Haifa 25/12/2015. In General, the Mossawa Center welcomes and supports the plan to invest in higher education for the Arab community in Israel There is currently a serious lack of higher education institutions, when and only few Arab colleges (such as low level teaching colleges) and not a single Arab university in Israel. However, the Mossawa Center finds that the CHE’s decision to establish a higher academic college for the Arab Community was made rather late in the game. Approximately 10,000 Arab citizens are already studying abroad in Jordan, the West Bank and Europe.

According to Mossawa Director, Jafar Farah, it is a scandal that the Education Ministry did not undertake similar steps to reinforce the higher education landscape for Israel’s Arab community, earlier.  In his opinion, not one but three Arab academic institutions could have been financed by tuition fees, if those 10,000 Arab citizens would have stayed in the country for their higher education degrees.

The CHE is not trying to improve higher education for Arab citizens in Israel but, as Minister Bennet stated, only wants to prevent the supposed radicalisation of Arab citizens by studying in the oPt or Jordan. If Bennett and the Ministry of Education were serious about improving higher education in the Arab community he would not  have closed the badly needed Arab academic institution in Israel’s largest Arab city, Nazareth last year.

Because of these actions, the Mossawa Center is of the opinion that the new college/campus will not be a strong academic institution but will only be a faceless institution, designed to keep Arab citizens in Israel isolated from the rest of the  Palestinian community, rather than to build strong academic capacities in the Arab community.

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