Israel’s military conducted a study of high schools across Israel relative to IDF service and pre-military gap-year programs.
Yemin Orde Youth Village recently received statistics that reflected a high percentage of its graduate’s participating in pre-military gap-year leadership programs and then served in Israel’s military service. The data was collected by the military and related to high school graduates from across Israel, and looked at specific years of graduates, 2014 to 2018, and then compared that data to national statistics.
The new statistics reflect the success of the Village Way educational methodology in helping Yemin Orde’s graduates truly integrate into Israeli society as young adults. Israeli military officials were reportedly “extremely impressed” with Yemin Orde’s outcomes, especially considering its at-risk population.
Military service provides important life experiences and skills
The goal is for high school’s across Israel to use this data toward making an impact and improvements, as well as seeing where they have achieved success relative to their graduates army service. Participation in Israel’s military or national volunteer service is not only mandatory, but also provides young adults with important life experience, job skills, problem-solving skills and leadership ability, as well as introduces young soldiers to the diversity of Israel’s social fabric of today.
- For the 2016 male graduates of Yemin Orde, 92% served their mandatory military service. The national average for this time period was 71.9%. Furthermore, 6.7% of our male graduates couldn’t serve due to health related reasons. This means that almost all of the men who graduated in 2016, who were physically able, served.
- For the 2016 female graduates, 71.4% went on to serve in the military. The national average for this time period was 58.1%.
- For the 2017 and 2018 male graduates, 45.4% and 46.9% went to gap-year leadership programs. The national average in 2018 was only 6.6%.
- For women graduates of Yemin Orde, 22% went to gap-year leadership programs in 2018. We are proud this is significantly higher than the national average of 7.1% considering our at-risk population.
For Yemin Orde’s graduates, a majority who are immigrants, these numbers are impactful and inspiring. It demonstrates that our youth are connecting to Israeli society, forming bonds with those from other backgrounds and building networks that can help in life later on.
Israel’s Ministry of Education worked with the military to formulate this study.
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Logos: Left, Israel’s Ministry of Education; Right: Israel Defense Forces