Deputy head of Council for Higher Education resigns abruptly

Galnoor cites inability to implement reform just one year after taking post.

By EHUD ZION WALDOKS
Prof. Itzhak Galnoor, deputy head of the Council for Higher Education, threw in the towel after just one year and announced Wednesday that he was resigning from his position and from the council altogether. The Council for Higher Education is the national body that governs higher education in Israel. During a meeting with Education Minister Yuli Tamir, Galnoor said that in light of the current crisis in higher education he had come to the conclusion that he could not accomplish the missions for which he had agreed to assume the position, among which was the necessary reform of the council itself and its subordinate body - the Planning and Budgeting Committee. Tamir asked him to retract his resignation, but Galnoor, the de facto head of the council, agreed to stay on for just two more weeks until May 1 - when the second semester at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem begins and he can resume his teaching position in the political science department. "I thank the education minister for the trust she put in me, as well as my colleagues at the Council for Higher Education who chose me to be deputy head. I also want to thank the staff of the council and the committee for their collaboration over the last year," he said in a statement. Galnoor declined a request to be interviewed for this article. Yuval Lidor, the council's spokesman, told The Jerusalem Post that Galnoor had attempted to revamp the organization but the "establishment objected to it. The organizational structure was good enough as is and didn't need to be changed, they said." Galnoor teaches Israeli politics and comparative politics at Hebrew University and has been a visiting professor in the US, Japan, Denmark and at Oxford University. He served as civil service commissioner from 1994-96. He is also a fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.