Performance Measures - Compensation for Research and Teaching Outcomes in the Higher Education System The Case of Israel - A Comparative View

Teachers in academia are usually not required to have teacher training but must often be evaluated by their students, who expect them to have much better teaching qualifications than their high school teachers. However, teachers in elementary and high schools are required to go through several years of teacher-training, resulting in a teaching certificate, which is usually mandatory in the secondary school system. This anomaly causes great tension in colleges and universities, and often results in pressure to "improve" teaching evaluation in regard to academic level. In many countries, a doctorate degree in any field automatically allows its holder to teach in academic institutions, because the students are expected to learn on their own, while the professor is the expert, responsible for helping with complicated questions. These discrepancies often hamper the advances of higher education. This paper presents the situation of teaching in higher education in selected countries, while presenting various paradigms for improving the state of teaching in higher education. The aim is to study the methodologies used to assess the quality of teaching in higher education systems in general and in Israel specifically. Introduction In the twentieth century higher education experienced a transformation - from a limited elitist system it became a system for the masses. This process, called the "massification of higher education" (Trow, 1973), was manifested in a huge increase in the number of students throughout the 20 th century all over the Western world. In 1950s Europe the percentage of undergraduate students was 3%-5% of the relevant age group. In the late 1990s the number ranged from 36%-53% and nowadays it has reached more than 60% in most European countries (Lindberg, 2007). In the United States a similar trend has become evident, with the numbers currently encompassing 73% of the relevant population (Toutkoushian & Shafiq, 2010). Moreover, in the various Western countries public opinion surveys indicate public's recognition of the major significance of higher education for individuals' employment options and economic stability (Sandler, 2013). The data show that in OECD countries the weight of employees with higher education has doubled during 1975-2000 from 22 to 41 percent (www.worldbank.rg/education/tertiary/documents/cks/chapter2.pdf). Canada and Australia have undergone a similar process. The number of undergraduate students has skyrocketed in comparison to the 20th century and nowadays exceeds 50% (Finnie & Usher, 2007). Israel too has joined this global trend and is part of the revolution in higher education. The 1990s saw the beginning of a huge demand for higher education in Israel, together with the opening of new institutions in response to this demand. The growth rate of Israeli students in the 1990s reached an annual average of 8.1%, and their numbers jumped from 76,000 in 1990 to 166,000 in 2000 (CHE, 2012). At present, with full utilization of the relevant age group for undergraduate studies, the annual growth rate has dropped to 3% and the total number of students is now 298,400 (ibid.). From a wide point of view, this means a growth rate of several hundred percent in a matter of two decades. The huge increase in the relative weight of students and in their absolute numbers has resulted in an array of changes, challenges, and difficulties in systems of higher education (Davidovitch, Soen & Sinuany-Stern, 2011). One of the immediate implications of the transition to "mass education", particularly in a public educational system, is the burden on the national budget (Weiler, 2000). Countries invest from 0.5%-1.5% of their GNP in funding higher education, and in OECD countries this rate is particularly high, reaching 1.3% (Docampo, 2007). Tuition paid by students has remained low and institutions need a variety of external funding sources. Nonetheless, despite the significance of external funds, research universities rely mainly on internal-public funding sources.