Higher Education Among Bedouin of the Negev: Tel Sheva as a Case Study

Abstract

A study on higher education was carried out in Tel Sheva during 2012-14. There were 7,223 residents above the age of eighteen of whom 433 residents ((229 males (52.9 per cent) : 204 females (47.1 per cent)) had post-secondary degrees or diplomas (past students) and 277 residents ((91 males (32.9 per cent) : 186 females (67.1 per cent)) were enrolled (present students) in institutes of higher education, giving a total of 710 students ((320 males (45 per cent) : 390 females (55 per cent)), or 9.8 per cent of those eligible. Of the 710 past and present total students, 61.8 per cent enrolled in education. Medicine and medicine-related studies ranked second at 15.8 per cent, engineering third at 13.4 per cent, law fourth at 3.9 per cent and psychology/sociology fifth at 2.1 per cent. A number of trends emerged when we compared past and present students. The percentage of females, of the total student body, rose from 47.1 per cent in the past to 67.1 per cent today, and the gap between genders seems to be widening. The percentage of students in education has remained relatively constant, 61.7 per cent in the past and 62.3 per cent today. However, the percentage of students in medicine and medicine-related studies has been increasing (11.1 per cent to 23.2 per cent), whereas the percentages of engineering (16.6 per cent to 8.3 per cent) and law (4.8 per cent to 2.5 per cent) students have been decreasing substantially. The percentage of females studying education is much higher than that of males while the reverse is true in medicine and engineering. More Bedouin are studying abroad today, in particular medicine and dentistry, and mostly in Romania and Moldova.