Last update - 03:32 13/11/2007
Uni. rep: Without agreement this week, semester could be lost
By Tamara Traubmann
If striking senior university faculty and the Finance Ministry do not reach an agreement by the end of the week, "the whole semester might be canceled," the chairman of the Committee of University Heads, Prof. Moshe Kaveh, told Haaretz yesterday.
Kaveh said that the semester is only 14 weeks long, and the strike is already entering its fourth week.
"Once this week is over and we are a month into the strike, things will start getting very serious. The main victims are the students," Kaveh said.
Treasury officials have met weekly with representatives of the senior faculty associations, but there has not been any significant progress.
The faculty is striking for better pay and a new wage agreement to replace the one that expired in 2001.
As for the National Students Association's threat to take legal steps if tuition is not refunded for courses not being held, Kaveh said the universities would make up the work.
Kaveh, who is also president of Bar-Ilan University, said the universities are in ongoing turmoil. "We'll have a graduating class hurt by the war in the first year, the student strike in the second year, and the faculty strike this year," he said.