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“Recently, I was contacted by a Bedouin guy from the Negev who really wanted to get accepted into engineering studies,” Malka Shacham, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s (BGU) diversity and inclusion officer, lecturer and researcher, tells ISRAEL21c. 

“He had high math and psychometric test scores, but seven points on the Hebrew proficiency test separated him from the minimum threshold for admission to the university. We tried, but ultimately couldn’t help him,” says Shacham.

Although Shacham declined to disclose the official statistics, many Bedouin students are rejected annually from BGU, the only university in southern Israel, where many Bedouin Arabs live.

“Most don’t even dare to take admission tests, realizing in advance they are not going to get into the university. It will end up harming their ability to realize their potential in life, their family, and ultimately, their whole community,” Shacham notes.

As part of her role in the DEI department of the university, founded in 2020, Shacham looked for ways to help Bedouin youth integrate in the Israeli education system past high school.

“Bedouin children finish high school in their communities without having mastered the Hebrew language. So, when they enter the sectors of employment and academia, it’s difficult for them to integrate,” explains Shacham.

The course

The result of her efforts was a unique academic course that connects BGU students from department of humanities and social sciences to highschoolers in Bedouin cities and villages around Beersheva, where the university is located. 

As part of the course, the BGU students earn necessary academic credit, while high school students get an opportunity to significantly improve their Hebrew. 

The course was initiated last year as a pilot for less than a semester, with only 20 students. This academic year, however, the course was extended to run the entire academic year, allowing for up to 50 university students to participate. 

Last year, the course took place in collaboration with the only high school in the Bedouin town of Hura. This year the Education Ministry issued a call to the authorities in the Bedouin sector, urging them to participate in the project. 

“We would come to the school once a week, on a fixed day, at a fixed time with a fixed lineup of people,” says Ido Oren, a BGU student who took part in the pilot last year. 

“We would cover a different topic each time during two-hour lessons, which we would prepare in advance; we would work with them, study with them, teach them, anything just to get them as close as possible to their safe space,” he adds. 

The methods of the course are based on a theory that Shacham developed as part of her research at BGU, where she earned her PhD in communications and media studies. 

The success of the course is measured via surveys conducted at the start of the academic year and toward the end to measure the progression of the Bedouin students. 

The power of language

Shacham says that in some cases the course is also useful for students who do understand Hebrew but are too insecure to speak it due to a lack of interactions with Jewish Israelis. 

“Sometimes they learn it well in school, and even know proper grammar, but don’t feel confident to use the Hebrew language; it even further hurts their ability to integrate in Israeli society,” Shacham tells ISRAEL21c.

She notes that language is “much more than grammar and words,” adding that it has the power to build bridges between diverse sectors and “create camaraderie and shared life.”  

“I don’t need to explain to you what a complex reality we live in now; the language gap is surely amplifying this situation,” Shacham says.  

“It also contributed to my knowledge of Arabic,” adds Oren, “to my understanding of where I live here in Israel, and what this society is about. Sorry to sound cliché, but I learned, and gained, and became wiser from having done it.” 

Girl power, too

In the pilot conducted last year, all the Bedouin high-school students who participated were girls.

“That wasn’t intentional; they were just the ones who signed up,” says Shacham, adding that it was not very surprising. 

“Do you know how much it means for a girl who grew up in a Bedouin village to become successful by going to a university? She instantly becomes a model to all the women and children around her,” explains Shacham.  

“One day it’s just her, tomorrow there are five more girls from her community [attending university], and two years later there are another 10. 

“We want to reach the potential of each and every one, and allow them both to learn, and contribute in a meaningful way to society in areas where specialists are really needed.”

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