TEU Tertiary Update Vol 12 No 9

MANUKAU TEACHERS VOTE ON WORKLOAD STRIKE

TEU members at the Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) are voting on whether to take industrial action in a ballot which closes today. It comes after being presented with an offer they say includes major claw-backs to current conditions and fails to address their growing workload.

According to TEU branch president at MIT, Lesley Francey, the key issue for MIT workers is workload.

“Cuts last year to general and admin staff numbers saw many administrative tasks reallocated to academics. Increasing numbers of students creating larger workloads is the straw that is breaking the camel’s back,” said Ms Francey.

Currently, the MIT collective agreement allows for teaching staff to teach a maximum of 835 contact hours a year. Staff are becoming increasingly concerned that this number is becoming a target rather than maximum. They are seeking to limit timetabled teaching hours to a maximum of 20 hours a week and to introduce workload bands that would see those staff teaching at higher levels, with large numbers of students, or with more out-of-class assessment, teaching fewer contact hours per week.

In response, the employer has offered a 3.2 percent pay increase over 22 months, broken up into two smaller increases, and the introduction of a clause that would enable MIT and individual members to negotiate flexible arrangements as variations to the collective agreement. TEU members believe this clause could have a detrimental effect on working conditions, especially on hours of work for new employees and employees in particular areas of teaching such as nursing. MIT is threatening to withdraw this offer from the negotiating table if it is not accepted today.

ALSO IN TERTIARY UPDATE THIS WEEK:

1. Ryan challenges rush over Youth Guarantee
2. Students with disabilities lose out from student restrictions
3. Chopper ride has TEC in a spin
4. Sciences lecturers face redundancy at Massey
5. Value of Lincoln-AgResearch merger questioned
6. Polytechnics to sell education to Saudi women
7. University of Zimbabwe closed – again
8. Tasmanian casual academics seek better deal
9. Economics dean quits over sackings

RYAN CHALLENGES RUSH OVER YOUTH GUARANTEE

TEU president, Dr Tom Ryan, is warning that the government’s proposed Youth Guarantee Scheme, which aims to offer alternative education options for 16 and 17 year olds, needs to make sure it doesn’t move young adults out of the public education system simply so they can become a commodity for private companies. His comments followed statements by the government in recent weeks that it wishes to “fast-track” the scheme.

“Giving teenagers options that keep them in education is a great aim that we all agree with, but I’d be worried if fly-by-night private providers started mopping up students between secondary school and polytechnic because the government is in a hurry to introduce a policy before the framework is in place” said Dr Ryan.

He went on to say that the scheme is supposed to be closely integrated with five new trades academies around the country, but four of these academies are not yet up and running. The minister of education, Anne Tolley, has only just called for expressions of interest to establish them.

“A number of well-established programmes such as STAR already address the link between secondary and tertiary education. The minister could support them to ensure they continue to provide a high-quality service to students. Polytechnics also could help, but enrolments in most of them are already up near the the limit of their student cap,” said Dr Ryan.

“New Zealand has an integrated and respected public education system that stretches from early childhood to tertiary. It’s important that the Youth Guarantee Scheme does not break the transition between secondary and tertiary education or allow second-rate providers to pull in students simply because officialdom wants them out of the school gates but off the streets.”

STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES MAY LOSE OUT FROM RESTRICTIONS

Massey University food nutrition and human health senior lecturer, Dr Stuart McLaren, is warning that tertiary-education institutions need to be very careful before they start contemplating policies to restrict numbers of students on account of funding shortfalls. Dr McLaren was responding to comments by the University of Canterbury vice-chancellor Rod Carr two weeks ago. Dr McLaren believes that such policies may be interpreted as discriminatory if they further erode the rights and opportunities of vulnerable groups, such as those with disabilities, who are already under-represented in many tertiary-education student populations.

He notes that Massey University’s equity of educational opportunity policy, for instance, guarantees equity of access to educational opportunities for all current and prospective students, irrespective of disability or any other status.

“Any restriction of numbers on account of funding shortfalls which further exclude or disadvantage vulnerable groups such as the disabled would be in contravention of every clause in this policy.”

Dr McLaren further notes that the issue is similar to that which has arisen regularly in the compulsory-education sector.

“Many schools still seem to believe they are entitled to degrade the educational rights and participation of their enrolled disabled children on account of funding shortfalls. This has never been an acceptable practice and is the subject of a major complaint by IHC to the Human Rights Commission,” Dr McLaren continued. “Likewise, it should not be considered an acceptable solution in the tertiary-education sector. By proceeding down this path, any institution leaves itself wide open to challenge in court or in other judicial bodies such as the Human Rights Commission.”

Dr McLaren, who is writing a paper on access to tertiary education for people with disabilities, argues that they are already a significantly under-represented group in academic programmes.

“Institutions often claim that maintaining academic standards is the main justification. How would you prove this in court or in another judicial process if challenged? It would entail the presentation of clear irrefutable evidence of what the standards were and how they were being compromised.”

