Higher Education Council to oversee budgets of teacher training colleges

As part of ongoing reforms in higher education, responsibility for budget allocations to Israel's teacher training colleges is to pass from the Education Ministry to the Planning & Budget Committee of the Council for Higher Education. The move, which was worked out in negotiations among students, the council and the finance and education ministries, is expected to cost about NIS 400 million, spread over six years. About NIS 20 million will be allocated to the program for the 2010-2011 academic year.

The Education Ministry allocates about NIS 520 million a year to teacher training and NIS 30 million annually to the teacher training colleges for development and computerization. In recent years, however, both these budgets have seen cutbacks, and students at these schools complain of outdated infrastructure, less than comfortable studying conditions, crowded classrooms and shortages of computers and other equipment.

According to Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar, the new arrangement has several major benefits, including "the ability to make significant budget increases, improve the physical and technological conditions and at the end of the day also improve the salary levels" in the teachers' colleges.

The move, which the Council for Higher Education approved as early as 2006, also includes the merger of some of the smaller teachers' colleges. Planning & Budget Committee Chairman Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg, who described the measure as "historic," said it would be incorporated into the council's next five-year plan, which is being drafted. "In the long run the measure will lead to the upgrade and improvement of the teacher training colleges," Trajtenberg said.

About 20,000 students are enrolled in Israel's 29 teacher training colleges, the largest of which include Kibbutzim College of Education ("Seminar Hakibbutzim" ), Levinsky College of Education, Beit Berl Academic College and Oranim - The School of Education of the Kibbutz Movement.