Universities return to aptitude exams to keep arabs out

[Saudade]

Comment: Needless to say, this sort of institutional racism would be unacceptable in a more evolved society.

Universities return to aptitude exams to keep Arabs out

By Relly Sa'ar



There's no politically correct spin to put on it,
and the facts speak for themselves: As soon as
Israel's top university administrators noticed
that the big winners from admissions policy
changes were not Jewish youngsters from low-income
towns, but rather Arabs, they reverted back to the
old admissions system.

This year, the universities
instituted a policy change -
the abandonment of
psychometric aptitude tests
as a requirement for
admissions. However, once
university officials realized
that the main beneficiaries
were Arabs, they decided to
reinstate the exams.


During the upcoming academic year, university
admission candidates will be judged according
to the old system, which is based on a
combination of high school matriculation exam
results and the psychometric tests. By
reinstating the old system, the universities
apparently intend to guard against high
enrollments of Arab students in selected
departments.

One of the country's universities studied the
results of this year's new admissions policies
- candidates had to submit their results from
various high school matriculation exams rather
than take the aptitude tests. However, the
university discovered that the new admissions
system benefits Arab candidates. For example,
the percentage of Arab students who were
supposed to be accepted to the university's
faculty of dental medicine under the new system
was 52 percent; in the previous academic year,
when psychometric results were part of the
admissions policy, Arab students comprised just
29 percent of the first-year class. The same
held true for the university's occupational
therapy department: under the new admissions
system, 56 percent of first-year students were to be Arabs; under last year's old admissions
system, the figure was 19 percent.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/365572.html

[Resistance]

1. look the other way

and fund the racism?

Yeah that's the American way.