Who we are

The ORT Israel network has acted as an a-political educational network since 1949. Its purpose is to inspire its students to act morally and encourage them to acquire an extensive education, while focusing on technology and sciences.

The beginning of ORT Israel started well before its formal establishment, with the activity of the global ORT network for the welfare of the Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel. ORT’s acronym derives from Russian: Общество Ремесленного Труда – “The Association for Professional Work”.

The network manages over 245 educational institutes, schools, and colleges, operating within more than 60 local authorities: from Hazor of the Galilee and Shlomi in the North to Arad and Nave Midbar in the South. New educational institutes join the ORT network every year. Close to 100,000 teenagers, students, and adults from the various Israeli populations study in the network’s institutes annually: Jews in the secular, religious, and ultra-Orthodox education; as well as Arabs, Druze, and Bedouins. As part of its vision, all the network’s institutes lead and aspire to excellence, including secondary schools, industrial schools, education centers, academic colleges, and colleges for practical engineers and engineering, offering young people and adults an academic prospect.

One out of every ten students in the high-school education system is a student of the Ort Israel network.

ORT Israel’s vision is unique and sets it apart from other education providers since it follows two major standards: the first is that of moral education, aimed to guarantee the State of Israel’s social and moral strength. The second is the technological-scientific education standard, which is intended to guarantee the State’s economic strength and its safety. Professionalism and quality, excellence, innovation and initiative, reliability, and fairness are the core values which guide the network’s staff’s activities.

From the network’s vision:

“ORT Israel network will lead to excellence by endowing the learners and employees in its education institutions with values, skills and knowledge. It will be the leading educational agent in the advanced technological and scientific education, employing innovative technologies and methodologies. Students from all sectors of Israeli society study in the network’s institutes, which shall provide them with values – related to their Jewish identity – in the Jewish sector, and the cultural heritage – in the other sectors, and universal values, in order to lead them to maximize their personal abilities, to fulfill themselves and to promote their contribution to the community, the society and to The State of Israel”.    

The major principles of the vision are:

The network will develop among its learners social, cultural, and democratic values, emphasizing the values of human dignity, tolerance towards one another, giving to their fellow citizens, to the community, and the State, and will strengthen the learners’ affinity to the State of Israel and their cultural heritage.

The network will inspire its learners to acquire moral education, technological-scientific knowledge, and computer technologies expertise. It will prepare its graduates for success in academia, the army, the advanced technology industry, and in the other fields of the Israeli economy, maximizing the use of the learners’ abilities, qualifications, and interests to facilitate their social and economic mobility.                     

The network will spread out its institutes throughout the State of Israel, focusing on the social periphery, and will provide quality education to the entire Israeli population, across all its various sectors.

The network will be a pioneer in Israel and abroad in developing and implementing innovative study tracks and programs in technology, science, and computer technologies.

As an innovative, dynamic, and evolving organization, the network will consistently develop its human resources: its educators, employees, and managers.

The network will nurture a culture of quality service.

The network’s activity is guided by the principle of providing equal chances in education to all Israeli citizens regardless of the students’ faith, culture, way of life, place of residence, and world view. One is entitled to receive equal education merely by being an Israeli citizen.

The network directs its resources towards innovative and creative educational projects. These projects bring along novelty and change, both in the scientific-technological field and in the moral social field, and receive recognition both in Israel and abroad. 

ORT Israel operates an administration for research, development, and training, one of the largest of its kind in the world. The department emphasizes the development of innovative models, updated content, and advanced teaching and learning methods in the fields of scientific and technological education. The ORT Israel network is recognized as a leader in innovative programs in the field of science and technology in Israel and abroad. ORT is involved in international partnerships and projects which are focused on transformation of the education in various countries into sci-tech focused and future-ready.

The aspiration to excellence and innovation is another central principle guiding the network’s activity. In light of this principle, ORT’s activity is provides quality and innovative education to all the students, aspiring to maximize their full abilities and skills, following the Biblical phrase: “Train a child in the way he should go” (Proverbs, 22, 6).