Politics and Academia (by Oded Goldreich)

The administration of higher-education has always been part of public politics. However, till the late 1980's the political powers in Israel showed little interest in the actual administration of higher-education and left it to the universities themselves. Things have changed since then, with the attack of neo-liberalism on any aspect of social life.

According to neo-liberalism, any aspect of human life is subject to the rationale of profit (aka capital-gain) and has to be administered accordingly. In my opinion, at best, this claim reflects a reversing in the roles of goals and instruments: the main aspects of human life (like education and culture) are of intrinsic value that can not and should not be subjected to the rationale of capital-gain, whereas subjecting them to this rationale results in degenerated forms of human life. Specifically, education and research can not and should not be administered as production of goods and selling of merchandise.

Material available below (all in Hebrew)

On the disaster of privatizing the academia, by Tamar Gozansky, January 2007.
The university as a corporation, by Efraim Davidi, July 2007.
The Ministry of Finance vision of Higher Education, by Yair Censor, Dec. 2007.
A student flyer (re the strike and beyond), TAU, Dec. 2007.
Who's university is it anyway?, by Arie Nadler, Dec. 2007.
A draft of positions regarding higher education, Dec. 2007.
See 2-page summary.
A statement of the inter-senate committee (re the strike and beyond), Dec. 2007.
Analysis of the situation of higher education and positions wrt it, by Dani Gutwein, Spring 2008.
On quality, excellence and competition, by O.G., June 2008.
(See also The Smoke-screen called `Encouraging Excellence', by O.G. [July 2008]).
Save the higher education, by O.G. and Yuval Yonay, June 2008.
(See also a more concrete version, by O.G. [Oct. 2008], revised after the PM's decision.)
Crisis, Management, and Leadership in the University - What's now? (following the effective sacking of TAU's president), by Abraham Beja, July 2009.
On quality evaluation as a basis for resource allocation, by O.G., Jan 2010.
What's the point in creating new centers of excellence (response to an article in De Marker), by Tsaffrir Zor, March 2010.
Who Needs Assyrian (on the role of academia in human culture), by Miri Eliav-Feldon, June 2010.
The Smoke-screen called `Encouraging Excellence' (revisited, a propos the `centers of excellence' program), by O.G. [July 2010]. A different version was posted on the Social Science in Isreal website [Sept 2010].
See also additional pragmatic considerations.
Everything should be Taught: An Academic Institution does not Belong to the State, but to all Mankind, by Menny Mautner, August 2010. [English version]
Neutrality is political, by Eva Illouz, August 2010.
Another step in the governmental attempts to seize control on higher education, extracts from an essay of Gideon Eshet, August 2010.
A digest of Chaim Gans' article on Academic Freedom, by O.G., Sept. 2010. [English version]
Answers to six questions regarding my views re the crisis of academia in Israel, by O.G., Sept. 2010.
A new visuion for the Higher Education system (in Israel), a position paper by the coordinating council of the junior academic staff associations in Israel, November 2010.
On the concrete meaning of the general contemporary pressures on academia, by O.G., June 2011.
The vision of academia and the commercial nightmare, by O.G., June 2011.
University (in Hebrew), by Anat Matar (+ comments by O.G.), July 2011.
On the ``quality assessment'' committees of MALAG (see also an extended version), by O.G., Dec. 2011.
A short related rebuttal (unpublished by Haaretz, as usual...)
On the general context of the Report on the Politics and Government Department at BGU, by Iris Agmon, Dec. 2011.
On the Commercialization of Academia, by Yossi Loss, Dec. 2011.
On the policing of knowledge, by Dani Filc and Niv Gordon, Jan. 2012.

In addition, see notices of the Forum for Public Education (or better the forum's webpage) and documents of the Inter-Senate Committee (ISC) of the universities for protection of academic independence.

[Last update: Dec. 10th, 2011]

Back to Goldreich's homepage or to Oded's personal web-page