Eastern Mediterranean International School (EMIS)

The Eastern Mediterranean International School (EMIS) is a new international boarding school located in Hakfar Hayarok, Israel, which welcomes around two hundred students coming from countries all over the world, with significant representation from the Euro-Mediterranean region. EMIS combines high quality education with intercultural exchanges and aims to foster an entrepreneurial spirit among students, and provide them with solid employable skills.

The school offers a high-level two-year innovative pre-university programme (11^th-12^th grades) preparing young people for the International Baccalaureate Diploma. The academic curriculum in particular provides a great focus on language proficiency – courses are taught in English, while Arabic and Hebrew are taught as second languages.

EMIS intends to provide an educational programme focused on intellectual stimulation and transversal skills development. Students will be offered the opportunity to participate in the “entrepreneurship leadership” programme, where they can create or join an entrepreneurial project and attend a series of lectures and workshops about entrepreneurship.  On completing their studies, students are encouraged to take a gap year in order for them to develop additional soft skills, by employing their newly acquired knowledge and experience and/or participating in a volunteer scheme in the region.

The UfM Secretariat and EMIS partner for the increase of potential scholarships and for promoting the school towards new audiences in the region. EMIS students also organize an annual “Youth Organized Collaboration on Peace and Sustainability” – YOCOPAS conference. The UfM Secretariat has been actively supporting the team in their efforts.

The school opened after first developing and testing the model through a series of successful consecutive summer courses on environmental issues and cultural activities. While one of the main objectives of the school is to contribute to the emergence of creative young generations in the region, it also aims to strengthen relationships between young people and to serve regional cooperation. Professional training sessions of short duration will also be offered in parallel to external educators, teachers and representatives from civil society organisations.

About the promoter and partner institutions

The Eastern Mediterranean International School Foundation is a private foundation that was founded in 1991 under the name “United World College in Israel Foundation”, which was changed later for EMIS. The EMIS management team benefits from the support of a dedicated group of international and local business leaders, educators and United World Colleges’ graduates who want to make a difference in the Eastern Mediterranean. EMIS was labelled by the UfM in June 2016.