Blocking Social Mobility in the Open University: Governing Institutions and the Council for Higher Education, 1974-1987

Abstract

This article discusses the import and assimilation of an academic framework from Britain to Israel, which led to the establishment of the Open University. The vision of this type of institution was to reduce the large academic disparities that had developed between various groups in Israel. The development and coalescing of this new academic institution in Israel during its formative years raise fundamental questions concerning social solidarity and social justice in Israel’s higher education system, particularly in the context of relations between the two main ethnic groups – Ashkenazim and Sephardim. How have these relations been translated into the division of power and wealth, in the context of both the universities and the activity of the Council for Higher Education, alongside the Committee for Planning and Budgeting which is the government body responsible for overseeing the activity of the academic system? My goal is to discuss the principles of social and cultural order that were injected into the academic system during the 1970s and 1980s and their connection to the universities’ political and cultural identity, alongside the organizational responses to questions of heterogeneity, tension and the major disparities that had developed in the universities based on the accessibility of an academic education. Specifically, higher education in Israel during this period was accessible to Ashkenazim while extreme inequality characterized the integration of Sephardim within university studies. As a result, Sephardim were excluded from employment in academic professions and from the management and allocation of resources in Israeli society. It is my claim in this article that the Open University did nothing to reduce disparities in higher education during this period and essentially worked to preserve and perpetuate the situation in which large population groups are denied access to academic degrees.