"In the XNUMXs we were in a situation where the number of faculty members per capita was similar to the Americans, and since then the ratio has increased for them and for us it has decreased by more than half, so in the end there is a significant neglect of higher education at the higher levels" explains Prof. Ben David
Towards the beginning of the new academic school year, the Root Institute for Economic and Social Research publishes selected pages from the guide, which provide a kind of evaluation sheet for the higher education system in Israel.
Among the main findings of the Root Institute:
- In 1970, the proportion of Israelis of prime working age with an academic education was the lowest among all educational groups - today it is the largest group (p. 16).
- The proportion of Israelis of prime working age with academic degrees is higher than in all countries of the world, except for three (p. 29).
- Huge gaps between different population groups in obtaining an academic education (pp. 30-31):
- A large gap between secular and religious, although the rate of graduates increased in both groups (p. 30);
- The percentage of those with an academic degree among the ultra-orthodox is very low, and contrary to popular opinion - this percentage has been relatively stable since the mid-2000s (p. 30);
- Despite being still very low, the percentage of those with an academic degree among Arabic speakers has increased greatly during the last decade - especially among women (pp. 30-31).
- Large disparities in the quality of academic institutions and the salary of graduates (pp. 22, 32). Also, there are large wage gaps between the graduates of the various disciplines.
- After a constant rise since 1990, the proportion of Israelis in higher education has stabilized, and even decreased somewhat in recent years (p. 76).
- As an expression of the shift in national priorities, their share in the population of senior faculty members in universities has steadily decreased since the mid-seventies - a 60% decrease (p. 77).
– Far more graduate students receive instruction from far fewer faculty members (p. 78).
- The continuous decline over decades in the national expenditure on higher education per student has been halted and even reversed in recent years (pp. 79-80). However, public expenditure per student is still among the lowest in the OECD.
- The quality of academic research (as measured by average citations per article) is converging in the developed world - as Israel's leading research institutions are closing the gap with the leading institutions in the USA (pp. 81-82).
In an interview with the Hidan site, Prof. Dan Ben-David says:
"If we look at the research side, there is a convergence in general in the developed world in terms of research quality compared to the OECD in general and the USA in particular, and in this context there is an improvement. In terms of personnel, the population has doubled since the seventies, and we haven't added another Technion or Weizmann or Tel Aviv University. On the one hand, a right step has been taken in terms of adding colleges - an intermediate range between research universities and high schools for those who cannot and should not even reach these levels. But at the same time, in the XNUMXs we were in a situation where the number of faculty members per capita was similar to the Americans, and since then the ratio has increased for them and for us it has decreased by more than half, so that in the end there is a significant neglect of higher education at the highest levels. In the end, this is the key to productivity and economic growth, not to mention the impact on the character of a country."
"The number of students per capita in the universities decreased by 60%, and beyond that, on a conceptual level, a country that needed the presence of such institutions in order to be able to ride the high-tech wave that broke out in the XNUMXs, this is because we had advance preparation. You can now see how we are preparing the future generation - from the very low-level schools that do not prepare the children well for higher education, to the higher education levels that we have not developed the elite side of."
"There is a sign in recent years of a change in budgets. There has been a very significant decrease in public spending on higher education over the past decades. It changed and started to rise, but is still very low compared to the OECD, which indicates the attitude towards higher education, which is not a priority in the State of Israel."
"There are many things that affect the low productivity, such as the physical investments - the road infrastructure, but also the investments in human capital. It starts in the primary and secondary schools, at such a low level and in the basic areas at the bottom of the OECD. It is part of a world view that we should not invest in the most important things for society and the economy, but that other interests are more important in the national priorities than the interests of all of us. Physical and human infrastructures help us all and these are things that have been greatly neglected in recent decades.
So what is the solution according to Prof. Ben-David?
"In our opinion, we should start with the basic areas in schools - more children should study at a higher level. On a personal level it will help to get out of poverty, but also in general we will use more cylinders in the engine. Too few children become students at the leading institutions in the country. We need many more children to reach the highest levels in the country. It is possible - there are many children with potential who do not reach their realization. One of the reasons for this is that the schools do not bring them to the required level, but another factor is that we have not increased the possibilities. We have not increased the research universities, either increasing the existing ones or adding new ones. We didn't add [research institutions] here as the population grew."
"With the opening of the school year, it's simply an opportunity to take a look at where we were, where we are, where we're headed. The continuation of the existing picture is very problematic. And it's a shame, you can change direction. Everything depends on us."
"For the assessment sheet" of Mossad Shoresh
See more on the subject on the science website:
2 תגובות
What else do you need to know?
In my opinion - there is a need to understand that development is the result of a disadvantage. If there is a disadvantage to getting food, then naturally the development will lead the society to get a place that can provide necessary things.
If the disadvantage is to gain respect, then the society or the person will inevitably navigate to such places or knowledge with the help of which he can realize his main disadvantage - respect.
So what suddenly happens to us in the 21st century?
A new disadvantage is entering human society. This drawback is a developmental continuation of a program found in the wild. (It is clear to me that some disagree with me on this assumption).
If we zoom out and look from above, we can see that this development started in philosophy, experimental psychology, cognitive psychology, humanistic and more. Physiology began to take its place with the discovery of neural electricity (Luigi Galvani) and dramatically changed everything related to behavior patterns and intervention in them.
And in the 21st century? Today we are facing a new era. A human society that tries to understand the reasons behind the forces that actuate us, a society that tries to find the middle ground between conventional science that has clear methodology and basic characteristics (objectivity, empiricism, etc.), and what is currently found to be unattainable. What lies beyond the limits of our perception.
When we are able to understand this shortcoming, we will be able to understand the Israeli student who subconsciously thirsts for a new way of learning, for new research, for knowledge. He is curious but finds no point in the old paradigms.
He is thirsty for a paradigm that on the one hand will be scientific, but on the other hand will also be able to answer his questions about his existence and the meaning of his life.
We can call this kind of wisdom that answers this inner desire - the wisdom of truth.
What has not been said about the difference between presenting facts and interpretation.
The university model is going bankrupt, and the first to demonstrate this are the Israelis, whose entrepreneurship and innovation no one can doubt.
There is a need for a more sophisticated model for the training of the population, one that does not interpret excellence in a one-dimensional way and places it only at reaching university research - there is no doubt that in the field of natural sciences and basic research this is the highlight, but many people with many skills in many fields can benefit more from training courses adapted to excellence in the fields of entrepreneurship , economics, management or engineering. Not only will they enjoy, so will we as a society and country.
Human society has evolved and there are many critical positions where optimally trained people should be placed, not idiot intellectuals who didn't really understand what they were taught in outdated and ineffective paradigms.
And it simply does not exist, imposing the archaic university model on so many areas of creation and knowledge accumulation, and it cannot continue like this forever.