Vision
• To reduce inequality of opportunities for Israel’s peripheral youth.
• To return the aspiration for excellence to the public’s agenda and to make education a high priority for the Israeli society as a whole.
• The program’s long-term goals are to help bridge the social gaps between the center and periphery and to expand accessibility to higher education, and thus to social mobility, among the weaker sectors of society.
Activity
Tel Aviv Youth University is a unique framework that offers underprivileged, 9th-12th grade, youth an opportunity they would otherwise never have had: to participate in academic courses at a university while still at school and to acquire skills and knowledge that will serve them in their careers later on. The program is based on the belief that creating a connection with a university at an early stage, especially for youth from the periphery, significantly increases their chances of applying (and being accepted) to higher education later on.
This program brings young people from outlying areas of Israel – from Kiryat Shmona in the north to Dimona in the south – to spend the summer semester on Tel Aviv University campus. They attend 2-3 academic courses in fields such as economics, sociology, anthropology and political science. The students live in dormitories and receive, in addition to the academic courses, tutor hours and extracurricular cultural activities.