Israel's Public Universities Offer Private Master's Programs to Augment Funding. (October 28, 2011)

According to some investigate reporting by Israel's Haaretz newspaper since 2005 the number of privately-funded "study programs" at the nation's universities has almost doubled to 51 in which some 2,350 students were enrolled during the last academic year.

Haaretz describes these master's degree programs as operating essentially as "privatised academic enclaves within the public universities, thereby being rather different from Australia's scheme abandoned by the Labor government of some students paying full fees to take standard university courses.

Initially the programs, which began just over 20-years ago were in business administration but over the years have expanded until currently they range from diplomacy, crisis and disaster management, the humanities and social sciences, philosophy and medicine.

It is generally agreed that the rapid expansion of the programs is the result of savage cuts to public budget allocations as well as reduction in faculty appointments.

Professor Abraham Yogev from Tel Aviv University's School of Education says: "The universities have found that these programs serve as a means to raise money; this is liquid money which promotes budgetary flexibility." But also as a consequence of the universities' dependence on the private addition income "the business management character of universities was strengthened... and this helped establish the non-budgeted study programs."

According to Professor Gila Menahem who runs Tel Aviv University's private program in public policy the university presidents like the programs for economic reasons -- they strengthen the institution's income, so, for example stipends for doctoral students are made available as are funds for research assistants and student research projects in "the equivalent public program.

Professor Yogev noted that: " There are no specific requirements for graduating, like a final exam or final project, beyond the requirements of the [individual] courses," and added, "I've never seen a student in an extra-budgetary [private] program fail."

Critics of these programs told Haaretz that that oughtn't to be surprising seeing as the charges for these courses range between NIS 37,000 to over NIS 100,000 per annum (A$9,700 to over A$26,100). The public universities course fee is about NIS 14,000 per annum (A$3,700).

The Council for Higher Education told Haaretz it has recently launched an "in-depth inquiry into the whole issue of private programs but it has not indicated when the inquiry will be concluded or made public.

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On the local scene The Australian reports that: "A report tabled in Victoria's parliament yesterday cited concerns universities were enrolling fee-paying students with poor English skills who then receive insufficient language support," and, "academics complaining that they come under pressure to drop standards to pass struggling international students."

Victorian acting Ombudsman John Taylor said in the report: "I consider that the universities need to shift their focus from recruiting students and boosting their revenue to ensuring their international students have the necessary skills to study successfully."

International education expert at Melbourne University Simon Marginson told The Australian the sector had been too focused on getting "bums on seats" and that the report should help drive improvements. But he warned improvements like more language support would cost money. "We have to be tougher and move harder now on the improvement than we have been doing."