The Knesset's Finance Committee held an emergency meeting Wednesday, following the Finance Ministry's demand of several universities to retroactively return funds allocated to them in the previous academic year.
The Treasury demanded that the universities immediately refund some NIS 150 million (approx. $44.7 million), and further threatened not to funnel the next academic year's budgets, which amount to NIS 770 million ($228.17 million) due to the universities failure to implement the Shochat Reform.
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Former Finance Minister Avraham Shochat, who also headed the Shochat Committee for Reform in Higher Education, criticized the decision as "unreasonably hostile towards the higher education system."
The heads of the universities and student bodies were outraged by the decision, calling it scandalous.
The implementation of the Shochat Reform has been delayed due to a severe disagreement between Education Minister Yuli Tamir and the Finance Ministry. The disagreement revolves around Tamir's promise to the student unions, that the reform's recommendations regarding a future rise in university tuitions would be canceled.
"The higher education system has suffered an ongoing budget cut for several years. The Shochat Committee was formed in the interest of finding a solution to the need for new infrastructure, research and creating new jobs. The Treasury was a part of the committee's discussions and the formulation of its recommendations which is why its objection to it now is a strange one," said Tamir.
The universities, she added, must be allowed to formulate a rehabilitation plan immediately; by deducting the current tuitions rates – which were not increased – from the overall, NIS 2.4 billion ($710 million) budget the committee recommended be allocated to the higher education system.
MK Isaac Ben-Israel (Kadima), told the committee that "there is no greater risk to Israel than the crumbling down of it higher education system."
Former President of Ben Gurion University and MK Avishay Braverman (Labor-Meimad) added that "this is the most pressing matter on the Israeli agenda at the moment as it must be treated as such."
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