How do you help tertiary students struggling with fees and disadvantaged children struggling with school? If you're the Israeli Government, you put them together, says education reporter REBECCA WALSH.
It almost sounds too good to be true: disadvantaged children unlikely to succeed in education get the help they need from university
students to do well at school and life. In turn, the university students get half their university fees paid.
This is Perach - a mentoring programme that has been running successfully in Israel since 1972 and which some in New Zealand are keen to see introduced here.
As debate rages over student loan debt in this country - estimated to reach $15.5 billion by 2015 - talk of the brain-drain increases and political parties look at ways of keeping our qualified people in the country, Perach perhaps offers a glimmer of hope. It has already sparked the interest of Associate Education Minister Steve Maharey, who has asked his officials to examine how the programme could be used in New Zealand.
Perach is Hebrew for flower - and the programme's director, Amos Carmeli, was effusive as he explained it was a symbol of something that "grows again and again, that is bright and beautiful."
Perach is big: it involves 26,200 student mentors, 20 per cent of Israel's 130,000 tertiary students. Eighty-five per cent of the mentors work one to one with pupils, mostly aged 9 to 13, selected by schools as most in need of help. The mentors commit to spend two two-hour sessions a week with their pupils for a year.
"They can stay longer. We have students in Perach for as much as six years," Mr Carmeli said. "For the children, usually it's for one year. It's a kick. Afterwards the child will start to work on their own."
Twenty-two per cent of the children in the scheme are in immigrant families who need help with the Hebrew language, 41 per cent are in sole-parent homes. "You can imagine what it means to have someone who cares for you twice a week. It's so important for our children," Mr Carmeli said.
The student mentors, who are mostly studying in the main centres, sometimes travel for an hour or more each way to visit their pupils in poorer towns and villages. In some areas, Perach provides buses to pick up the mentors from their universities and colleges at 4 pm.
Usually the mentors work just in their pupils' homes, helping with their Hebrew and other schoolwork. Perach supplies books, educational games, handicrafts and drawing materials. But they can also visit Perach libraries or "enrichment centres" to borrow books, use computers, watch movies, play games and create artworks.
There are also Perach science centres with interactive exhibits, laboratories, games, videos and computers. Mentors are encouraged to take their pupils to other places, such as museums and shows.
"The child is a winner," said Mr Carmeli. "He or she gets a mentor who works with him or her for a year, providing knowledge, sympathy, friendship, an open ear - a big brother, a friend. For many of these kids, the mentor is almost everything!"
The other 15 per cent of mentors, who are not assigned individual pupils, are sent to schools in poor areas for four hours a week to pass on their specialised knowledge.
For example, 250 medical students teach healthcare: nutrition, dental hygiene, fitness, first aid and avoiding accidents. As they get older the pupils learn how to prevent pregnancy and to avoid drugs.
Science students present science and maths in unconventional ways to complement the classroom teachers. Physics is "magic;" maths is "calculating games." Other specialist groups lead special art programmes and a consumer programme, and take children on excursions to learn about nature and the environment.
Most teachers' colleges now require their trainees to join Perach, providing 6000 mentors for the scheme. "It's the only situation in their studies in which they are going to encounter one child [by themselves]," said Mr Carmeli.
The medical school in Jerusalem has also made Perach compulsory for its students. "The dean of the medical school said, 'We produce here the best medical mechanics in the world. We would like them to be human beings ,too. Please help me with this."'
Mr Carmeli believes that participating in Perach gives Israel's future leaders an understanding of "the real people" that they would never otherwise get.
"One of the students told me, 'In my neighbourhood, where I go to the child, you actually walk over needles [from drug users].' For such a student, it's the first time in her or his life that they are encountering that there is such a thing in Israel."
Another mentor, who later became one of Perach's 600 local part-time coordinators, found that working with children was so rewarding he decided to become a teacher.
In return for their work, the mentors are paid half their study fees - which means they get $US1150 ($2811) a year.
This year the Israeli Government decided to halve all tertiary fees over the next two years, which will leave only a minimal amount for Perach's students to pay. However, they will still need to find their own living costs.
Perach costs $US40 million a year, mainly to refund the mentors' fees, but also to pay the coordinators and to pay some of the mentors' travel costs. (There isn't enough money to pay all the travel costs.)
Most of the funding comes from the Government, through the budgets for universities, schools and welfare. But the scheme also depends on local councils to pay many of the coordinators, and raises funds from private trusts and donors.
It needs more money. In the latest year, 44,000 tertiary students applied for the 26,200 mentor places, although many withdrew when they found how much time was involved.
Since the scheme started, it has had many imitators. Similar programmes now operate in Singapore, the Philippines, Chile, Sweden and Hungary. In New Zealand, Auckland University plans to launch a small pilot programme with its own funds next year.
The Government has yet to commit itself, but Mr Maharey said he was considering options to enable students and graduates to offset student debt by way of community service.
Perach, he said, had "much to commend it."
Ann Dunphy, secretary of the Auckland Youth Mentoring Association and former principal of Penrose High School, said Perach would need Government support to work here.
"Mentoring is about showing people pathways. It's about taking an interest in people's careers and personal development. Helping them to see their strengths and possibilities," she said.
"Perach is an interesting model. It puts two problems together to create a solution."
- Additional reporting in Israel by Simon Collins
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How do you help tertiary students struggling with fees and disadvantaged children struggling with school? If you're the Israeli Government, you put them together, says education reporter REBECCA WALSH.
It almost sounds too good to be true: disadvantaged children unlikely to succeed in education get the help they need from university
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