Last update - 00:00 30/10/2006
Tamir: Treasury hindering efforts for reforms in higher education
By Tamara Traubmann, Haaretz Correspondent
The Finance Ministry is hampering efforts to create reforms in higher education by imposing its own will in the establishment of a committee charged with planning these reforms, Education Minister Yuli Tamir said Monday.
Tamir said officials in the treasury are opposed to any discussion of the higher education budget within the committee, and are insistent about appointing candidates to the committee themselves.
The proposed committee would devise comprehensive reform plans for higher education. None of its members have been named, yet the committee is due to present its plan by January.
"The Finance Ministry has reached a number of resolutions lately that have not been approved by the Education Ministry or the academic world," Tamir told members of the Knesset Education Committee.
The Education Ministry wants to see two professors appointed to the proposed committee, but the treasury has alternative candidates in mind, Tamir said.
The Education Ministry has proposed appointing to the committee Professor Yaakov Ziv, former chairman of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and Professor Menachem Yaari, former president of the Open University and current chairman of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
Tamir has said she would oppose the creation of any reforms committee that doesn't include at least one of these candidates.
The treasury said in response, "the Finance Minster hasn't decided on the members of the committee, and has not ruled out specific candidates."
Tamir and the Finance Ministry are also at odds over the matters up for discussion within the committee. Tamir has insisted that the committee propose future reforms for higher education and determine an estimated budget, while the Finance Ministry has proposed that the committee shy away from the subject of budgets.
University heads see the budget as an important component of reforms that should be discussed by the committee, and are still waiting to receive the NIS 1.2 billion originally cut from last year's education budget.
"Higher education is in a state of total disintegration. We made a mistake by even starting the school year," said Professor Moshe Kaveh, President of Bar-Ilan University and Chairman of the Presidents of the Universities Committee.
"The Finance Ministry's job is to allocate the budget, not manage the universities," he added.
Kaveh said despite the urgent need in the Education Ministry for an increased budget, it would oppose receiving these funds if it meant treasury intervention in the management of universities. He added that continued contention over the committee could result in a university strike this winter.
"If there is no agreement over the members of the committee and the subjects they are to discuss, we will not open the second semester," he said.