TEU Tertiary Update Vol 12 No 20

INSTITUTIONS HAVE NO RIGHT TO INDIVIDUAL PBRF SCORES

TEU’s submission to the Tertiary Education Commission on the reporting of PBRF scores concludes that tertiary institutions should not have access to either the quality categories or the component scores of individuals. It argues that only individuals themselves should have access to such data, and that institutions should receive only aggregated results.

In the 2003 and 2006 PBRF rounds, participating tertiary institutions were provided with their academic staffs’ individual quality categories. In the recent PBRF Sector Reference Group proceedings, some institutions have asked that they be provided with individuals’ component scores as well.

The TEU submission warns that TEC could leave itself open to challenges from individual researchers under the terms of the Privacy Act if it continues to allow individual results to tertiary institutions. Researchers, as employees, have no choice but to complete an evidence portfolio - refusal to do so could mean disciplinary action. Thus, any notion that an individual has ‘consented’ to the disclosure of their personal results to their employer is fallacious.

TEU president Tom Ryan says that use of private information in the manner that the TEC has been permitting also contradicts the very strict guidelines that researchers themselves must adhere to when undertaking their own research and disseminating data from human subjects.

“Any ethics committee presented with a research proposal that included distribution of personal information without properly informed consent would no doubt reject it, and rightly so.”

Dr Ryan believes the practice of releasing individual quality categories to tertiary institutions breaches privacy conventions, and has resulted in the use of this information far beyond the original intent of the designers of the PBRF system.

“It was supposed to be a way of determining the allocation of research funding to institutions and their parts. The practice of releasing individual results to employers needs to cease now before it gets further out of hand. Using PBRF data as a proxy for internal systems for assessing research capacity and performance is an abdication of management responsibilities and should not be permitted.”

ALSO IN TERTIARY UPDATE THIS WEEK:

1. Pay rises needed now
2. TEU leaders meet minister
3. ‘Broke’ minister misses the point
4. Pay equity rallies shame government
5. Foreshore act not so sure
6. Focus on research increases
7. Aussie union sets 16% minimum for pay rise

PAY RISES NEEDED NOW

It’s important to remember that the recession was not caused by salaries being too high, says TEU National Secretary Sharn Riggs.

“Tertiary institutions, and the government that funds them, need to recognise that freezing salaries will hinder the economy rather than stimulate it. Ms Riggs comments were in response to indications from some tertiary institutions that they intend to use upcoming or current employment negotiations as an opportunity to suppress their costs.

Ms Riggs says that while the rate of inflation is falling from its earlier high, prices are still climbing, especially the price of key items like food, housing and electricity. Furthermore New Zealand generally, and the tertiary education sector in particular, still suffers from a shortage of skilled and qualified workers.

“When we are competing in an international market to retain our valuable tertiary education workers, we can’t afford to drive them away with pay offers that amount to cuts in real terms or cuts in their working conditions.”

Ms Riggs notes that the government has publicly set a target of wage parity with Australia by 2025. According to the NZCTU, assuming that wages in Australia rise by 3 percent per year, closing that 30 percent wage gap over the next 15 years will require annual wage increases of 4.82 percent in New Zealand.

TEU LEADERS MEET MINISTER

TEU president Tom Ryan and national secretary Sharn Riggs are meeting the minister of education, Anne Tolley, today. They will be delivering a strong message about the dangers the tertiary education sector faces as a result of her government’s recent budget.

“The TEU has regular meetings with education spokespeople from a range of political parties, including the minister of education,” said Ms Riggs. “It’s an important opportunity to hear first hand what her vision is for the sector, but more importantly it’s a chance for us to let her hear the voices of those people working in the sector.”

“We’ll be arguing strongly that the government needs to reconsider the financial direction it is taking in the tertiary sector, before students and staff are hurt,” says Dr Ryan. “Tertiary education is too important to the well being of our country and our economy to be left to flounder in the minister of finance’s sink or swim philosophy.”

