Last update - 00:00 07/11/2007
TAU policy chair: Brain drain takes 25% of academics from Israel
By Mijal Grinberg, Haaretz Correspondent
Roughly 25 percent of all academics leave Israel, according to Dr. Dan Ben David, director of the public policy department at Tel Aviv University. Ben David put the number at between 1.5 and four percent four European countries.
Ben David spoke at the Sderot Conference, which is taking place at Sapir College, on a panel titled "The Brain Drain from Israel."
MK Michael Melchior (Labor-Meimad), who chairs the Knesset Education Committee, sat on the panel, and attributed the brain drain to a capitalist worldview, which he said has taken over Israeli thinking.
"Tuition should be free if we want to strengthen higher education. We should strengthen it among weaker sectors of society and add living stipends," he said. Melchior presented data according to which the achievement gaps in Israel are wider than in several third world countries, like Thailand.
Melchior called the secondary school teachers' strike, which entered its 25 day on Wednesday, a symptom, maintaining that young teachers must be listened to. "These are young and excellent people. What conditions to we give teachers at our schools?"
He also criticized the high number of students in classrooms, and cuts in teaching hours. He also lamented the fact that "once, the reason to immigrate to Israel was the education system. Today, it's a reason not to immigrate."
Nobel Prize laureate Yisrael Aumann, who won in 2005 for his work in economics, allowing each university to determine tuition. Zvi Galil, president of Tel Aviv University, facilitated the panel.