The Higher Education Forum was established following an international conference held in December, 2004, at the Samuel Neaman Institute, under the heading “Transition to Mass Higher Education Systems.”
Samuel Neaman Institute, in collaboration with “Bashaar – Academic Community for Israeli Society“, run the Higher Education Forum, which meets several times per year.
The aim of the forum is to ensure that the unique characteristics of the Israeli academy are maintained and strengthened, and to draw attention when academic freedom jeopardized.
The forum provides a critical examination of the academic system as an independent and free system, in order to reflect, assist, and influence decision-making processes in matters of higher education policy, in the ‘Knesset’, government, Israel Council for Higher Education, Planning and Budgeting Committee, and in the academic institutes for education, so that every decision will be made after all circumstances and potential influence have been openly discussed.
Steering Committee 2021:
Prof. Shimon Yankelewitz (Chair of the Higher Education Forum), Hagit Messer-Yaron (Chair of Bashaar), Prof. Aaron (Aharon) Ciechanover, Prof. Yaarah Bar-on,
Prof. Irad Yavneh (CEO of Samuel Neaman Institute), Dr. Vered Ariel-Nahari (CEO of Bashaar), Mr. Amos Shapira.
To recent Recorded Meetings of the Higher Education Forum.
Meetings from the past:
Meeting Number 1 – April 15, 2005
Greetings: Hagit Messer-Yaron, Nadav Liron
Amnon Pazy: “The Master Plan for the Higher Education System in Israel, Planning versus Reality”.
Round Table Discussion
Meeting Number 2 – May 13, 2005
on the subject: “Higher Education Problems from the Universities point of view”
View Video
PRIVATIZATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEMS – AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
In the period since 1990, Israel’s higher education system has experienced both rapid growth and rapid structural change. One of the central policy questions arising in the wake of these developments is: “What should the relative roles of public and private institutions be within the national higher education system?” In January 2008, an international symposium on Privatization in Higher Education Systems took place, which aimed to provide a systematic, informed answer to this question in the Israeli context. The conference was held under the auspices of the S. Neaman Institute, Bashaar-Academic Community for Israeli Society, the United States-Israel Education Foundation, the Azrieli Center for Economic Policy, Bar-Ilan University and the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
The symposium’s deliberation provided policy makers from the higher education system and from government with the opportunity to begin analysis of the Israeli situation in the light of international experience with the assistance of local higher education researchers and foreign experts. It is hoped that the process initiated by the symposium will encourage and contribute to the formulation of a rational, pro-active policy regarding privatization.
Watch additional forum meetings
View the forum’s recent session:
Publications
- Major Plan for Higher Education – Planning Versus Performance
- Preliminary Reflections on Knotty Issues, University Education and Human Resources
- The Triad Research University Model or a Post 20th Century Research University Modal, University Education and Human Resources
- On Mass Higher Education and Institutional Diversity, University Education and Human Resources
- Rethinking Higher Education in Israel – the Colleges, University Education and Human Resources
- The Golden Age of Scientific Technological Research University
