One of the country’s largest educational networks – with 40,000 students, the majority of whom study under Ministry of Education programmes and 4,000 in those run by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor (MoITL) – Amal is a major player in the current policy debate on technical training in Israel.
Israel has long based its competitive advantage on technology and hi-tech according to Ashkenazi and building on that remains a key objective for Amal.

“ISRAEL HAS LONG BASED ITS COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE ON TECHNOLOGY AND HI-TECH”

“We provide technological and vocational education at all levels to prepare our graduates for assimilation into a wide spectrum of positions in industry: as engineers, technicians and production workers.

“We believe technical VET must be linked to the current state of industry and regularly take steps to reinforce ties with the business sector and industry.”

With institutions throughout the country, from Dimona in the south to Safed and Nahariya in the north, and students from all sectors of Israeli society – secular, religious and ultra-religious Jews, Arabs, Bedouin and Druze – Amal is well placed to participate in the policy debate.

“We know how to lead processes in government offices and, as the largest network under the Ministry of Education, Amal has both influence and relative advantage in dealing with initiatives and industry.”

Dr Ashkenazi, who wrote the ETF’s Israel country report on the Torino Process business and education focus, is clear about Amal’s current policy priority: creating incentives to improve the links between schools and industry.
It is an issue the current director general of the Ministry of Education has raised with industry and there are government initiatives underway such as the Tec-Mat project and a scheme to integrate students in industry. But more needs to be done, Ashkenazi says.

“Schools cannot provide the level of training in industry; buying expensive machinery is simply not feasible. Rapid, on-going changes in industry continually outpace changes in education and training. The government needs to find a way to close the gap.”

She thinks this should be through financial incentives for industry and business to cooperate with training schools.

“There are currently no government incentives. Things happen based on personal decisions of individual industrialists.”

One challenge is that industry split: some business leaders feel that students are best served with a broad technical curriculum followed by specific on the job training; others think focused vocational training is best.
Amal is working to both push an agenda of incentives for greater industry involvement and curricular reform to avoid “study programmes that train students for yesterday’s vocations.”

Dr Ashkenazi, who represents Amal on the Manufacturers Association of Israel education committee, says there is some progress: a Students in Industry project began this year, where 11th and 12th grade students get hands-on training in factories one day a week; there is also a
Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labour apprenticeship programme for students from the same years who study three days a week and are paid to work in factories for another three days.

Amal’s long term aim is greater, more integrated industry involvement in education backed by government incentives of the sort seen in Germany and Switzerland.

“There they have government policies that foster cooperation. There is no such policy in Israel. Here cooperation is voluntary, based on goodwill and personal ties with large education networks,” says Ashkenazi.