CHOPPER RIDE HAS TEC IN A SPIN

The $1800 helicopter ride over the top of AUT by education minister Anne Tolley continues to draw bewilderment and amused outrage from opposition MPs and student representatives questioning the value for money from the trip.

Government ministers, however, quickly used the opportunity to launch renewed (and unrelated) attacks in parliament on the Tertiary Education Commission.

Dr Mapp, the associate minister of education, said of Mrs Tolley, “The minister is focused on ensuring that students and universities get resources, and not the bloated Tertiary Education Commission as was apparently the plan of the previous government.”

Earlier, deputy prime minister Bill English called the Tertiary Education Commission “one of the most wasteful and useless expenditures of public money that the previous Labour government invented.”

He said he is still waiting to hear an apology from the Labour party “for wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on the Tertiary Education Commission”, but instead “it is getting up and complaining about a helicopter ride by a National minister.”

The commission has recently announced plans to make 70 of its 300 staff redundant. Continued attacks from its governing ministers must raise major questions about how much of a role, if any, the commission will have in the tertiary-education sector in the near future.

According to TEU president, Dr Tom Ryan, “We cannot have a tertiary-education sector made up only of localised institutions, with no centralised administration. While we’ve had our battles with the commission over the years, they have been more about how it does things rather than what it does. Slashing jobs in TEC is not going to save money, it’s just going to create confusion and inefficiency across the sector,” Dr Ryan concluded.

SCIENCES LECTURERS FACE REDUNDANCY AT MASSEY

Massey University’s intention to make six horticulture, agriculture, and earth science staff redundant flies in the face of its own professed commitment to helping New Zealanders into jobs, says TEU president Dr Tom Ryan.

Massey last week announced a “restructuring” of its institute of natural resources. Twelve academic staff positions are under review, six of which are scheduled to be lost, and eleven of the staff affected are TEU members. The institute combines agricultural and horticultural science and ecology. It teaches and researches sustainable production and conservation of natural resources.

“Massey’s vice-chancellor Steve Maharey speaks publicly about his university’s role in creating a sustainable future by investing in science, of the need to develop the nation’s food research expertise, and tells the government to focus on keeping people in jobs,” said Dr Ryan. “But on his own campus he is letting go of lecturers and researchers who are leaders in the very area of applied science he and others espouse so strongly.”

“The vice-chancellor should read his own speeches more carefully. At this time we need staff like this more than ever,” said TEU’s Massey branch president, Barry Foster.

“New Zealand’s economic, environmental, and social future is closely connected to teaching and research in the earth sciences. Is Massey intimidated by the proposed Lincoln-AgResearch merger? Have we now given up competing in that field?” Mr Foster asked.
Massey communications manager James Gardiner told the Manawatu Standard that the job losses had nothing to do with the AgResearch merger with Lincoln.
"It's purely to do with where we have staff, and where we have student numbers.”

VALUE OF LINCOLN-AGRESEARCH MERGER QUESTIONED

“Andy West wants to be a university and move money from education to business activity.” That’s the sentiment of the University of Canterbury’s Professor Jack Heinemann on AgResearch CEO Andy West’s motivations in promoting the merger of AgResearch and Lincoln University.

“What I haven’t heard is anyone saying how this merger changes anything accept the size of the institution and the range of public moneys into which Andy West can tap. How does it suddenly grow the economy by the claimed additional $1 billion per year? I have the utmost respect for the scientists in both institutions, but merging a university with an agribusiness is no different from merging a university with Haliburton or General Motors,” Professor Heinemann contests.

Meanwhile, at Lincoln University, Associate Professor Jon Hickford says career researchers don’t become academic supervisors just because they have got a PhD.

“The assumption that career researchers can move into tertiary teaching is perhaps flawed and needs more analysis. You need a range of professional skills to drive good teaching, supervision, and mentoring. It’s a bloody difficult job.”

Dr Hickford believes there are many potentially positive benefits from the proposed merger, but the details around how the two sets of academic staff will do their jobs need more explanation.

TEU branch president Dr Lyn Boddington also believes this is an area that needs more focus:

“Perhaps most important is how research currently done within Lincoln University will fit alongside the contract type of research done at AgResearch. As we go through the merger process, this is shaping up to be one of the key areas that will need very careful consideration. It is an issue that our TEU members are very concerned about. The success of any merger will in part be determined on whether an outcome is achieved that satisfies the need for ongoing “blue skies” research within universities.”

POLYTECHNICS TO SELL EDUCATION TO SAUDI WOMEN

New Zealand consulting company Polytechnics International New Zealand (PINZ) has signed a co-operation arrangement with Saudi Arabia’s Technical and Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC), paving the way for the New Zealand company to establish and operate a technical-training institution in Saudi Arabia. It is likely to be Saudi Arabia’s first international institution dedicated to training women. PINZ is a private consultancy company owned by a consortium of twenty tertiary-education institutions in New Zealand.

PINZ chief executive, Hone McGregor, said the deal could be worth up to $150 million to New Zealand over the next five years, and follows a similar one struck by PINZ to develop a polytechnic in Bahrain.

