What's with Zilbersheid saying that a welfare state would help Israeli academia? In fact, the opposite is the case. As long as Israel values bureacrats over quality, the educational system will continue to fail. Only when knowledge and not hte number of substandard degrees affects salaries can this change. When a government worker with a BA from Jezreel Valley College is paid the same as one from Harvard, will there not be incentive to innovate and educate. Unfortunately, Israel's rigid statist way of thinking leads to poor education.

All too true. My experience has been that students don't learn (they don't see the point) and professors don't teach (their priorities lie elsewhere), and many if not most senior university administrators don't care. The idea of a university is just not part of academic discourse. Zilbersheid's welfare state solution is a wrong headed non sequitur.

Israeli college students and their teachers are just very lazy. Apparently they expect to be paid to sit in class, read nothing, learn as little as possible, and then either become teachers themselves, or demand high paying jobs that they cannot perform. Indeed, this welfare state attitude go a long way in explaining the utter imcompetence of many of our professionals in government and the workplace. This lack of a work ethic has even influenced the IDF and the Israeli media, where it seems that the only thing one needs to get ahead is protectzia and a yes man mentality.

It's difficult to imagine how Dr. Zilbersheld can say: "The country was never built as a genuine welfare state, and the situation has been deteriorating since the 1980s. This reality manifests itself through overcrowded classes, surging violence, and scholastic levels doomed for mediocrity." In the U.S. there's a close link between welfare programs and schools filled with violence and underachieving students. The two feed on one another. In contrast, a century ago and aided only by private Jewish charities, the children of poor Jewish immigrants to the U.S. from Eastern Europe did incredibly well, so well that elite universities had to come up with nasty schemes to keep them out. Israel's woes don't stem from the lack of a welfare state. The problem is cultural and attitudial. --Mike Perry, Inkling Books

The standards in academia in Israel must be raised. The recent growth of post-secondary institutions ("michlalot") that offer under-graduate and graduate degrees severly compromises the credibility of degrees offered from Israeli instiutions. It seems as though anyone can get an academic degree today. The politics, economic problems, and lack of ethics in Israeli universities further compromise our credibility. For example, The social science library at Bar-Ilan closes at 5:00pm; the periodical section was closed for almost a month because of construction; and for a two day period students could not take out books because the computer system was being updated. It is unacceptable that such things occur at a major academic instiution. Moreover, BIU is stuck in the middle ages. Even universities in Afraica provide registration services through phone and e-mail. At BIU, students must stand in line for a week and register in person. We must move forward and join the rest of the world in the 21st century!

Maybe if Israeli universities actually used academic standards in hiring, rather than appointing faculty on the basis of their anti-Israel treason, the universities would have better academic track records!

Universities in Europe now compete for students -- Israeli universities are sadly unconcerned. The result is mediocrity. The solution: translate all the uni websites into English, create an "admission+ulpan" category, and work to attract Americans and French. When a Jewish boy from NY or a Jewish girl from Paris logs onto Web sites and ends up considering Hebrew U against Harvard or the Sorbonne, then Israeli universities will be worth their salt!

I am constantly amazed at how so many critics of education like to remember the good old days. They forget the high drop-out rates. the small numbers attending colleges, andmost importantantly, the tremendous drive of immigrants to get an education. In the US, critics of public education call for all kinds of schemes to destroy the public schools because they insist that kids aren't learning". Well I got news for these critics. Most public schools that are well-funded and have a student population of motivated kids from families that value education are doing just fine. In Israel, security needs has undoubtedly drawn money away from the Universities and the stress that the kids are feeling from the onslaught of terrorism and the uncertainty of being called up for dangerous reserve duty has also sapped the energy of many students. Yet with all of that, Israeli Universities are doing better than what should be expected. Less medical research than Kenya? Don't make me laugh.