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Ben Gurion University
The 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel and Israel’s ensuing wars in Gaza and Lebanon, have hit the country’s higher education sector hard, with roughly a quarter of all students, as well as faculty, called up to the armed forces, while budget cuts are expected as more money is allocated to the military.
Foreign funding to universities has also declined, although private philanthropy is partly offsetting the losses. Israeli universities’ international cooperation has also been impacted due to boycotts.
“The impacts of the conflict have been unimaginable. Around 70,000 students in higher education have been called up to do reserve duty [out of 300,000 total students], many for multiple tours,” said Professor Daniel Chamovitz, president of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and chair of VERA, the association of Israel’s university leaders.
“At the same time there’s been a resurgence of anti-semitism, anti-Israeli protests, and calls for boycotts from universities,” he added.
All Israelis over 18 years of age are required to carry out a minimum two-year period of military service and can be called up for reserve duty until they are 40 years old. Men are required to serve a slightly longer period than women.
Disruption to education
In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas-led 7 October attacks, students and lecturers joined the military reserve or were called up, and the start of the academic year was rescheduled to January. Due to lecturers being called up, certain classes were postponed, and some universities resorted to remote teaching.
Some 62,000 Israelis have been displaced from the north due to the conflict with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, forcing the Tel-Hai College in Kiryat Shmona to teach out of other locations.
“They’ve been working elsewhere for an entire year,” said Chamovitz.
Universities in the north, such as the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, and Haifa University have also had to have medical school examinations held in different locations, said Chamovitz.
While Israel has been targeted by rockets from multiple fronts – from Gaza, Lebanon and Iran – universities have continued to operate.
“In Jerusalem, no one is safe, but we don’t need to do remote teaching. We are not in the border zones,” said Dr Michal Muszkat-Barkan, director of the Department of Education and Professional Development at Hebron Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Jerusalem.
At other universities remote learning has become more commonplace, including for reservists.
“All of us have had to deal with classes where up to half of students aren’t there,” said Chamovitz.
“This academic year, we’ve seen students miss 100 to 150 days of classes, but they have succeeded, as we have found ways to give tutoring, such as duplicate classes and remote teaching, and for professors to be available at strange hours. We’ve had one lecturer give a class remotely from the frontline,” noted Chamovitz.
Some 6,500 out of 19,000 students at Ben Gurion University (BGU) are reservists, along with 600 BGU faculty. Around a quarter of Tel Aviv University’s 30,000 student body has been called up, the university reported.
Delayed study plans
Now that Israel has widened its military attacks in Lebanon, invading its northern neighbour earlier this month, the demand for remote learning is unlikely to decrease.
The ongoing conflicts on two major fronts are requiring student reservists to continue in the military, causing a delay in reservists’ plans to study at both undergraduate and graduate levels.
“For the past year, young reservists couldn’t start their studies, and for this coming academic year, they are not sure if they’ll be able to take the exams and get into universities.
“There is another whole year they may be in reserve, so can’t go to university,” said Muszkat-Barkan.
There has been a decline in international students studying in Israel, whether exchange students or enrolled at the country’s nine public universities.
“It has been a massive drop. On October 7, many left,” said Chamovitz. He said Ben Gurion University had only had a small drop-off, due to its specialisation in sustainability and climate change, and desert agriculture, whereas universities teaching more basic sciences had seen a larger decline in foreign students.
Exchange and short-term visits have also declined. “It is understandable when you look at the news,” said Chamovitz.
Israeli universities have been feeling the impact of calls for boycotts and disinvestment due to the ongoing conflict, with pro-Palestine demonstrations over the past several months taking place at universities across the world, particularly in North America, calling for the ending of ties with Israeli academia.
“We feel the anti-Israeli atmosphere in the academic world. It is not related to the subject area; it could be physics or medicine … And academics are not welcome for sabbaticals at other institutions. International collaborations among researchers are also very influenced by this situation,” said Muszkat-Barkan.
Research funds
Larger research funds and cooperation agreements are also at stake. In July, more than 2,000 European academics and 45 organisations issued a petition to the European Commission to end the European Union (EU)-Israel agreement that enables Israeli participation with the EU research programme Horizon Europe, which has provided some €2.6 billion (US$ 2.82 billion) in research funding to Israel since 2007.
In applying for funding, Chamovitz said there was a fear of a “passive boycott, where reviewers may negatively try to impact Israeli proposals, [for example] for the European Research Council, but we’ve not seen that yet”.
Foreign funding for research at Israeli universities has declined, including in high-tech sectors as the conflict has continued. However, private donations to universities are helping to offset losses.
“We’ve seen a huge uptick in philanthropy from donors who are frustrated with universities in North America moving funds to Israel,” said Chamovitz.
Government budget discussions continue in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, hampered by disputes in the ruling right-wing coalition, with ultra-orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism threatening to withhold support without guarantees that haredi men are exempt from military service.
Public universities are concerned that upcoming changes to the national budget to pay for the conflict will allocate more money to the military while education will be cut.
“Our fear is a war on the general budget on education in Israel. If there are massive budget cuts, we will have to decide to cut back on staff, hiring or research. I’m not sure how we will do it. Our biggest fear is a lost decade of higher education,” said Chamovitz.