Sa’ar welcomes physics Olympiad participants home, praises

Education minister praises achievement of team who placed 13th out of 84 participating countries.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Israel Physics Team 311 (photo credit: Muki Schwartz)
Israel Physics Team 311
(photo credit: Muki Schwartz)
Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Tuesday welcomed home the members of the Israel Physics Team from the 42nd International Physics Olympiad, which was recently held in Bangkok, Thailand.
Israel placed 13th out of 84 participating countries.
The five high-school students who represented Israel won two gold medals, two silver medals and one bronze medal: Asaf Rosen (from Motta Gur High School in Modi’in) won gold; Gal Dor (from Ahad Ha’am High School in Petah Tikva) won gold; Ben Akiva Feinstein (from Rabin High School in Modi’in) won silver; Gur Peri (from Rabin High School in Mazkeret Batya) won silver; and Aviv Frenkel (from Yad Leibovitz High School in Netanya) won bronze.
“ Your achievement has national significance. You scored better than your peers from many western countries.
Your achievements are impressive and you have brought honor and pride to the State of Israel,” Sa’ar told the students upon their arrival at Ben-Gurion Airport. “Ours is a country that aspires to excellence in all fields – our existence depends on it. The education system will continue to invest resources in order to further improve future achievements.”
Education Ministry Director- General Shimshon Shoshani, who accompanied Sa’ar, praised the Ministry’s approach in preparing the students for the international competition.
“There has been a breakthrough here: We changed the approach, and today we are investing considerable resources in preparing the teams. In the past two years, the Ministry has decided to focus on four Olympic fields: Mathematics, physics, computer science and chemistry, and has expanded the process of locating and preparing students for the Olympiads.”