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The Rashi Foundation and the IDF have launched a project to build a new training center for the Intelligence Corps' Unit 8200 candidates in Be'er Sheva. This campus will serve the IDF's goal to create first-class training facilities and to increase the number and quality of the Corps' candidates, and Rashi's goal to advance education in the south and raise the number of pupils from the south who are admitted to the elite Unit 8200.
Background
In November 2005, the Israeli government approved a National Plan to strengthen the Negev region. As part of this plan, it resolved to transfer a number of key IDF army bases from the center of the country to the South. The IDF's elite technological and intelligence units are included in this relocation.
Rashi has decided to focus on helping to establish an educational campus that will serve the Intelligence Corps and the residents of the southern region, and enable a unique meeting-ground of the IDF, the education system and the community of Be'er Sheva. Our decision is made in the knowledge that the role and responsibility of the Intelligence Corps within the IDF is growing, and there is a commensurate need to increase the number of top-quality soldiers serving there.
Need
There is a gross under-representation of southern residents in the Intelligence Corps, reflecting the educational divide that separates the periphery from the center. This disparity is especially evident in Unit 8200, whose work involves the breaking and making of codes and deciphering intelligence data in order to present and analyze Israel's security situation to the military and political decision-makers. The unit accepts only the most able young people, those with outstanding computer, math and science skills, and exceptional facility for languages.
Unit 8200 has a rigorous selection process. IDF scouts visit top-achieving high schools and invite the best pupils to take the tough entrance exams for the pre-military course at the current IDF training centers in Hadera and Netanya. Only a tiny percentage of high school pupils are accepted, and of this number, a minuscule proportion is residents of the southern periphery.
The Solution
The Rashi Foundation has drawn up a plan for a multi-purpose campus to be located on a 7.4 acre plot near Ben-Gurion University that has been allocated by the municipality. Rashi's educational-social agenda and our early involvement in the establishment of this new Intelligence Corps' training center in the south will ensure that the campus will not be cut off from the community (as is the case with the existing training centers), but rather an educational community campus that serves the residents of Be'er Sheva and the southern education system, and spreads the benefits of the IDF's transfer across the host community.
Description of the Campus
The campus will be located in the Ramot neighborhood of Be'er Sheva, on a plot allocated by the municipality. It will be comprised of three sections:
Education center for southern pupils
from grades 9-12, who have been identified as having the talent and motivation to shoot for the army's elite units (approx. 700 per year, a total of 2,800 at any one time). They will study a pedagogic program that is being built in conjunction with the Intelligence Corps, weighted towards foreign languages, computers, math and technology. Each student will study on the campus for around 3 hours a week, and an additional three-five hours a week will be taught within the schools (for this reason, the project includes an upgrade of computer labs in schools).
Pre-military training center for the six-month course attended by those 18-year olds who have been selected to sit the entrance exams for Unit 8200. The curriculum of this course is determined solely by the IDF. This section will be suited for approximately 500 pupils (post-high school, pre-enlistment) on a residential basis, and 100 staff.
Recreation center including sports and leisure facilities (e.g. swimming pool, fitness rooms, lecture hall) that will be open to city's residents as well as the students and staff on campus.
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