelling students, that would concentrate on applied mathematical skills, gradually progressing from level 3 to level 6 of the PISA scale. They suggest developing 50 challenging tasks, along with teaching aids and detailed explanations. The plan is to hold two cycles of the competition, inviting the top 500 students from 100 schools in 30 Arab local authorities across Israel.

To diagnose and select the 500 participants, ICEE is planning a preliminary stage for 3,000 students of excellence classes. Each student will receive a digital kit of 8 questions. Of those who successfully solve the questions, the intention is to choose 1,000 participants for a school-based learning process in small groups, tutored by their mathematics teachers. Each group will tackle more advanced questions and discuss their solutions with an online instructor. Five hundred finalists will be invited to a special event, hosted by the “Cities of Excellence” network, where they will demonstrate their abilities by solving tasks at the 5-6 levels.

ICEE will prepare an assessment report analyzing student diagnostics and learning, which will provide an overall evaluation of the progress towards excellence levels by Arabic-speaking students before the 2025 cycle of PISA.