AUS Tertiary Update
More investment needed for universities
Ahead of today’s
Budget, the Association of University Staff (AUS) is calling
for greater investment in New Zealand universities to ensure
that they are sufficiently funded to meet the country’s
research and education challenges of the twenty-first
century.
AUS National President, Professor Nigel Haworth,
has warned that the university sector is facing a funding
crisis, particularly in terms of salaries, and that this is
likely to compromise the high quality and good reputation of
New Zealand’s university system unless addressed as a matter
of priority. He said that, for example, when compared with
Australian benchmarks, New Zealand universities produce
graduates at about half the cost per graduate, primarily
because New Zealand salary levels have fallen behind
acceptable international levels.
Professor Haworth said
that New Zealand will need between 700 and 800 new academic
staff by 2010-11, a time when it is predicted that there
will be a worldwide shortage of academics. By then, the
European Union countries alone will need an additional 10 to
15,000 new academic staff just to cope with increasing
student numbers. More still will be needed to replace
retiring staff.
“Every university system in the world is
currently in an increasingly competitive market to recruit
and retain top-class scholars and support staff,” Professor
Haworth said. “Providing funding targeted at improving
salaries is an important part of ensuring the vitality and
the high quality of New Zealand universities.”
Professor
Haworth said that the long-term well-being of the nation
would be better served by increasing investment in
universities as part of the 2006 Budget, rather than by
cutting taxes as has been advocated by those with a more
narrow and short-term outlook.
To publicise the issue of
low university salaries and the need for additional funding,
union members at Lincoln University held a pre-Budget soup
kitchen for staff and students outside the University
Library yesterday.
An AUS analysis of the
tertiary-education-related measures contained in today’s
Budget will be released tomorrow.
Also in Tertiary Update
this week
1. SIS activities trigger staff
concerns
2. Auckland country’s greatest intellectual
resource, says VC
3. Wananga appoints new boss,
maybe
4. PTEs to contest PBRF
5. Commons holds urgent
hearing over pay
6. Sussex votes to save
Chemistry
7. Call for widespread reforms
8. Austrian
sues over too few lectures
SIS activities trigger staff
concerns
Following last week’s reports that discussions
are taking place at universities between the Security
Intelligence Service and vice-chancellors about possible
terrorist threats, the AUS has sought a meeting with
Minister of Disarmament and Arms Control, Phil Goff, to
discuss the content of those meetings and their implications
for universities and their staff.
AUS National President,
Professor Nigel Haworth, says that university staff have
raised concerns about the ramifications on academic freedom
and the autonomy of universities of discussions between the
SIS and vice-chancellors. He said that similar activities in
other countries had led directly to the harassment of
Islamic scholars and students, and had gone far beyond the
taking of simple precautions over security. In a recent
example, a prominent Islamic scholar, Tariq Ramadan, was
denied entry to the United States to take up a tenured
university appointment simply because the Bush
administration disapproved of his political views.
Professor Haworth said the AUS wanted to discuss the
concerns expressed by Mr Goff, including one that New
Zealand universities might be misused by terrorist groups
like al Qaeda seeking to develop nuclear and other weapons,
or that they might inadvertently contribute to developing
expertise and knowledge related to chemical, biological or
nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
Professor Haworth
said that the free circulation of scholars is an integral
part of academic and intellectual freedom, and is
indispensable for the strengthening of a free and orderly
world. “We have seen no evidence supporting state
intervention into universities that might lead to such
monitoring and harassment of university staff and students,
or the restraints on intellectual and academic freedom that
have been sanctioned overseas in the name of
anti-terrorism,” he said.
In his letter to Mr Goff,
Professor Haworth said that the AUS has a particular
interest in issues of academic freedom, and union members
expect the AUS to work with government to ensure that the
right balance is achieved between national security and the
university role as a critic and conscience of
society.
Auckland country’s greatest intellectual
resource, says VC
With an improved international ranking,
more than 30,000 equivalent full-time students, 4,300 staff
and an operational surplus of $19.5 million, Auckland has
stamped its place as New Zealand’s largest and strongest
university, according to its Vice-Chancellor, Stuart
McCutcheon. In an introduction to the recently published
2005 Annual Report, Professor McCutcheon says that the
growing international recognition of the University’s
standing and its leading position locally are strong and
independent indicators of the quality of teaching and
research in New Zealand.