Dr Ryan says that he also will also be letting the minister know the union’s strongly held concern about how PBRF scores are reported.

“The Tertiary Education Commission is currently consulting on how individual PBRF scores are reported. It’s important that the minister knows that currently the use of those scores by tertiary institutions is open to misuse and abuse. We expect her to protect the privacy and individual rights of the people working in her sector,” concluded Dr Ryan.

‘BROKE’ MINISTER MISSES THE POINT

Herald columnist Tapu Misa has berated government ministers for failing to provide the money to give struggling new Zealanders a chance at education. The minister of education Anne Tolley confirmed last week that 6000 to 8000 potential polytechnic students could be turned away from study this year because the government would not be providing funding for them.

"There is no more money, and so that means we all have to prioritise and that means some people are going to miss out. Yes, that's the reality of an economic recession," she said.

Mrs Tolley also has cut funding for adult and community education by 80 percent, cut the tripartite funding that had been making university salaries more competitive internationally, and removed funding for many projects that helped Maori, Pacific Island and other underrepresented student into tertiary education.

Ms Misa says minister Tolley trumpets the Government's "commitment to strengthening the ladder of opportunity", while slashing by more than 80 per cent the funding for the adult night classes relied on by some 200,000 people.

“Even if you ignored their intrinsic social value, particularly for low-income and migrant communities, there's a solid economic argument from a 2007 PricewaterhouseCoopers report which estimated the national economic gain of this type of adult education at around $4.8 billion to $6.3 billion.”

“One could mount an equally strong argument for another "leg-up", a training allowance which allowed solo mums like Social Development Minister Paula Bennett to put themselves through university while on the DPB. That's no longer available to those wanting to do university degrees or diplomas, but only for school-based courses or basic tertiary certificates. Which seems to contradict the Government's stated goal for more of the high-level qualifications needed for that productive, knowledge-based economy that's supposed to be our economic salvation,” concludes Ms Misa.

PAY EQUITY RALLIES SHAME GOVERNMENT

Rallies in Auckland, Hamilton and Wellington on Tuesday kick-started a pay equity campaign that aims to close the 12 percent average pay gap between men and women. The rallies were organised by the Pay Equity Coalition, made up of a broad coalition of unions and women's groups. The coalition is critical of the Government for scrapping the pay and employment equity unit at the Department of Labour, and failing to replace it with any alternative plan to address the longstanding pay gap.

TEU women’s vice president Sandra Grey, who was at the Wellington rally outside parliament, says pay equity is a key issue for all TEU members.

“It’s basically an issue of fairness that two people doing equivalent jobs with equivalent qualifications and experience should get equivalent pay. Seventeen pay and employment equity reviews have been initiated in the tertiary sector, and we expect that many will reveal systematic inequity in the way women are employed in our tertiary institutions. We are part of the coalition because we need to end that inequity.”

“But for TEU members it’s also central to our industrial strategy,” says Dr Grey. “As a sector dominated by women, pay equity and ensuring equal treatment in all aspects of employment is a priority for all workers in the tertiary education sector – both men and women. As educators that we are training the next generation of women and have a duty to ensure a fair deal for them as well”

TEU has video and photo coverage of the pay equity rallies on its website.

FORESHORE ACT NOT SO SURE

TEU Te Pou Tuarā, Lee Cooper, is welcoming yesterday’s ministerial review panel finding that the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 should be scrapped.

The review was part of the confidence and supply agreement between the Māori Party and National after the last election. Eighty five percent of the submissions received by the review panel opposed the Act. Prime minister John Key, has not yet considered the reviews’ findings.

One of the TEU’s predecessor unions, ASTE Te Hau Takitini o Aotearoa, submitted to the Government five years ago that the Foreshore and Seabed Bill was an abrogation of the Government’s rights and responsibilities as a treaty partner. More recently, Mr Cooper has been actively involved supporting the CTU and its Rūnanga with a submission to the review, again calling for the legislation to be rescinded.

