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Teachers Council says only registered teachers to supervise students

The New Zealand Teachers Council today released new approval, review and monitoring processes and requirements for initial teacher education programmes. These will apply to all teacher education providers in New Zealand - universities, wānanga, polytechnics, institutes of technology and private training establishments.

Among the council's recommendations is a requirement that anyone supervising a student teacher in a formal school setting must themselves be a registered teacher.

TEU national president, Dr Tom Ryan welcomed the new processes, saying it is good to see that the council listened to the views of actual teacher educators during the review process.

Dr Ryan says that in recent years TEU has had concerns that some academic staff in schools of education who do not have formal teaching qualifications have been pressured into supervising student teachers on their placements.

"Teaching is an applied professional qualification where practice is just as important as research. We would not expect academics who lack nursing qualification to be supervising student nurses in hospitals. Likewise, it is only reasonable that student teachers doing practicums with children should be supervised by registered teachers"

In the recent past some institutions have defended their practice of requiring teacher educators without a practising certificate to supervise students with the claim that it falls within the ambit of their [the institutions'] exercise of academic freedom.

However, Dr Ryan rejects this claim, saying that according to international understanding, academics should claim academic freedom only in areas where they have professional expertise. That is, it is those teacher educators with a practicing certificate who have the rights and responsibilities of academic freedom, rather than their employing institutions.

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Waiariki prepares to shrink under govt cap


2. Joyce says we need more students, but he won't be paying


3. Awanuiārangi settles with crown for $14m


4. Funding cuts for ITOs?


5. Other news

Waiariki prepares to shrink under govt cap

According to the Rotorua Daily Post, hundreds of potential tertiary students will be left in limbo and jobs may be lost at Waiariki Institute of Technology, following a review of courses and entry criteria. 

The paper reports that the review is the result of government funding cuts.

The government cap on student numbers means entry requirements at Waiariki will be tightened next year. Waiariki's Mokoia campus currently is home to about 3000 domestic full-time students, but chief executive Pim Borren says that is expected to shrink to 2700 next year.

The number of new places available at the institute will drop from 2000 to 1400 and those wishing to study are being advised to enrol before Christmas so they don't miss out.

Students will be required to pay their fees in full before their course starts and those who pay early will be given priority. Course entry requirements will become stricter, as Waiariki looks at ways to restrict the number of students.

After previously having few or no entry requirements for most courses, students with the best academic results now will  take precedence.

Dr Borren told the Daily Post that he believes such harsh capping during a recession is short-sighted of the Government.

"[They] should have been more lenient with the cap."

Dr Borren said the Government should have been focusing on upskilling. When the economy picked up the unemployment rates would drop and the country would be faced with a skills shortage, he said.

Some courses would be cut which in turn would lead to staff losses, although that wasn't something yet being discussed, Dr Borren said.

Ministry of Education senior manager Ben O'Meara said that under a capped funding system there was a possibility some people would not be able to enrol in their first choice of study.

However, he said expenditure and the number of Government-funded student places had actually increased during the recession.

Joyce says we need more students, but he won't be paying

Minister of tertiary education, Steven Joyce, told the UCOL Tertiary Teaching and Learning Conference last week that one of the issues the tertiary education system faces is that there are "very heavy controls on the sector, in price and volume."

Mr Joyce said that the country needs "more people with degrees and the better paying jobs that come with them, more learners encouraged to get a good vocation and make things of their lives,[and] fewer young people falling through the gap between secondary and tertiary."

"And I want to see second chance learners given the opportunity to improve their skills."

However, despite continued media stories that many potential students are missing out on the opportunity to study because of government imposed funding cuts, Mr Joyce reiterated that there would be no new funding to address the problems he has identified. He noted that government currently invests more than $4 billion a year into the tertiary sector, including student support:

"That's a massive amount of money, and compared to other countries we certainly aren't tight in the tertiary area. It's highly unlikely there will be any significant cash injections in the foreseeable future. The challenge is to get better results from what we are already spending."