The University of Auckland was
last year ranked at fifty-second in the 2005 Times Higher
Education Supplement World University Rankings, up from
sixty-seventh in 2004. Rankings for individual disciplines
all improved, some significantly so, with Arts leading the
way at twenty-fifth place and Bio-Medical Science
thirty-third. “The University of Auckland is New Zealand’s
greatest intellectual resource,” Professor McCutcheon
writes. “It is the country’s largest, strongest and highest
quality pool of tertiary teaching and research
talent.”
Professor McCutcheon says that he is “very
encouraged” by indications that the Minister for Tertiary
Education intends to seriously overhaul existing
tertiary-education-funding arrangements, adding that, when
adjusted for purchasing power parity, current funding levels
are only 50 to 60 percent of those in public universities in
Australia and about one-third of those in the United States
and Canada.
In other key statistics, the Report shows
that the student-to-academic-staff ratio at the University
of Auckland has improved from 16.7:1 in 2001 to 16:1 in
2005. The total number of enrolled students was 39,420 and
9,887 qualifications were awarded.
Auckland’s other
university, AUT, reports that it made an operational surplus
for 2005 of $7.2 million, $1.4 million less than budget, but
still slightly ahead of its 2004 financial performance. It
had 15,483 equivalent full-time students (22,659 enrolled
students) and almost 1800 full-time equivalent staff.
The
University of Auckland 2005 Annual Report can be found
at:
http://www.auckland.ac.nz/shadomx/apps/fms/fmsdownload.cfm?file_uuid=20268851-C6B0-51A7-6136-555CAF39FE69&siteName=uoa
The
AUT 2005 Annual Report can be found
at:
http://www.aut.ac.nz/resources/annual_report/2005_annual_report_web.pdf
Wananga
appoints new boss, maybe
A report published yesterday in
the Waikato Times, that Te Wananga o Aotearoa has appointed
a new Chief Executive, has been described as premature by a
Wananga media spokesperson. An announcement is, however,
expected to be made later this week when it is understood
that Acting Chief Executive, Bentham Ohia, will be confirmed
in the position.
Earlier in the week, the Times reported
that Mr Ohia would be offered the position and was working
through details such as salary with the Wananga and the
State Services Commission. Mr Ohia, who was the Deputy to
former Chief Executive, Rongo Wetere, has been employed at
the Wananga for ten years. He is reported as saying that the
last year had been a terrible one for the Wananga, and that
he is looking to move the institution forward in the long
term and beyond.
The Wananga’s management is currently
working on the last stages of a proposed restructuring
process in which it is estimated that around one quarter, or
300, of its 1200 staff will lose their jobs. It is expected
that the final restructuring plans will be released next
week as the institution moves to turn around a forecast
operational loss of between $13 million and $27 million. The
forecast deficit is attributed to a slump in enrolment
numbers.
PTEs to contest PBRF
At least five private
education providers intend to contest the Performance-Based
Research Fund this year, most of them citing respect and
reputation as key to their decision to put staff research
portfolios forward for evaluation, according to Education
Review.
Confirmed starters include AIS St Helens,
Bethlehem Institute, Bible College of New Zealand, Carey
Baptist College and the Whitecliffe College of Arts and
Design.
In the last PBRF round, two of those providers,
Carey Baptist College and the Bible College of New Zealand,
received rankings above those of the Auckland University of
Technology, Unitec, Waikato Institute of Technology and all
four colleges of education.
Education Review reports
Independent Tertiary Institutions (ITI) Executive Director,
Dave Guerin, as expecting more PTEs to enter this year’s
PBRF than did in 2003. Guerin said one factor likely to
drive up participation was that more money would be at stake
because the full amount of research funding would be removed
from Student Component subsidies and placed in the PBRF from
next year. He also said that ITI members believed they were
doing a good job, and the PBRF provided them with an
opportunity to prove that.
A Carey Baptist College
spokesperson, Martin Sutherland, said the College contested
the PBRF because it recognised the link between research and
teaching at degree and postgraduate level, and because
funding was involved. Bible College Dean of Studies, Tim
Meadowcroft, said his institution was concentrating on those
staff who had a realistic chance of improving their grade,
while Bethlehem Institute Executive Dean, Amy Edwards, said
the Institute’s return to the PBRF showed that it was
serious about doing research and doing it to the required
level. Similarly, Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design
Chief Executive, John Shaw, said participation in the PBRF
enhanced the reputations of the College and of its
staff.
