The Ministry of Finance has proposed a bill for the 2009 State budget, according to which tuition for certain university academic courses will be doubled and the security budget for learning institutions will be cancelled.
MK Shelly Yacimovich (Labor) revealed these two clauses, just a small part of the impositions the Finance Ministry has planned for the country's education system, which she received in a draft sent to the Ministry of Education. She said the Finance Ministry plans to submit the draft for the government's approval without having first received comments by the Education Ministry.
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Another clause calls for the cancellation of security budgets in schools, as the Internal Security Ministry's budget will be cut so as not to allow this funding. An additional NIS 15 million ($4.3 million) is also set to be cut from security funds in schools in which longer school days take place.
MK Yacimovich responded to the new decrees, and said that the significance of the increase in tuition is that only students from wealthy families will be able to become lawyers, accountants, or business-owners.
"Students of a weaker social stature will be totally blocked off from these subjects, and we are actually talking about the privatization of higher education, which is a dangerous and anti-equalitarian move that should not be made," she said.
Yacimovich warned that the government's approval of such a bill will lead to a precedent that can later be utilized for the privatization of other university degrees, eventually causing deep social rifts to be formed, as most of the population will be blocked from pursuing certain academic subjects.
Regarding the second clause, Yacimovich remarked that the cancellation of the security budget in schools will also lead to social malformation. "Parents living in wealthy areas and within the regions of strong regional councils will be able to cover the cost of security, and those hurt and abandoned will be the children of weaker social stature and residents of the poorer municipalities," she said.
Others opposed to the Finance Ministry's draft included Education Minister Yuli Tamir, who said that "cancelling the funds for students studying specific subjects will lead to a differentiation in the different fields of study, and pave the way for the privatization of the higher education system."
National Student Union Chairman Boaz Toporovsky also shared in Yacimovich's fears. "The students will not lend a hand to the privatization and differentiation in tuition and higher education," he said. "The student union has an agreement with the government according to which the tuition will not be raised without the students' approval – and the students do not agree and will not agree to this bill."
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