The review recommends Government recognise that hapū and iwi with traditional interests in coastal areas should have some form of customary title to them, while the public should have access and navigation rights. It recommends that Government replace the law with a range of negotiated settlements.

Mr Cooper says that the 2004 Act attempted to recognise New Zealand values, particularly those of access, regulation, protection, and certainty.

“But these laudable goals cannot be attained when they involve stripping the rights of tino rangatiratanga and kaitiakitanga from Māori as tāngata mana whenua, such as the Foreshore and Seabed Act did.”

“The Act removed rights from one group of people only, Māori, by limiting our access to the courts and effectively expropriating our property rights. It amounted to prejudiced legislation, and it was wrong,” concluded Mr Cooper.

FOCUS ON RESEARCH INCREASES

The Ministry of Education’s report State of Education in New Zealand 2008, published late last year and released online this week, reveals significant shifts in research focus and performance by tertiary institutions over the last decade.

The report shows the number of New Zealand’s PBRF-eligible staff assessed as having produced original and innovative research (quality category B in a PBRF round) increased 24 percent between 2003 and 2006. And the number of staff producing research that is highly original and innovative and of world-class (quality category A) was up 41 percent on 2003.

Likewise, the share of world-indexed publications and citations produced by New Zealand tertiary education organisations increased 14 percent from the period 1998 -2002 to the period 2003 -2007.

The number of students awarded doctorate degrees has increased by 40 percent in just seven years, from 456 in 2000 to 639 in 2006

This re-focussing of research also led to an increase in research contract income at universities during the period 2002 and 2006, when research contract income increased by 55 percent, from $194 million to $301 million. On a per full-time equivalent academic staff member basis, research contract income increased by 34 percent in real terms between 2002 and 2006

As a percentage of all university income, research contract income increased from 10 percent in 2002 to 12 percent in 2006.

TEU President Tom Ryan says this data is timely.

“This significant shift in research output has a workload consequence. Academics are working at their limits to produce high quality research while still meeting their teaching and learning responsibilities. It’s important that tertiary institutions try not to treat research and PBRF funding as a new cash cow that they can continue to milk without consequence.”

AUSSIE UNION SETS 16% MINIMUM FOR PAY RISE

The National Tertiary Education Union of Australia has decided that salary deals being negotiated in the near future must deliver a 16 per cent wage increase by June 2012. Recently, the NTEU secured a 16 per cent wage increase over four years at Deakin University, in a deal that has persuaded the union to set a minimum increase in similar deals.

Depending on the expiry dates of agreements, at a minimum this is likely to equate to about a 4.25 per cent annual compound increase. However, NTEU general secretary Grahame McCulloch said the NTEU also would be expecting to secure increases above that. "I'm sure there are a significant number of institutions (that) are likely to reach settlements higher than that, having regard to their present and projected market position," he said.

In the only other long-term agreement secured so far, the University of Sydney has agreed to an effective 5.6 per cent annual increase out to May 2012.

There have been a series of short-term deals that expire at the end of this year. Victoria University has agreed to a 4 per cent annual increase that, according to the government, reflects the university's "budget uncertainties". The Australian National University agreed in November to a 4.5 per cent rise that the NTEU says is effectively an average 5.5 per cent increase, after taking into consideration changes to pay scales. The University of Western Australia has agreed to an effective 4.3 per cent annual increase.

Needless to say, the current round of employment negotiations at Australian universities has challenging implications for New Zealand universities as they attempt to achieve salaries equivalent to their trans-Tasman counterparts.

From Andrew Trounson at the Australian

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TEU Tertiary Update is published weekly on Thursdays and distributed freely to members of the Tertiary Education Union and others. You can subscribe to Tertiary Update by email or feed reader. 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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