The academic year for higher education institutions starts Sunday, after the threat of a strike at the country's universities was allayed by a NIS 140 million infusion by the Finance Ministry.

The committee of university heads had threatened the strike, arguing that cuts of NIS 1.2 billion over the past five years had made it impossible for the institutions to open.

The Technion - Israel Institute of Technology and colleges in the north have postponed the opening of the school year until November 5, while the University of Haifa will open next Sunday. The delay will allow students and institutions time to complete exams canceled due to the war.

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The over 250,000 students learning this year is twice the number of a decade ago (including students at teachers colleges). However, social gaps preventing some students from reaching higher education still stand. While 36 percent of young people of Ashkenazi origin or those born here started their academic studies last year, only 26 percent of young people of Asian or African origin did so. Among young people of Asian or African origin, only 48.5 percent continued any form of study after high school, compared to 63 percent of those of European or American origin.

Economic standing also influences entry into academic studies: 38 percent of the lowest economic deciles continued on to higher education, compared to 71 percent of wealthier Israelis.

Economics and business continue to be the most popular area of study, with 1,946 applicants at Tel Aviv University, and 1,700 applicants at the Hebrew University. Law is also high on the list, with 1,671 applicants at Tel Aviv University. Medicine and biology each had about 1,000 applicants.

The most competitive course of study is occupational therapy, with only four percent of all applicants accepted, followed by medicine, for which six to seven percent of all applicants are accepted.

Government panel to examine state of higher education
The academic year starts Sunday in an atmosphere of reform, potentially the most substantial reform of higher education in Israel ever. In an interview to mark the occasion, Education Minister Yuli Tamir says a committee will examine the state of higher education and draft recommendations for budgeting the education system for the coming years.

This is the first time an entity not comprised of only academics will draft education policy. The committee has a broad mandate including the budget dispute, tuition, professors' wages and prioritizing research subjects. It has until January 31 to reach conclusions and submit its recommendations to the cabinet.

The committee is the result of Tamir's arm wrestling with the Finance Ministry, which included merit-based pay for professors in the Economic Arrangements Bill. The professors' unions, until now relying on collective bargaining agreements, were vehemently opposed.

The committee - whose creation was a compromise on the wage item - was greeted by the education system with suspicion diluted by hope. Tamir and academic leaders believe the reform will increase the resources available to higher education.

However, sources at the universities claim the committee will rubber-stamp treasury plans, including merit-based pay. Tamir says the treasury is not dominant on the committee with one representative out of six members. But already this week the treasury officially announced that the additional NIS 140 million slated to allow the academic year to start, will only be granted after the committee submits recommendations.

The committee will apparently be headed by former finance minister Avraham Shochat and include Tamir, treasury budgets director Kobi Haber, prime minister's representative Professor Manuel Trachtenberg and Professor Shlomo Grossman - the budgets director of the Council for Higher Education, as well as one public representative.

Despite the claim that t he establishment of colleges has opened higher education to populations of lower socio-economic standing, just 15-17 percent of lower decile youth started studies last year, compared to 38-48 percent of youth from the highest deciles.

Tamir believes the solution lies in changing the method of tuition payment, touting student loans and raising tuition to about NIS 10,000. Everyone would be eligible for the loans, the bulk of which would be repaid after the student gets a job that pays the average wage. Tamir has considered this option - modeled after Australia - paramount since before she was appointed to her current position. It is popular with the universities, who expect it to compensate them for the decline in tuition fees in recent years.

The committee will also debate merit-based pay for professors, which the treasury claims will encourage research and excellence and allow universities to attract intellectuals who currently prefer the private sector or American universities. Tamir is less enthusiastic. "The merit-based pay we will offer here will never compete with Israel's free market or foreign schools."

Tamir says she is still undecided on the wages issue, saying professors already receive salary differentials and bonuses for getting research budgets.

Israeli universities perform poorly in international academic rankings, with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem scoring best in the periodical "Higher Education Times" this year - at 119 of 200. Tamir attributes the poor performance to lack of resources. "Israeli universities have become high schools," she says. "Large classes, outdated libraries. When I teach, I bring the books from home." She says academia needs another NIS 1.5 billion "to return to growth."