There were no real surprises in the Shochat Committee's recommendations for reforms in the higher education system, presented in their entirety yesterday for the first time. The committee recommends that the government maintain the present hierarchy between universities and colleges; that it increase the higher education budget by NIS 2.457 billion to compensate for cuts and erosion of the budget in recent years; and that tuition be raised to NIS 14,800 per year, while establishing a system of grants and loans. The report presents a long list of additions to the budget over the next five years. For example, NIS 800 million will be devoted to improving research infrastructure at universities and the budget for the National Science Foundation will be doubled to NIS 500 million. The committee recommends the establishment of a biomedical fund of NIS 100 million and a fund of NIS 15 million for humanities research. It recommends approximately NIS 300 million be earmarked for scholarships based on economic need.

The committee also recommended that NIS 1.491 billion of the total increase in the higher education budget come from the state budget. NIS 605 million of the increase is to come from tuition and NIS 150 million will have to be raised from other sources. The committee also recommended that to stop the brain drain, promising young scientists must be given higher salaries for a limited period, as well as housing assistance, larger research budgets and other preferred conditions.

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The committee has also proposed giving university presidents "administrative flexibility" to attract leading researchers and lecturers, including monetary grants for limited periods.

This recommendation replaced the idea of employing a small number of staff members under personal contracts. Lecturers unions vehemently opposed this idea because it would have broken collective wage agreements now in place at the universities.

Committee Chairman Avraham Shochat said the reform would "bring home the brains" and lead to excellence in Israeli research.

About 50 students from Seminar Hakibbutzim teachers college and Tel Aviv University demonstrated near the press conference where the Shochat report was presented. The chairman of the National Students Union, Itai Sonenshein, said that the reforms would lead to the privatization of higher education and that student loans have failed in other countries.