Last update - 00:00 09/08/2007
Council refuses to recognize West Bank college as University
By Tamara Traubmann, Haaretz Correspondent
The heads of the Council for Higher Education and the council committee
responsible for the budgets of academic institutions do not recognize last week's announcement by the College of Judea and Samaria that it is now a "university center."
Budget committee director general Steven Stav sent a letter to members of the committee and the higher education council Thursday, instructing them to ignore correspondence from the institution in which it refers to itself as the Ariel University Center of Samaria.
"In light of the college's announcement that its position has been upgraded to be a university center, I am clarifying that we do not see this change as a proper change in accordance with the regulations and the law," Stav wrote. "As such, I am asking that no request from college representatives be dealt with in which they come to us under the name 'the university center,' including responses to letters, dealing with new programs, budgeting and allocating money."
However, institution officials said the announcement was made only after it received the necessary authorization.
Although the process of turning the college into a university began two years ago, neither the higher education council nor its budget committee had previously taken an unequivocal stance against it, and did not take aggressive action to put a halt to the switch.
However, the council is now demanding that the college "immediately cease" using the term "university center," and should make public its return to using the term "college."
Education Minister Yuli Tamir and budget committee head Shlomo Grossman told the heads of the college on Wednesday that they take the issue seriously, "because the announcement could mislead the public, since it is in total opposition to the budget committee's decisions and in opposition to the position of the Israel Defense Forces commander in the West Bank."
Yigal Cohen-Orgad, who heads the institution's executive committee, said he was "very surprised that the education minister is acting in contrast to what she publicly committed to, which is to act only within the framework of the law.
"All the steps to upgrade the college were carried out precisely in accordance with the directives of the deputy attorney general," he said. "According to legal opinions we have, there was no need to get the approval of the military commander."