The Air Force Technological College, Beersheba

The story

The Air Force Technological College in Beersheba, known in the city simply as “the Technical”, stands in the northwest of the city, on Ilan Ramon Road. The Beersheba branch was set up in 1976, in the days of the directorship of Gad Sandak, as a branch of the Air Force Technical School — an institution founded in June 1948 by Yehuda Hashimshoni and called at its beginning the School for Aviation Trades. The choice of Beersheba is not accidental: the technical array of the Air Force sits in the south, and the flight school is located at the Hatzerim base beside the city. Today this is one of the two large schools of the array, alongside the Technical in Haifa. The pupils are cadets: they wear the uniform of the Air Force, a beret with a distinctive badge and emblem, and white stripes on the shoulder strap mark the year of study. A daily morning parade and a cleaning parade are held here, and the pupils are responsible in rotation for the cleanliness of their classroom. The studies begin in the ninth grade and include the core subjects as in every school, and beside them an extended technological subject for the matriculation examination; some of the lessons are given by professional teachers and some, mainly the technological ones, by soldiers. The tracks in Beersheba are electronics and computer engineering, computer science, mechanical engineering in the aviation track, mechanical engineering in the mechatronics track, and electrical, control and energy engineering. According to the school register about nine hundred and fifty-one pupils study here, five hundred and seventy-six boys and three hundred and seventy-five girls. At the end of the studies the cadets enlist in the Air Force.

• Education
• Beersheba