Shochat Committee Delivers Final Recommendations for Reforming Israeli Higher Education. (July 17, 2007)

Avraham Shochat

 Yesterday Israel's Committee for Examining the Higher Education System, better known as the Shochat Committee, for Former finance minister Avraham Shochat, delivered its final recommendations for reforming the Israeli higher education sector to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

In  late-May the Israeli student unions and the government signed an agreement that ended a five-week student strike, which stipulated that the committee's recommendations must receive the student unions' agreement before going up for a vote in the cabinet that would make it policy.

The committee sought to address several specific issues regarding the resourcing of Israel's eight universities. For example budget cuts to higher education since 2001 have reached nearly NIS 1.4 billion (A$375 million) and together with a loss of income due to lower tuition, the per-student expenditure on higher education has fallen 20% during that period.

The Shochat Committee has now recommended that tuition be raised from NIS 8,588 (A$2,300) annually to NIS 14,800 (A$4,000) a jump of 72%. However, a governmental loan scheme that would spread payments over 10 years is included in the recommendations and repayment would depend on the student reaching a gross fortnightly salary of NIS 5,300 (A$1,420). If the former student does not reach this salary during the 10 years, the loan becomes a grant.

The committee also recommends an increase of some NIS 2.5 billion (A$670 million) to the annual higher education budget of NIS 8.3 billion (A$2.2 billion), a 30% rise. Of the increase, NIS1.5 billion. will come from an increase in the nation's higher education budget, NIS 150 million from the universities, and NIS 600 million. from the increased tuitions.

As regards funding for university research, the Shochat Committee has recommended that the National Science Fund should have its NIS 250 million (A$67 million) allocation doubled. In addition a new NIS 100 million (A$27 million) fund for biomedical research should be opened, a NIS 15 million (A$4 million) fund will be set aside for research in the humanities and  NIS 200 million (A$53.5 million). to go toward "research infrastructure", including laboratories and scientific libraries.

According to Shochat, the new plan will be phased in over a five-year period beginning in the 2008-2009 academic year.

The committee also recommended capping the number of university students accepted to the state universities each year, and offering generous "absorption packages" to exceptional researchers willing to come to Israel from overseas.

So far there is no indication as to how the Olmert government has reacted to the report but the response from universities' students and staff has at best been mixed.

According to National Union of Israeli Students head Itay Shonshine, the committee's conclusions would "lead to the privatization of higher learning," and would have to pass student approval first.

Around 50 protestors from student organizations and Tel Aviv University demonstrated outside the press conference where the committee's report was released while about one hundred students demonstrated Monday opposite the Prime Minister's Office, protesting the Shochat Committee's recommendation of a 72 % raise in tuition.

According to Mr Shonshein there was currently no strike planned, but if the government spurned negotiations with student bodies to reach agreed conclusions, they would resort to other measures.