Jerusalem College of Technology


The Jerusalem College of Technology - Lev Academic Center , is an Israeli college, recognized by the Council for Higher Education, which specializes in providing high-level science and technology education to the Jewish community. More than 2,000 of JCT's 4,700 students are ultra-Orthodox, and the remainder of the students are from diverse segments of Israeli society including Ethiopian-Israelis, national religious and international students.
JCT's main campus is situated in the Givat Mordechai neighborhood of Jerusalem. Other branches are located in the Givat Shaul neighborhood of Jerusalem and Ramat Gan. JCT offers bachelor's degrees and master's degrees in several fields of study combined with intensive Jewish studies.

History

The college, founded in 1969 by Professor Ze'ev Lev, specializes in high-tech engineering, industrial management and life and health sciences. JCT is particularly known for its electro-optics faculty. The institution is fully accredited by the Council for Higher Education in Israel, the main authority overseeing Israel's academic institutions. Some 5,000 students are currently enrolled in JCT, with a faculty of over 500 professors, instructors and researchers. The mission of the college is to educate students "who see the synthesis of Jewish values and a profession as their way of life; to provide manpower for Israel's developing high-tech industry and who will establish industries of their own; to produce industrial leaders strongly committed to Israel, a Jewish way of life, and for the betterment of the Jewish People and the world." JCT's goal to bring higher education to under-served communities is most evident in their Program for Students from the Ethiopian Community and Haredi Integration programs.
JCT has separate campuses for men and women in order to allow the Orthodox and Haredi communities, who comprise the majority of its student body and insist on gender-separated classes to study comfortably.
JCT is a key driver of women's empowerment in the science and technology sectors. The college trains 20 percent of Israel's women engineers. One out of every five Israeli women studying for a BSc in computer science and/or software engineering does so at JCT, and 53 percent of the school's computer science students are women—18 percent higher than any other Israeli university.

Branches

The Jerusalem College of Technology comprises the following campuses:

Bachelor of Science

The Reuven Surkis Program for Students from The Ethiopian Community

JCT was the pioneer among Israel's leading institutions of higher education in advancing the integration of Ethiopian immigrants. The Reuven Surkis Program for Students from The Ethiopian Community consists of a preparatory year program and a full degree program; most of the students studying in the full degree program participated first in the preparatory year program. The Reuven Surkis Program has produced 158 graduates, with a 97 percent employment rate.

Haredi Integration Program

The Center for Advancement of Haredim at JCT encourages Haredi men and women to pursue academic careers and consists, much like the program for the Ethiopian community of a preparatory year program and a full degree program. The Haredi Integration program has graduated thousands. There are currently more than 2,000 Haredi men and women studying towards degrees at JCT. According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, about 50 percent of Haredi men in the country were employed by the end of 2017. JCT's Haredi graduates have attained an 89-percent employment rate, including 77 percent that are employed in their field of choice. Among the 1,000 Israeli Haredim who studied computer science in 2017, two-thirds of them studied at JCT.

International Program

The International Program in English at JCT allows students from around the world to learn religious studies at JCT or with rabbis in other yeshivot in the Jerusalem area, while also providing them with the opportunity to obtain a prestigious academic degree. It is a three-year-long program with majors in Computer Science, and Business Administration.

Cyber Elite

JCT's Cyber Elite program provides intensive cyber training to outstanding graduates of the college's degrees in software engineering and computer science, while simultaneously placing them in cyber departments of multinational, aerospace and defense companies, and in cyber startups. This opens up the cyber field to the Haredi community and to others who previously experience difficulty attaining cyber positions because they were not represented in cyber units within the Israel Defense Forces.

Israel's top-ranked nursing program

JCT's BSN program in nursing accounts for 20 percent of all nursing students in Israel. The college's Nursing Department was awarded the Israeli Ministry of Health's National Prize for Excellence, ranking first among 24 departments nationwide in all measured criteria.
JCT's nursing graduates have a pass rate of virtually 100 percent every year on the national accreditation exams— and the highest average scores as well. There are currently over 1,000 students studying towards degrees in nursing at JCT. Among them are 460 Haredim, 180 new immigrants, and 34 Ethiopian-Israelis. The nursing faculty at JCT has producing more than 500 graduates in the 11 years since its founding. It now produces over 200 graduates annually.

Israel's First Master's Program in Health Informatics

JCT's Nursing Department is launching Israel's first master's degree program in the growing field of Health Informatics, which focuses on managing and analyzing data to support the best clinical decisions and treatment for patients. Health informatics utilizes the study and application of clinical information and computer science to design and deploy effective technologies that support the delivery of health care services and improve information management.
JCT's health informatics program is open to registered nurses with a bachelor's degree and was developed with the assistance of the University of Toronto's Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, in addition to the support of the Canadian Friends of JCT. The certificate program that ran this year as a prelude to opening the MSc programt completed its studies in April, just as Israel's Council for Higher Education approved the Master of Health Informatics degree for the 2018-2019 academic year. The partnership between JCT and U of T was facilitated by Professor Judith Shamian, past president of the International Council of Nurses and a member of JCT's board of trustees.