Education Ministry honors 12 outstanding educational institutions

Award winners, according to the ministry, are schools that “represent educational work at its best,” displaying innovation and creativity.

By DANIELLE ZIRI
education awards 370 (photo credit: Muki Schwartz)
education awards 370
(photo credit: Muki Schwartz)
The Education Ministry awarded its 2013 prize for outstanding educational institutions on Wednesday to 12 schools across the country.
Award winners, according to the ministry, are schools that “represent educational work at its best,” displaying innovation and creativity.
The schools are said to be “characterized by effortful and unique activity in narrowing gaps and preventing student dropouts” as well as advancing the integration of students with special needs and learning disabilities.
They provide a “warm and supportive” learning atmosphere, promoting values of mutual respect, tolerance and coexistence.
Among this year’s winning institutions are two preschools, six elementary schools and four middle and high schools from all sectors.
The two preschools selected include one in Kibbutz Kfar Aza and a national religious one in Jerusalem.
Among the winning elementary schools are establishments from Shoham, Pardes Hanna, Jerusalem, Beersheba and the Druze village of Maghar. They include religious and special education schools.
In the middle and high schools category are the Ulpanat Dolev school for atrisk youth; Meisharim, a national religious special-education institution in Modi’in; the Amal Menachem Begin high school in Safed; and the Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts in Givatayim.
The award ceremony was held in Jerusalem in the presence of the ministry’s directorgeneral Dalit Stauber and Education Minister Shai Piron who congratulated the winners, who he called “role models.”
“I am proud of you for having tremendous consciousness of the mission [of education]. You came to repair the world,” he said.
The institutions were selected by a national committee led by Prof. Ofra Meyseless – director of pedagogic affairs – out of 61 schools competing for the prize.
The ministry stressed that the prize, which was granted for the 23rd consecutive year, aims at encouraging others to “increase effort, make changes, initiate, innovate and develop original and unconventional ways to improve the quality of education and teaching.”