TEU national president, Dr Tom Ryan, said in response that, while the tertiary sector cannot and doesn't expect a blank cheque from government, the minister urgently needs to stop viewing more students as a cost and start recognising them as an investment.

"The very students that this government wants to get new skills, new knowledge and new jobs, are the same ones that are missing out on places because of the government imposed funding restrictions on polytechnics, wānanga and universities."

Awanuiārangi settles with crown for $14m

Tertiary education minister Steven Joyce and Māori affairs minister Dr Pita Sharples signed a deed of settlement this week with Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi recognising the unique contribution it makes to tertiary education, and providing it with funding to develop its Whakatāne campus. In the settlement the Crown will pay Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi $14.5 million.

Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi claims that when setting up the tertiary institution in 1992 it was given only $64,000 by the Government. It says that the amount of money was not equivalent to what other tertiary providers where given.

Mr Joyce says this is the last of the three Wānanga to be compensated. He says the money will build a library, a lecture theatre, and an exhibition centre.

Mr Joyce says the agreement completes negotiations between the Crown and all three wānanga over the 1999 Waitangi Tribunal Wānanga Capital Establishment Report (Wai 718).

The Tribunal supported the claim that wānanga did not get capital funding from the government equivalent to other public tertiary providers and, as a result, the three wānanga and their students were disadvantaged.

Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and Te Wānanga o Raukawa settled their respective claims under Wai 718 in 2001 and 2008.

Funding cuts for ITOs?

The Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) this week announced changes to funding policy for industry training organisations (ITOs), after revealing average completion rates were only 31 percent.

NZPA reports that the commission has been reviewing ITOs and has begun a programme of work aimed at improving their educational and financial performance.

"This process has identified areas that require improvement and we are modifying funding rules governing ITOs' use of funding, improving the systems that track trainees, and strengthening the TEC's own monitoring processes," said TEC chief executive Roy Sharp.

New policies to take effect from January 1 next year include placing annual caps on funding for each trainee, clarifying the need for clear evidence of trainee achievement, and ensuring that ITOs are funded at rates that reflected the actual progress of trainees.

From March 2011 the TEC will introduce the Industry Training Register, giving near real time reporting of trainee progression.

Mr Joyce said modelling of the new rules and current conditions showed they could result in annual funding to ITOs decreasing by as much as $20 million in 2011.

"This reduction in funding is in addition to a short-term decline in demand for industry training as a result of current economic conditions," Mr Joyce said.

"The TEC is currently estimating that ITOs will under-spend their allowable budget by around $16 million in 2010."

He said the TEC had identified poor practices under the existing rules, including some examples where funding was claimed for trainees who were not actively engaged in training.

Mr Joyce said the changes would bring ITOs into closer alignment with other taxpayer-funded tertiary institutions, and would have no impact on the funding for modern apprenticeship schemes.

Other news

Corporate heavyweights lashed out at the poor funding of Australian universities, warning that student-to-staff ratios were at "ridiculous" levels. There are currently more than 20 university students to one member of staff, compared with less than 13:1 in 1990. "The student to academic staff ratio is ridiculous," ANZ chairman John Morschel told The Australian and Deutsche Bank Business Leaders Forum in Sydney – The Australian

Students may have to pay five times the current degree course cost at England's top universities if the cap is removed on tuition fees, research suggests - The BBC

The Network for Education and Academic Rights (NEAR) and the Scholars at Risk Network (SAR), together with partners worldwide, have undertaken a series of workshops to raise awareness of academic freedom and related values - including access, accountability/transparency, academic freedom/quality, autonomy/good governance, and social responsibility - SAR/NEAR

The Council of Trade Unions is warning that the proposed 90-day fire-at-will law change could be used to discriminate against GLBT employees. The CTU has told Parliament's Industrial Relations Select Committee that even though discrimination on the basis of sexuality is illegal, employers will not have to give a reason for dismissing someone during the trial period - GayNZ

Both Sally and Polly do the same work.  But Polly is a Professional Teaching Fellow, which means she must get her work signed off by someone else.  Read TEU University of Auckland Branch's comic telling of Polly's story here - TEU University of Auckland Branch.

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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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