Higher education feeling the squeeze

Two months ago, the physicist Prof. Hans Weidenmuller of the University of Heidelberg in Germany sent a shocking letter to the Prime Minister, President and Minister of Education.

Weidenmuller, a world-renowned scientist who has maintained close contacts with Israeli researchers for decades, wrote that he has closely monitored scientific research in Israel and was always amazed by the rapid development and international reputation it acquired. But when he visited Israel last year - after five years of university budget cuts - he saw a different picture. In Jerusalem he witnessed the destructive results of these cuts, such as unchecked homework and labs run without proper supervision.

In the absence of a budget, he noted in the letter, there is no development of new model experiments, and even maintaining what already existed is not possible due to the reduction of technical staff. These heavy blows have lowered teaching standards, he warned.

According to Weidenmuller, who last year chaired an international committee for evaluating physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, if the present situation continues, Israel will lose its leading position in modern science and be unable to supply leading scientists for future generations.

The hardest two years

The past two years were among the hardest experienced by Israel's higher education system. Following the findings of the Shochat Committee created to assess higher education in Israel, which included a recommendation to raise university tuition fees, student organizations shut down the higher education system. After an agreement was reached with the students, the universities' senior staff went on strike, and after they obtained a raise, the junior staff enacted sanctions. Last month, an agreement was struck to improve the junior staff's employment conditions, ending the wage fights at universities.

However, leaders of the higher education network claim that the current crisis has only just begun, and that the finance ministry dried out the higher education system over recent years, bringing academic instruction and research to the brink of collapse. University heads say that without additional resources, it will not be possible to open the next academic year.

Researchers and institution presidents gloomily describe the situation now facing academic research. At the moment, ahead of the higher education system's next five-year plan, Education Minister Yuli Tamir, university leaders and students are asking for the additional NIS 1.8 billion that had been cut from their budgets. "Just approving the addition can ensure the future of higher education," Tamir told a recent conference of senior higher education officials.

However, the finance ministry is refusing to allocate the budget, and demanding in return implementation of the Shochat Committee's recommendations to raise tuition fees. The finance minister further claims that raising lecturers' salaries - an achievement of the last strike - will come at the expense of the budget designated for the education system. "The lecturers took the money for their salaries," says a finance ministry official. "That is their decision, and they can't expect it not to come at a cost." Some in the higher education system are incensed by the finance ministry's attitude to their demands, saying that the wage agreement was signed between the academic staff and the government, and its results cannot come at the expense of restoring universities' and colleges' budgets.

"This is a ridiculous claim," says Prof. Shlomo Grossmanthe, chair of the Higher Education Council's Planning and Budgeting Committee. "We didn't get involved. We don't employ the staff. The negotiations were conducted between them and the finance ministry, and there's no reason why the universities should suffer because of it."

According to Grossmanthe, "we're missing some 600-800 positions, and lack funds for research and renovating infrastructure. The absence of a plan for the next five years will lead to a situation where the institutions won't open their doors." The finance ministry, for its part, is demanding a change in the organizational and budgetary structure of the higher education system, which today enjoys partial autonomy from the government in determining how institutions are budgeted. "The Planning and Budgeting Committee's management is distorted," says the ministry official. "We don't know what they're doing with six billion shekels, because they operate without transparency. They must enact reforms if they want to receive budgets."

Prof. Grossman sees the ministry's demand for 'administrative reforms' as a political attempt to take control of the universities' autonomy. "Undoubtedly, the ministry's goal is to harm the independence of higher education," he says. "By law, the Planning and Budgeting Committee's role is to be an independent and apolitical body. As soon as the system loses its independence, it will be unable to conduct independent research."

At the moment, the gap between the finance ministry's position and that of the education minister is considerable, and seems far from being bridged.

If no agreement is reached, the Prime Minister will have to decide on the matter. In response to a query from Haaretz, Olmert's office made it clear that it supports the finance ministry demands. "In discussions underway ahead of formulating the 2009 budget the government will give preference to education as one of the important foundations, but is also demanding changes in the higher education system in order to lead it to a better future."

'Choking the system'

This week, two conferences dealt with the higher education crisis: one at Tel Aviv University organized by the Forum for the Protection of Public Education, and the other organized by the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem. At the Tel Aviv conference, Prof. Nathan Daskal of the physiology and pharmacology departments portrayed the cuts as part of an intentional policy on the treasury's part. "Senior treasury officials want to choke the only system that is capable of criticizing their activity. They don't want researchers who will present to the public what they are doing." At the Van Leer Institute conference, the institute's director, Prof. Gabriel Motzkin, presented the crisis in academia in a more general context. He argued that universities around the world are coping with budget problems similar to those faced in Israel, primarily caused by the sharp increase in student numbers over recent decades. "In Israel the problem became particularly acute, but it's a problem all over the world," said Motzkin. "When the modern universities were set up 200 years ago, three percent of the population acquired an education. Today, it is tens of percent. The state must decide if it wants research on a high level or education for a broad population. The finance ministry is essentially saying that the state does not want to bear the burden of the universities. If the present policy continues, research will deteriorate, and in the best case scenario, will be conducted at private research institutes."