The government's compromise, aimed at settling a dispute with university students over proposed education reforms and ending a near four-week-old student strike, is "humiliating," National Students Union Chairman Itai Shonshein said yesterday.

The student unions of various universities and colleges were involved in late-night discussions yesterday over the compromise proposed by the Prime Minister's Office.

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The proposal includes a pledge that tuition will not be raised until the end of next year, and students currently enrolled will pay the same tuition they are paying now until they graduate - even if tuition is raised.

Rebate planned

The proposal also states that students who enroll next year will pay the same tuition they are being charged today for the first year, and will received a three percent rebate in their second year, after the proposed education reforms go into effect. Students who enroll in 2008 will have to pay the tuition outlined by the disputed reforms.

One of the major disputes fueling the students' outcry is the fact that the reforms were forced upon them, rather than formulated in a joint effort including student representation.

Meanwhile, students at Tel Aviv University yesterday sealed off the campus with chains and barbed wire. Tel Aviv University decided to cancel its summer semester, during which only a few courses are taught, to allow classes and exams missed because of the strike to take place.

Students also blocked the entrance of Technion University in Haifa yesterday, but for less than an hour. Some 400 Technion students then held a protest rally in downtown Haifa, but did not cause any traffic hold-ups.

Some campuses stayed open

The Haifa and Bar Ilan University campuses remained open, but Bar Ilan students patrolled the entrance to the University in a bid to convince lecturers and fellow students not to cross the picket line.

Student leaders, meanwhile, decided to go ahead with the plan to lock the campus gates in any case. "We won't let anyone in. The campus will be empty," Boaz Toporovky, chair of the Tel Aviv University Student Union, said Sunday.