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TEU sends UC library restructuring back to review

With 95 redundancies so far and a further 58 proposed, Canterbury's STAR project has now blown the top of the University of Canterbury TEU branch's change thermometer which they had been using to tally redundancies.

The TEU and the university's academic board have successfully demanded that the vice chancellor and council halt Project STAR proposals for the library while an external review of the library is carried out. The redundancies at the library, also euphemistically termed the Learning Resources change proposal, have been delayed by six weeks, and two external reviewers have been brought in to examine the proposal. The reviewers will be presenting their report in early July, after which there will be further consultation.

TEU branch vice president Jennifer Middendorf says "While this review is perhaps not quite as independent as some of us would have liked, I think we can count the fact that it is happening at all as a win for our collective voice and the strength of TEU membership at this university."

"If the proposal goes ahead in its current format, the loss of expertise, severing of lines of communication, switching of responsibilities and fracturing of the infrastructure will lead to a severe disruption of service."

In the meantime, the change proposals continue to roll out, with the AVC Māori change proposal being released last week. While there are no redundancies proposed (for once!), the proposed changes will have a major effect on Māori and Pasifika staff at Canterbury, so TEU has been working closely with Māori and Pasifika members to ensure their voices are clearly heard.

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. SIT announces more redundancies as funding cuts bite


2. Good precedents not to close Hawkes Bay course yet


3. Otago polytechnic scrabbles about for money


4. US unions call on Obama to defend education funding


5. Other news

SIT announces more redundancies as funding cuts bite

The Southland Times reports that the Southern Institute of Technology (SIT) will announce more redundancies in response to a $3 million cut in Government funding next year.

At a SIT council meeting on Monday night chief executive Penny Simmonds said there had been five redundancies since March and it was likely more would occur.

"I can see over the next wee while we are working with reduced expenditure. It means there will be courses dropped," she said.

TEU organiser Kris Smith is contacting Ms Simmonds about the proposed redundancies but says that union members have significant concerns about these redundancies because SIT is in a strong financial position with its existing cash reserves.

"What is the point of all that money if it is not going to be used for the benefit of the community?" asked Ms Smith.

As well as the five people who had been made redundant from the institute this year a further five who resigned have not been replaced, Ms Simmonds said. These redundancies were from both the Christchurch and Southland campuses and included teachers from carpentry, electrical, engineering and film production.

Ms Simmonds told the Southland Times she was "reluctant" to guess how many more redundancies would take place and when, but there was "certainly not going to be a huge number".

Good precedents not to close Hawkes Bay course yet

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs says that Massey University already has several precedents that show that its management cannot just close a course such as its Hawkes Bay teacher education course, without first getting the approval of its council.

In 2007 Massey University's council overruled a decision by then vice chancellor Judith Kinnear to shut down an engineering course that it offered at its Wellington campus.

At the time the chancellor , Nigel Gould, told Education Review that the matter was a normal part of council's work and that council had always been involved in the university's strategic direction and where courses fitted into that direction.

Further in a 1999 court case between the University of Waikato and one of TEU's predecessors, AUS, Justice Hammond ruled that the vice chancellor and the council had no power to implement a decision to merge seven schools into four without first consulting the academic board. Justice Hammond relied in part on section 182 of the Education Act to make his decision. S 182 states that, without limiting the generality of subsection (1), the council of an institution shall not make any decision in respect of any academic matter unless it has requested the advice of the academic board and considered any advice given by the academic board.

" I do not accept the decision to restructure… did not contain an academic element," said Justice Hammond.

Ms Riggs says that there is significant academic impact upon the student teachers at Ruawharo in Hawkes Bay if the university is allowed to close its course there.

"It is important that the council is allowed to consider the academic implications for those staff and students," said Ms Riggs.

Otago polytechnic scrabbles about for money

The Otago Polytechnic council has voted this week for dramatic increases to the levies and fees it charges students as it prepares for anticipated funding cuts to take effect next year.

