From 1989–2003 approximately 1,300,000 immigrants arrived in Israel from the Former Soviet Union, shooting up to approximately 11% of all Israeli children (ages 5-18).
While most of the adult population is coping modestly with life in Israel, many children are struggling, resulting in a social disaster that may dwarf previous immigration failures experienced by Mizrahi Jews. The FSU immigrant dropout rate is about 42%. Over 30% of these youth are not in any educational framework, whereas only 8% of native-born youth drop out of high school! These trends are worsening, as reported by The Knesset Education Committee: in 2006 only 26% of all immigrant pupils received a matriculation certificate.
The education system has not learned from previous mistakes made with other waves of immigration. Israeli schools neither provide adequate help in learning Hebrew nor in acculturating immigrants. A minority are “swimming” well through the Israeli education system, but the vast majority are “sinking” into academic and personal failure. In towns with large FSU immigrant populations, they are the majority in a number of high schools, which have attracted students who dropped out (or were expelled) from other Israeli schools. IAIC’s Learn for Success is providing academic tutoring and emotional counseling to help them to complete high school - a long-term commitment, as the matriculation process starts in tenth grade and gets progressively harder.
Program objectives are to increase motivation and self-confidence and to overcome exam phobia, primarily through group tutoring. A major factor is that many immigrant youth feel alienated from their Israeli peers, and are ambivalent about adopting the identity of their new society where they do not feel welcome or treated fairly. In addition, Russian-speaking professionals conduct mentoring and emotional counseling on issues which impede academic advancement and social integration.
The pilot that began in 2006 in 7 localities has received very positive feedback:
• Overall school performance of the participants has improved
• Student grades have risen in the subjects studied in the project’s framework
• Fewer school days have been missed
• Discipline problems have decreased significantly
Every school has asked us to expand the program, while other schools have requested participation, and the project has received wide recognition in the Russian media. IAIC believes strongly that programs like Learn for Success can leverage the existing limited infrastructure and resources of the public school system to become conducive academic and social environments, where immigrant youth can achieve their dreams of succeeding in the Israeli school system, and later in society as adults.