Anything but another strike

The academic year, to begin on Sunday, is once again in jeopardy due to the risk of a strike. Negotiations with the Finance Ministry are bogged down, and university heads are threatening that without a considerable increase in funding, it will not be possible to hold the school year.

We have had our fill of academic strikes after two years of them: first the students, fighting tuition hikes, and then the lecturers, seeking wage hikes.

Now the debate is over additional funding recommended by the Shochat Committee. The university heads are demanding incremental payments of NIS 480 million as a condition for opening the school year, while the treasury is prepared to give NIS 370 million. The monetary gap is not great, but the gap is significant in its essence. The treasury wants all the money to go toward the goals set by the Shochat Committee, mainly encouraging excellence, while the university heads want to use the money as they please.

The Shochat Committee recommended that in order to stop Israel's brain drain, researchers who excel should be encouraged through wage increments and preferential conditions. Young scholars should be given incentives to bring them back from abroad, and that differential salaries are needed for these "stars." The committee also recommended strengthening research foundations and allocating funding among the universities according to quality, and not political power.

Out of the NIS 480 million the universities want, their heads agree to allocate NIS 130 million to specific goals of upgrading quality and increasing the student body and filling the coffers of the budgetary pension.

But they want the lion's share of the money, NIS 350 million, for their ongoing use without interference from the treasury. This is taxpayer money and it must be monitored. The public has full right to know where its taxes are going. Transparency is important to proper administration and public oversight.

The university heads speak of research that is "in the process of dwindling" and the poor condition of laboratories, but they recently signed a wage agreement giving lecturers a steep 24 percent pay hike that will cost universities about half a billion shekels a year. Some of this money could go toward encouraging research and upgrading laboratories, but they preferred pay increases.

The wage agreement even worsens the brain drain, because veteran lecturers made sure they get much more than the 24 percent in recognition of length of service, while the younger lecturers, who are being courted by universities abroad, will get less. Young lecturers have no length of service and a new wage agreement will not reward outstanding lecturers and prize-winners whose articles and research are quoted abroad.

There is no argument about academia's great importance in our lives, its contribution to culture, society and the economy. And there's no argument that the situation of academia is not good. But besides additional funding, academia must undergo extensive reforms and streamlining, in the spirit of the Shochat Committee, to raise its quality and ensure public money reaches the right places. Progress toward this goal will require concessions from both sides.