Mr McGregor said Saudi Arabia expects to increase its number of technical-training institutes by more than 230 during the next decade to ensure its young people have the skills necessary to contribute to a modern economy which currently is dominated by expatriate workers.

“[The deal will] include an English-language and degree-scholarship programme for TVTC staff to pursue applied degrees with polytechnic providers in New Zealand – this alone is expected to result in $12 million of tuition fees coming into New Zealand,” Mr McGregor said.

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) has helped PINZ and other companies identify educational and consultancy opportunities in the Middle East, as part of its strategy to seek out long-term commercial opportunities and to help develop solutions that meet the needs of international companies and governments.

NZTE operations manager for services, Steve Jones, said the Saudi Arabian agreement was another acknowledgment that New Zealand’s education-consultancy services are highly regarded internationally.

WORLD WATCH

UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWE CLOSED – AGAIN

The University of Zimbabwe (UZ) this week failed to open for the second time this year as the institution struggles to mobilise vital resources, such as paper for transcripts.

Besides the resources issues, few students had registered to commence studies on Monday. The majority could not raise the fees of between $US150 and $US400 set by the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education.

The university also has an acute shortage of lecturers. Ruzivo Midzi, secretary-general of the Association of University Teachers, said that many academic and non-academic staff at the UZ had failed to reported for work as they were entangled in a salary dispute with the college administration.

“For several months the staff have not been receiving reasonable salaries and it was only in February that we were paid in foreign currency after a directive from the minister of finance, but now we are still to receive our March salaries.”

“It is not about the salaries only. It is about the whole institution,” Mr Midzi continued. “The place looks abandoned with long grass and shrubs growing all over the campus. There is scarcity of water, no single toilet is functioning there. There is no sanitation whatsoever.”

UZ acting director of information and public relations, Ruby Magosvongwe, confirmed that UZ had postponed opening to a date yet to be set.

“We issued news releases that the UZ was not opening this week due to insufficient resources. The halls of residence and the university have no water and thus the institution cannot be opened,” she said.

UZ opened briefly in February but was closed after students demonstrated against the exorbitant fees in foreign currency.

By Wongai Zhangazha from the Zimbabwe Independent

TASMANIAN CASUAL ACADEMICS SEEK BETTER DEAL

Casual staff at the University of Tasmania are working for effective wages rates of as little as $5 an hour and often miss out on basic entitlements, their union says.

“Although they have an hourly rate as such which pays a good deal more than $5 an hour, the reality is that when they take into account all of the work that they have to do to make it a successful learning experience, it comes down to a lot less,” said Josh Cullinan, spokesperson for the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU).

The union wants the university to give casual and fixed-term staff pathways into permanent work, but says progress at the negotiating table has been slow, with negotiations continuing since June last year.

NTEU industrial officer Rob Binnie said the university is becoming increasingly reliant on the ranks of casual and fixed-term staff, some of whom had been in “casual” positions for close to 20 years.

As part of enterprise-bargaining, the union is trying to find greater job security for the thousands of casual academic and general staff the university employs. “Casual academic staff regularly raise issues of non-payment for marking, preparation, consultation, and other activities,” Mr Binnie said.

“These staff members are concerned that if they raise these issues with management, they will lose work or even have their postgraduate study jeopardised.”

“NTEU wants university management to ensure casual academic staff are paid for all the work they do, and properly recognise the enormous contribution these staff make to the university,” concluded Mr Binnie.

From ABC news and David Killack at the Mercury

ECONOMICS PROFESSOR QUITS OVER SACKINGS

A professor of economics at the University of Western Ontario, Nathan Sussman, has relinquished his position as departmental chairperson rather than develop a plan for eliminating staff positions.

“This is a moral dilemma one has in these positions,” he said. “On the one hand, you’re part of an organization and you have to make some tough decisions. On the other, you are also responsible for the people that you lead. So it puts you in the position where you have to make hard choices.”

“I think the easy thing is to follow orders,” Sussman added. “That’s kind of the safe way.”

The university is facing a shortfall of some $US41 million, in large part due to investment declines, university officials acknowledge. Professor Sussman argues that the university should borrow money to address the shortfall.
He also contends that the current budget problems are of the university’s own making. He said that Western Ontario had engaged in a “risky” investment strategy, wherein the university took operational funds provided by federal and provincial governments and played the stock market with the money.

All units at Western Ontario have been asked to cut an average of about 5.5 percent from their budgets. Brian Timney, dean of the faculty of social science, said he suggested potential staff reductions to Professor Sussman, but left the former chair the flexibility to develop “creative” approaches to addressing the shortfall.

“We had identified potential positions in the department that we felt he might target,” said Professor Timney. “However, we gave, as with all the other chairs, the option of coming up with alternative solutions.”

Professor Timney would not say how many layoffs he suggested, but said he was disappointed Professor Sussman hadn’t engaged in more of a dialogue.

From Jack Stripling at Insider Higher Ed

TEU Tertiary Update is published weekly on Thursdays and distributed freely to members of the Tertiary Education Union and others. Back issues are available on the TEU website. Direct inquiries should be made to Stephen Day, email: stephen.day@teu.ac.nz

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