page_title: Yokneam Illit
section_title: Education
hierarchical_section_title: Yokneam Illit / Education
caption_attribution_description: English: The Yokneam Media Museum
context_page_description: Yokneam Illit, also Yoqne'am Illit and Jokneam Illit, is a city in northern Israel. It is located in a hilly region of the lower Galilee at the base of the Carmel Mountains and overlooks the Jezreel Valley, 21 kilometres from Haifa and 80 kilometres from Tel Aviv. Yokneam is known as Israel's "Startup Village" because its high-tech hub is surrounded by forest and small communities.
  Yokneam Illit was founded in 1950 and became a local authority in 1967, and a city in 2007. The city is located alongside the country's major highways – Highway 70 and Highway 6. In 2018 it had a population of 23,311.
  Starting in 1989 when a new mayor, Simon Alfassi, was elected, the economic structure of Yokneam Illit changed from a centralized dependence on two large factories to a dispersed base of many small high-tech companies. As the number and size of the companies grew, Yokneam and the small communities around it began to attract young entrepreneurs and developers who were looking for a less urban alternative to the Tel Aviv area. It now has over 100 high-tech companies and exports of approximately 5 billion US dollars annually.
context_section_description: Yokneam allocates 42% of its budget to education. With 75% of its students passing the national matriculation exams and a dropout rate of only 0.8%, Yokneam Illit was awarded the National Education Prize and the Regional Education Prize several times in recent years. Preschool from age 3 has been free in Yokneam Illit for 20 years.
  The municipality of Yokneam has developed a special relationship with the Jewish communities of Atlanta, GA and Saint Louis, MO, whereby all three communities work together to create programs for bridging the gaps between communities and cultures, and to provide all students with equal opportunities.
  The Environmental Protection Ministry (Israel) awarded a number of Yokneam's kindergartens and elementary schools the “green label” because of the way they integrated study of the environment into the local curriculum. In grades three through six, elementary school students spend a full week during of school at the city's Science Museum.
  The IDF Head of Manpower Planning recently awarded the city a special excellence prize for achieving an 87% level of enlistment in the IDF and the eighth highest level of recruitment to elite units and officers courses in all of Israel.
  Construction of a "breakthrough" educational campus is nearly complete, with an educational infrastructure for study from kindergarten to high school that will eliminate the transitions that affect students’ lives. The campus will have sports halls, day care centers, kindergartens, elementary and high schools, and academic courses prior to IDF enlistment.
  In addition to Yokneam's proximity to Technion(23.8 km), University of Haifa(22 km), and Oranim Academic College(7.5 km), Yokneam has a branch of the Open University for bachelor's and master's degrees. The municipality is currently trying to expand on this by working with major universities to open branches in Yokneam.
caption: The Yokneam Media Museum
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