Ariel University: the struggle continues

The pledge to directly fund Ariel University Center, even at the cost of clash with experts, undermines independence of higher education system.

Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz's pledge to the Ariel University Center to add more than NIS 100 million to its budget next year, bypassing the bodies authorized to deal with funding academic institutions, is a tangible example of political involvement in the higher education system. As reported by Talila Nesher in Friday's Haaretz, the budgeting committee of the Council for Higher Education is attempting to justify the move. It is putting together general criteria that will, of course, conform to the academic situation of the institution in Ariel.

Ariel University Center. Photo by Alex Levac

In fact, senior members of the committee concede that since the money is going to be given in any case, all they have left to do is to try to build a new model for higher education that justifies the existence of university centers as an interim phase between a college and a university.

The higher education system has largely managed to maintain its independence for more than 50 years. The law establishing the Council for Higher Education, passed in 1958, and that body's budgeting committee, established in 1977, were intended to create a barrier between the government and academic institutions. Indeed, the decision to establish the budgeting committee stated: "The government and the national institutions will avoid accepting requests or recommendations from the institutions of higher education themselves or from any other source."