Worldwatch
Commons holds urgent hearing over pay
Union and employer representatives were called to an
emergency hearing before a House of Commons committee last
night as the pay dispute in United Kingdom universities
becomes increasingly bitter. The Education and Skills Select
Committee ordered the hearing after the Association of
University Teachers (AUT) and the lecturers’ union Natfhe
rejected a “final and best” offer from the Universities and
Colleges Employers’ Association (UCEA) and reaffirmed
support for continuing industrial disruption.
Union
representatives told the Committee that their pay claim is
affordable and justified, and there seemed to be a
recognition amongst MPs that lecturers are underpaid. “This
is no surprise as more than 180 MPs have expressed support
for better academic pay,” said Roger Kline, Natfhe
spokesperson. “What we cannot understand is why universities
have only offered the same as last year, despite £3.5
billion of extra new money available from this year, and why
it took them seven months after we submitted the pay claim
for them to come up with any offer. We deliberately
submitted our claim early to avoid the current crisis. They
have been sleepwalking into this mess.”
Natfhe and the
AUT have claimed a salary increase of 23 percent over the
next three years and are refusing to mark exams until their
demands are met. The employers have offered 12.6 percent
over the same period.
The dispute escalated last week
when AUT members voted to continue indefinitely with
industrial action until the employers make a better offer.
At its Annual Conference last week, AUT members acknowledged
that the graduation of 300,000 final-year students could be
jeopardised by the marking boycott, and also warned that
students could graduate with “substandard degrees” if their
marks were “cobbled together” by non-academic staff.
Meanwhile, at least nineteen vice-chancellors are
reported to have told the UCEA that they will withhold pay
from staff taking part in the action, and more are expected
to follow. Deductions range from 10 per cent to 100 per cent
of salaries.
In response, the unions are writing to
vice-chancellors, pointing out that feelings are hardening
on campuses and that increasing threats to dock pay or
suspend hundreds of staff would do nothing to resolve the
dispute or get exams marked.
From Natfhe, the Education
Guardian and Times Higher Education Supplement
Sussex
votes to save Chemistry
The University of Sussex has
abandoned its controversial plans to axe its Chemistry
Department following intense criticism from scientists
across the country. At an extraordinary University Council
meeting this week, members voted to adopt a recommendation
from the Vice-Chancellor, Alasdair Smith, which will see the
Chemistry Department retained and expanded to include
Biochemistry.
Professor Smith had initially wanted to
scrap Chemistry and merge it with Biology, but his proposal
was widely condemned by academics, the Royal Society and the
House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee.
The Head of Chemistry, Dr Gerry Lawless, who led a vocal
campaign to save the Department, applauded the decision,
saying they could now go forward to build on their
excellence in Chemistry at Sussex.
Earlier this month,
the Commons Committee described the proposal to close the
Department as “seriously flawed”, and said the decision was
handled “particularly ineptly”. The Committee’s highly
critical report also accused the Vice-Chancellor of failing
to make any attempt to save Chemistry.
From the
Education Guardian
Call for widespread reforms
Europe’s
universities are riddled with “rigidities and hindrances”,
according to a strategy document published this week by the
European Commission. The paper calls for “immediate,
in-depth and co-ordinated change”, ranging from the
regulation and management of systems to the governance of
universities.
Publication of the paper comes in response
to a request made at an informal European Union summit last
October, at which time government heads asked the Commission
to identify areas for action that could be used to drive a
growth and jobs agenda towards economic competitiveness.
Austrian sues over too few lectures
An Austrian
student union is taking legal action against Graz Medical
University on behalf of a student who is demanding
compensation for loss of future earnings because of a lack
of lectures. The student is one of about 140 medical
students who are likely to have to sit out an entire
semester or more because the University failed to provide
enough lectures on three modules.
Stefan Schaller said
the student union, of which he is Chair, was demanding
compensation for loss of future earnings because the student
would not be able to enter the job market as soon as he
would have liked. The union is also demanding a refund of
his tuition fees, with Mr Schaller adding that he hopes the
case will set a precedent. “We have taken action because
legally we are in a position to claim compensation, but as
always our main goal is to find a better solution, namely an
increase in lectures,” he said.
Gilbert Reibnegger, the
University’s Vice-Dean, said that such a move would be
impossible. “Unfortunately, we have only a certain number of
qualified professors, and they are already up to their ears
in lectures and tutorials. It is just not possible for them
to conduct more.”
From the Times Higher Education
Supplement
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AUS
Tertiary Update is compiled weekly on Thursdays and
distributed freely to members of the Association of
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the AUS website: www.aus.ac.nz. Direct enquires should be
made to Marty Braithwaite, AUS Communications Officer,
email:
marty.braithwaite@aus.ac.nz