Business administration programs in Israel are in a dismal state, and getting worse, an international committee appointed by the Council for Higher Education to review the matter has concluded.

The findings prompted the CHE to delay granting permits for new study programs in this field until the situation has been fully assessed.

The committee looked at 13 of the 14 business administration departments at universities, public and private colleges. Sapir College, located in Sderot, was left out because of difficulties stemming from the security situation.

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The review of management programs was part of a series of quality assessments by the CHE, which considers different fields of study each year. Programs currently under review include history and social work. Haaretz recently reported on the dire findings regarding computer science studies, which suffers from low quality instruction, faculty and infrastructure.

The committee appointed in 2006 to examine the state of business programs was headed by Stuart Greenbaum, a prominent American professor of business administration, and included six other business professors from the U.S., the Netherlands and Israel.

The findings were recently given to the universities and colleges for their response. The final report is expected to be released next school year, once that feedback is in, and the CHE has had a chance to discuss the findings.

The report will not include a ranking of schools, and unlike the computer science report, this committee decided against giving each department a verbal grade of "high quality" or "unsatisfactory."

The committee views the training of a management elite as "a strategic goal for encouraging economic growth, social mobility and prosperity in Israel." Moreover, the report states, "Israel's business administration programs should be among the 30 top in the world, and at least one should be in the top 10, but not one of them is in the top 30."

The committee faults a rapid increase in demand for management studies, on the one hand, and a shortage in teaching infrastructure of requisite quantity and quality. Whereas in 1990 there were 574 students working toward undergraduate degrees in business administration, in 2005 the number reached a record 8,592. But the leap in enrollment was not matched in budgets, with the result being that many instructors in the new programs are "of low quality" and do not hold doctorates, classroom hours were cut, classes were moved to evening hours, the school week was reduced to two days, many teaching positions are extremely part-time, and retired professors "who are fed up and have lost the zest for teaching" are doing so in place of more suitable faculty. "The result is a depressing decline in the quality of bachelor's and master's programs," the committee concluded.

Specifically, the review found "disorderly and unorganized" curricula as the basis for programs at business schools that "have become institutions without a vision."

Nor do these institutions do a good job of differentiating themselves.

"There is no unique style and no attempt to define separate content, which would enable each program to define its mission and unique values, which sets its product apart from the others. Vision is not a collection of cliches like 'striving for quality and excellence,'" the committee observed.

In view of the limited resources available, the committee recommends that the CHE guide existing schools to specialize in separate fields, such as finance, marketing and entrepreneurship.

The committee also recommends broadening the education of management executives by including in their training compulsory classes on business ethics, corporate social responsibility and law.