Pre-college program for Arab students opens in Ariel
Talya Halkin, THE JERUSALEM POST Nov. 1, 2005
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Traveling home on Monday afternoon from the College of Judea and Samaria,
nineteen-year-old Majdi Karaki explained why he decided to commute a total
of four hours a day, four times a week, from his home in the Ras El-Amud
neighborhood of east Jerusalem to Ariel, where he enrolled this week in a
special pre-college program for Arab students.

"Sure, some of my friends criticized me for my choice of school," Karaki
told The Jerusalem Post. "They asked me why I was going to study in the same
college with Jewish settlers, but I just don't care about what they say."

This week, Karaki joined 30 other students from east Jerusalem and from
towns in the Triangle region, such as Kalansuwa and Kafr Kasim, in a new
pre-college program specifically designed for Arab students who do not meet
academic college admissions standards. While approximately half these
students hold Israeli matriculation diplomas, many of the students,
including Karaki, graduated from high school after having fulfilled the
requirements for the Jordanian matriculation exams.
The one-year program, which is financed by a new grant from the Council for
Higher Education, offers math, English, Hebrew, computer and learning skills
classes. Students who do well in the pre-college program according to
criteria established by the college will be able to enroll in B.A. programs
without taking the psychometric exam that is required of all potential
university students in Israel.

Following the government's decision to initiate a process for granting the
College of Judea and Samaria the status of a university earlier this year,
the college came under harsh criticism from individuals and groups of
left-wing Israeli academics and political activists, who protested against
granting university status to an institution they considered to be located
on "a settlement in occupied land."

Like others among the 300 Arab students currently enrolled in the college
itself, however, Karaki said that a good,
government-subsidized education, rather than politics, were his personal
consideration when he decided to enroll.

"A friend of mine studies here, and I think this is one of the best colleges
in Israel," Karaki said.

"Arab students that come to study here are fulfilling a dream," said Rifat
Sweidan, who received a Masters in social work from Bar-Ilan University and
is now the College of Judea and Samaria's academic advisor for Arab student.
"Admissions are not easy anywhere for Arab students, and they go to study
wherever they are accepted - it's much more convenient than going to study
abroad, as do the thousands of Israeli-Arabs currently studying in Jordan."

According to Sweidan, close to half of the Arab students enrolled at the
college reside in college dorms.

A total of 8,500 students are currently enrolled at the college.

According to Yigal Cohen-Orgad, the chairman of the college's executive
committee, the college considers its new pre-college program for Arab
students to be "part of our role and responsibility for enlarging the base
of higher education in Israel, and to promote co-existence between the
Jewish and Arab sectors."

Cohen-Orgad also said that the college did not require its Arab students to
hold Israeli citizenship. "The college's charter says that it welcomes
anyone whose deed or behavior does not counter the principles of Israel's
declaration of independence," Cohen-Orgad said.

"The past four years have been very difficult ones," he added. "But they
passed without tensions between Arabs and Jews, and with an Israeli flag in
every class and every lab." Indeed, according to Sweidan, no Arab students
have complained "of feeling racism or prejudice."

"Our political approach is that the settlements in Samaria are part of the
strategic needs of the State of Israel, and any Arab student that want to
live with us in peace will get the same opportunities here that any other
student gets," Cohen-Orgad said.
Next week, Dr. Nitza Davidovitch, director of academic development at the
College of Judea and Samaria, will publish a report concerning a recent
study she conducted with two colleagues, Professor Dan Soen of the College
of Judea and Samaria and Dr. Michal Kolan of the Western Galilee College.

The study, Davidovitch said, compared Arab and Jewish students studying at
the two colleges in terms of their religious beliefs, their family
background, their personal and academic background, and the degree of
well-being they felt on campus.
"We wanted to examine what happens on academic campuses, which are
essentially the first place where young Jews and Arabs meet," Davidovitch
said.

"In both cases," she said, "we found out that the encounter between Arab and
Jewish students was very peaceful, and we wanted to try and understand why."
Davidovitch said that one of her conclusions was that the lack of political
activism among students on campus was part of the reason.

"The Arab students reported that they feel very good on campus," she said.
"Nevertheless, our conclusion was that there is much work to be done in
terms of social integration between Arab and Jewish students."

The real issue, Davidovitch said, is how the Arab college graduate will fare
professionally after graduation. "That is another area where there is still
much to be done," she said, referring to the integration of Arab students
into the Israeli job market.