According to the Otago Daily Times full-time domestic students could face a 65 percent increase in student services levies and a 3 to 4 percent increase in tuition fees, adding probably $350 to $500 to their annual bill. Tuition fees for new international students attending the polytechnic next year will increase by between 7 and 11 percent, an average of $1300 a year.

Chief executive Phil Ker told the Otago Daily Times he would be preparing a budget over the next two months and no final decisions had been made yet. He said even though he knew increasing fees and levies would be controversial, some level of increase was inevitable. The polytechnic needed to cut $2.9 million from its budget next year because its base government funding was reducing by that amount.

"We are between a rock and a hard place, as is everyone else in the tertiary sector."

He told the Otago Daily Times he "did not want to think about" what would happen if the budget reduction target was not met.

TEU organiser Kris Smith said that like all other polytechnics the 2.2 percent CPI funding increase to Otago Polytechnic had received in this year's budget had effectively been negated by cuts to Business Links and Base Grant funding – both of which made up a core part of the polytechnic's income.

US unions call on Obama to defend education funding

The presidents of America’s two largest teaching unions, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and National Education Association (NEA), have rallied together to call on the US President to advocate for education funding at G8/G20 summits.

In response to a request from Education International (EI), the AFT President Randi Weingarten and NEA President Dennis Van Roekel have sent a letter to President Obama calling on him to rebuild the world economy by increasing funding for education, not cutting it.

In their joint letter, the two presidents request that President Obama exercise his: “Leadership role at these international meetings to impress upon fellow world leaders that education must not be seen as an expensive drain on their economies, but as a high-return investment, the heart and soul of recovery and new beginnings.”

Both unions have also called for support to build a Global Partnership for Teacher Education and Professional Development, in order to ensure the supply of a sufficient number of qualified teachers to achieve quality Education for All by 2015.

The letter also states: “Investing in education will spur innovation that will produce solutions to the many problems we confront.”

The AFT and NEA’s joint letter has also been copied to three cabinet secretaries and six administration officials. In addition, the AFT has sent an urgent action alert to 60,000 activists requesting that they sign a petition to the President and post a message on the White House’s Facebook page. To add your name to the Urgent Appeal to President Obama please click here.

This is one initiative amongst many others that education unions have put in place during these critical days ahead of the G8 and G20 summits in Canada. The intention is to lobby governments and world leaders to influence debates and resolutions that will determine which strategy is pursued to exit the financial crisis.

Other news

Demand for tertiary education study is likely to fall away as the recession eases and tougher criteria is placed on students, Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce says. In a parliamentary education select committee meeting today, Mr Joyce disagreed with Labour's tertiary education spokesman Grant Robertson's suggestion that National's efforts to address a shortage of places at tertiary institutes was inadequate - NZPA – also check out TEU's take on growing student rolls.

New Zealand university students party and relax more than their Australian counterparts but manage more study, a survey has found. The Australasian Survey of Student Engagement found 19 per cent of Kiwi students devote more than 21 hours a week to relaxing and socialising, while 15 per cent of Aussie students do – The Press

The Tertiary Education Strategy states that the Government wants to see more people under the age of 25 achieving at degree level. This is particularly so when government funding for university places is tight - as it is at the moment. Whether that translates to more young bottoms (therefore fewer older ones) on lecture hall seats remains to be seen. – Otago Daily Times

Harrods of London is teaming up with academics to offer a degree in sales. Topics include shopping psychology. The degree won't be available to pluck off the shelves: it is being offered to staff, as part of the burgeoning trend for workplace learning. It will last two years and is being run in partnership with Anglia Ruskin University. –The Guardian

Thousands of students at the University of Puerto Rico who went on strike two months ago to oppose severe budget cuts declared victory on Thursday after reaching an agreement with administrators to cancel a special fee that would have effectively doubled the cost to attend the university’s 11 public campuses - New York Times

The British government has announced that non-protected departmental budgets will be cut by an average of 25 per cent over the next four years. The announcement was made by the Chancellor in this week's "tough but fair" emergency Budget. Details of precisely where the cuts will fall will not be set out until 20 October but Chancellor Osborne said that he recognised the “particular pressures” these cuts would place on the education system and on defence.- Time Higher Education Supplement

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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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