Sources: Olmert may scrap Shochat Cmte. higher education reforms - Haaretz

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Last update - 08:19 25/09/2007

Sources: Olmert may scrap Shochat Cmte. higher education reforms

By Tamara Traubmann and Moti Bassok, Haaretz Correspondents

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert intends to put off implementing the Shochat Committee's conclusions on higher education reform until next year, and may have no intention of implementing them at all, cabinet and academic sources said Monday.

Olmert fears that implementing the committee's conclusions could lead to a renewal of the students' protests and weaken support for his government.

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e Finance Ministry recently said that if the cabinet failed to approve the reforms recommended by the committee, universities and colleges would not receive the budget increments promised them as part of the reform. The Committee of University Heads threatened that without these budget increments, it would shut the universities down and not open the new academic year, scheduled to begin next month.

In July, the Shochat Committee recommended significantly raising tuition while at the same time increasing the schools' state-funded research budgets. The recommendations led to a prolonged students' strike, which ended after the government promised to negotiate with the student unions over tuition levels before adopting the committee's recommendations. However, no date for these negotiations has yet been set.

Vice Premier Haim Ramon, who is in charge of the talks with the students, has reportedly decided to postpone the cabinet debate on the reforms, originally scheduled for next month, to February 2008.

But senior academics said that postponing the cabinet's decision would not enable the universities to raise tuition for the 2008-2009 school year, since enrollment begins around February.

Ramon's spokesman refused to confirm or deny that Ramon had put off the cabinet debate, but said: "We must discuss the report's conclusions seriously before they reach the cabinet and keep the government's commitments to the students."

The university presidents Monday asked Olmert to find an "immediate solution" to their budget problems, to begin negotiations with the students immediately and to set a final date for adopting the report.

"They had an entire summer to talk to the students, but they didn't have a single meeting," said Professor Moshe Kaveh, chairman of the Committee of University Heads.

Former finance minister Avraham Shochat, who chaired the Shochat panel, said the delay "means that the government is backing away from carrying out a real reform of education for fear of clashing with the students. It will be held responsible for the continued deterioration of higher education."

National Students Association Chairman Itai Sonshine said it was wrong to condition the universities' funding on implementing the reform and raising tuition. "It's a bid to exert unfair pressure on the students. Instead of cooperating with the treasury, the university presidents should have dealt with their budget problem in depth, and not placed the financing burden on the students," he said.

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