The Council for Higher Education in Israel is planning to offer separate classes to Haredi men and women in Israeli universities to encourage ultra-Orthodox students to enroll, Ha’aretz reported Thursday.
Separate classes for male and female students already exist in some colleges, university preparatory programs and a dedicated campus within Bar-Ilan University.
The Council is a supervisory body for universities and colleges in Israel, and is the only organization with the authority to award academic educational accreditation. The head of the council is always the Minister of Education, and at least two-thirds of its members are academics. Council members will vote on the segregation plan next month.
The council received a document prepared by a team of experts, which recommended that non-Haredi students who may feel more comfortable in male- or female-only classes should also be allowed to join. The separation will include advanced-degree programs.
But opponents have argued that softening the program’s definition of who might qualify for the separate classes would start a creeping gender-separation that could significantly influence hiring decisions. That’s because the council plans to renege on one of its staunch beliefs, and bar women from teaching male-only classes.
However, Prof. Orna Kupferman of the Hebrew University, whose School of Computer Science and Engineering successfully incorporates Haredim, told Haaretz that the new policy reverses the council’s own stand that “gender and sectoral separation were foreign to academic studies, opposed to their essence, and impairs equality.”
At the moment, gender-separate programs are only offered for bachelors’ degrees. But the document suggests that should the need arise, to revisit include classes in advanced degrees in the therapeutic professions, “for which there is a critical need in the Haredi community.”
