Education
About 60 percent of school-age Jewish children attend Jewish schools. Jewish day schools and yeshivas are found throughout the country. Jewish cultural studies and Hebrew language instruction is commonly offered at synagogues in the form of supplementary Hebrew schools or Sunday schools. The majority of Jewish schools in Britain are funded by the government. Jewish educational centres are plentiful, large-scale projects. One of the country's most famous Jewish schools is the state-funded JFS in London which opened in 1732 and has about 2100 students. It is heavily over-subscribed and applies strict rules on admissions, which led to a discrimination court case in 2009. In 2011, another large government funded school opened in North London named JCoSS, the first cross-denomination Jewish secondary school in the UK.
The Union of Jewish Students is an umbrella organisation that represents Jewish students at university. There are over 50 Jewish Societies.
British Jews generally have high levels of educational achievement. Compared to the general population, they are 40 percent less likely to have no qualifications, and 80 percent more likely to have "higher-level" qualifications. With the exception of under-25s, younger Jews tend to be better educated than older ones.
Read more about this topic: British Jews
Famous quotes containing the word education:
“The legislator should direct his attention above all to the education of youth; for the neglect of education does harm to the constitution. The citizen should be molded to suit the form of government under which he lives. For each government has a peculiar character which originally formed and which continues to preserve it. The character of democracy creates democracy, and the character of oligarchy creates oligarchy.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“If you complain of neglect of education in sons, what shall I say with regard to daughters, who every day experience the want of it? With regard to the education of my own children, I find myself soon out of my depth, destitute and deficient in every part of education. I most sincerely wish ... that our new Constitution may be distinguished for encouraging learning and virtue. If we mean to have heroes, statesmen, and philosophers, we should have learned women.”
—Abigail Adams (1744–1818)
“There must be a profound recognition that parents are the first teachers and that education begins before formal schooling and is deeply rooted in the values, traditions, and norms of family and culture.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)