Last update - 00:00 09/09/2007
Gov't doesn't keep promise to cut medical school tuition
By Tamara Traubmann, Haaretz Correspondent
Medical students who received tuition bills for the upcoming school year have learned that the government has not followed up on its commitment to lower their tuition fees.
Following a student strike that lasted for more than a month, an agreement was signed in May by student organizations, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Education Minister Yuli Tamir. In the framework of the agreement, the government guaranteed it would lower medical school tuition to NIS 8,580 per year - the amount undergraduate students pay annually.
However, the tuition bills that have recently arrived in the mail for incoming students amount to NIS 11,605.
According to the agreement reached in May, students are slated to begin negotiations with the government in coming weeks on implementing a recommendation to raise tuition fees made by the Shochat Committee on higher education reforms.
The students were expected to present the government with an alternative tuition plan. However, Itay Shonshein, the head of Israel's National Student Union, said on Sunday that "there is no point to enter into negotiations as long as the government isn't meeting its commitments." He warned that if the medical students' tuition fees are not reduced as promised, they are likely to renew their struggle when the school year begins next month.
Attorney Boaz Benzur wrote a letter of complaint on behalf of the student union to Steven Stav, the director-general of the budget committee for the Council for Higher Education.
Benzur told Stav that if the violation is not fixed within a week, the union will consider taking legal steps to impose the agreement.
Shonshein also said that the transfer of NIS 22 million promised to educational colleges has not been carried out. "This is management that suits a gang of pirates, not the government of Israel."
The Prime Minister's Office said in response, "The agreement that the government signed with the students will be respected."
However, Stav told Haaretz on Sunday that the government did not coordinate the agreement reached with the students with the necessary budgeting bodies.
"The budget committee was not part of the agreement reached with the students and didn't receive resources to fund it. This agreement was signed over the heads of the higher education institutions and the budget committee. Whoever committed should have involved the budgetary sources, otherwise it causes an additional cut to the budgets of the institutions, which already don't receive full compensation for former tuition cuts," he said.