Human resources in higher education in Israel

Abstract

The higher education system in Israel encompasses universities, professionally oriented academic colleges and specialised teacher education colleges. Israel's two oldest universitiesthe Technion and the Hebrew University of Jerusalempredate the foundation of the State. A first wave of expansion occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, with the creation of five new universities, including the Weizmann Institute of Science, specialised in post-graduate education and research. The 1970s saw the creation of the Open Universityspecialised in distance educationand the integration of the first non-university and teacher education institutions into the higher education system. During the 1990s, the system saw a major expansion of non-university education, with the creation of additional academic colleges, some publicly financed and others established as independent private, non-profit institutions. The private independent colleges rely primarily on tuition fees for their income, receive no public funding and are not subject to government regulations governing the human resources in publicly funded colleges.In the academic year 2019/20, there were 60 higher education institutions in operation in Israel, as summarised in Table 1.