Joint initiative with Jerusalem municipality will see prestigious arts and design school launch academic extension for haredi students. Program set to launch in 2014 academic year

Source: Ynetnews

The Jerusalem Municipality and the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design will next year establish an academic extension for art and design studies for the haredi public.

The joint initiative recently received approval from the Council for Higher Education and according to plans; the extension will be set up at the 'Oman' haredi school for higher education in the arts in Jerusalem's Romema neighborhood.

The institution's preparatory school will commence its academic activities as early as the next winter semester while the architecture and art school will launch their academic programs in the 2014 academic year with council approved lecturers.

The new arts school is part of a widespread Higher Education Council program to open academic extensions for haredi students in a variety of subjects and fields.

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An interesting ranking was recently reported by Yahoo! Finance, on the ten most educated countries of the world. Israel turned out to be ranked 2nd out of top 10 most educated countries in the world.

Source: Skeptikai

In the past 50 years, college graduation rates in developed countries have increased nearly 200%, according to Education at a Glance 2011, a recently published report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The report shows that while education has improved across the board, it has not improved evenly, with some countries enjoying much greater rates of educational attainment than others. Apparently college and university graduation rates have increased in half a century by almost 200%, but the rates among countries vary greatly. And while it’s not surprising to see countries that spend a great deal of their GDPs on education, many of the countries on the list spend comparably little, and yet see high numbers of graduates.

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A new initiative seeks to close the religious-secular gap in Israeli society.

Source: Haaretz

Religious or secular? The question seems to divide our country along serious fault lines. The conventional wisdom is that the religious and secular societies in Israel are each increasingly becoming more radical and fundamentalist in their beliefs, and more intolerant of those on the other side of what is viewed as an unbridgeable divide.

Community schools throughout the world are successfully navigating the admittedly difficult task of creating educational communities in which everyone, from the secular to the religious and everyone in between, can participate equally. A dozen schools in Israel are attempting to integrate society by combining our schools, seeking ways of educating our children together. But until such schools become available throughout the country it is only a select few who can avail themselves of the opportunity.

Until now, no such school has existed in Tel Aviv. For more than a year, I have been part of a group of people in Tel Aviv from all parts of the religious spectrum that has been attempting to create an integrated school in the city. After intensive efforts, it appears that we have been successful, and that the Municipality of Tel Aviv will finally create an option that will enable all Tel Aviv residents, religious and secular, to educate their children together in an appropriate manner, without needing to label them first in any way. At Meshutaf, all students will receive the same education, including a full curriculum of Judaic studies and humanities, with no compromises. Most importantly, our children will be educated there of tolerance, respect and mutual responsibility for all of Israel.

Orel Plomba, an eighth grader from Kfar Saba develops special brail measuring cup for national 'I Can Too' special needs competition

Source: Ynetnews

Orel Plomba, an eighth grader from Kfar Saba touched the hearts of participants in the "I Can Too" national competition which was held in Herzliya.

Orel, who is visually impaired and four of her classmates developed a special measuring cup that enables her to create her favorite recipes. The measuring cup is marked with brail on the outside and measurement is done by using sense of touch.

The "I Can Too" national project sees children from schools throughout the country studying about the needs of people with disabilities as well as developing products for disabled people.

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The funding is part of a $40 million investment in university research
centers in the UK, Germany and Israel that drive innovation.

Source: Globes

Intel said that the ICRI for computational intelligence is a joint collaboration with the Technion and Hebrew University that "will explore ways to enable computing systems to augment human capabilities in a wide array of complex tasks. For example, by developing body sensors that continuously monitor the owner’s body, researchers could then pre-process this information and take appropriate actions. The system can continuously monitor human functions from the brain, heart, blood, eyes and more, and send this data to a remote server that will combine them with other data such as environmental weather conditions, along with historical data, and could proactively warn people about a potential headache or dizziness during driving."

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