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3000 new places for university students

The Government will fund almost 3,000 more university student places over the next two years, tertiary education minister Steven Joyce announced this week.

"The funding will provide another 1580 places next year and 1315 in 2012 above current projected funding levels. It follows 765 new university places the Government already announced in the Budget for 2011."

"The Government was already expecting graduate numbers to be about 20 percent higher by 2013 than in the 2000s and this extra funding will increase that even further," said Mr Joyce.

The extra funding for university places comes from funding cuts the government announced last week to industry training organisations and reprioritised underspending in the area.

"In the current economic environment it is critical the Government gets the most out of every dollar spent. This shift in funding is part of this Government's push to get higher productivity out of the more than $4 billion we spend on tertiary education," said Mr Joyce.

"It also reflects the nature of the economic cycle. As New Zealand recovers from recession there remains strong demand for full-time degree study and less demand for industry-based training. That trend will likely start to reverse again over the next few years. We are committed to keeping a close eye on these trends and responding to the training needs of New Zealanders," said Mr Joyce.

TEU national president Dr Tom Ryan said the $55 million for an additional 3000 places is appreciated:

"It will go some way to alleviating the pressure from would-be university students."

"We are concerned however, that there does not appear to be a strategic overview of what is needed in the area of trades and skills education."

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Bay of Plenty redundancies highlight danger of new employment laws


2. Report says schools preventing Pacific Islanders getting into tertiary education


3. Colombian academic jailed for beliefs


4. Open Polytechnic student-staff ratio skyrockets


5. Other news

Bay of Plenty redundancies highlight danger of new employment laws

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs says that cuts at Bay of Plenty Polytechnic highlight the danger of new employment laws that the government is moving to introduce.

The polytechnic is one of many around the country currently reviewing its staff or making people redundant, just at the same time as the government introduces laws that make it easier to sack workers, remove people's employment rights, and reduce employment conditions.

Ms Riggs says that redundancies at tertiary institutions around the country are wasteful enough already, without the government's new laws, which will leave many highly respected but redundant tertiary education staff facing new jobs with no basic employment rights during their first 90 days, and reduced employment rights from then on.

According to the Bay of Plenty Times Bay of Plenty Polytechnic is losing $2.2 million in revenue and 120 full-time students in the wake of government funding cuts. The budget cuts may also result in the loss of four staffing positions.

There have also been reviews and redundancies recently at many tertiary education institutions including WINTEC, Otago Polytechnic, the Open Polytechnic, Weltec, Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, Auckland University of Technology, the Open Polytechnic, Waiariki, the University of Otago, the University of Auckland, Massey University, the University of Canterbury and University of Waikato

"With one hand the government is cutting away funding for tertiary education staff who are working hard to give people the skills and qualifications they need to get jobs.  With the other it is taking away those workers' employment rights, so if they do get a new job it is likely to be less secure, less family-friendly and less well paid. This was a government that came in promising more jobs and to close the salary gap with Australia."

TEU members will be joining the Fairness at Work National Day of Action next Wednesday as they attempt to convince the government to abandon the proposed new laws.

Report says schools preventing Pacific Islanders getting into tertiary education

A Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs report says that schools are not doing enough to help Pacific students choose the right subjects to get them into tertiary education. The ministry is eager to encourage young pacific people into study in industry sectors with high employment demand.

"The best way forward for Pacific peoples is sound education at primary and secondary level, and choosing the NCEA subjects that fit areas of future employment demand and/or tertiary studies," Ministry Chief Executive Dr Colin Tukuitonga says.

"Pacific peoples will be ten percent of the population by 2026, compared with six percent now. Today’s Pacific students need to be better informed about subjects, qualifications and future career pathways, and they need better support at tertiary level, so that they stay and complete their qualifications."

Currently only 28 percent of Pacific school leavers qualify for university compared with 52 percent for Pakeha-Europeans and 68 percent for Asians.

The report, developed by the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs and the Department of Labour, looked at occupations and industries with the highest future growth forecast, the current numbers of Pacific peoples now employed in those areas and the educational pathways required for high-skilled, high-growth employment.

Colombian academic jailed for beliefs

LabourStart and Education International have launched an international campaign to free imprisoned Colombian academic Miguel Ángel Beltrán Villegas. Dr Ángel Beltrán Villegas, Associate Professor of Sociology at the National University of Colombia, was tried in 2009 by Álvaro Uribe’s government, on charges of "rebellion" and "breaking the law for terrorist purposes". One year after his imprisonment there has been no evidence to support the allegations against him. During his teaching career, Dr Ángel Beltrán Villegas has published various articles and academic papers questioning the official version of the Colombian civil war. He has also criticised Colombia’s education policy and human rights abuses in the country. Education International is deeply concerned that professor Beltrán has been imprisoned for his political beliefs, like so many other teachers in Colombia, without having committed any crime.

Dr Beltrán has written to his students from jail encouraging them to continue to campaign for democratic freedoms.

"It is through open and pluralistic debate of ideas - not of the silence and the adulation of individual thought - that the university can guarantee the fulfilment of its social function and be elevated to a true instrument for social transformation… My academic life has closely been linked to the fight for democratic ideals, first as a student, later as a teacher and now as political prisoner of an establishment that criminalises committed educational work."

You can send an email supporting Dr Ángel Beltrán Villegas at the Labour Start website.

Open Polytechnic student-staff ratio skyrockets

A funding shortfall at the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand could mean student-staff ratios skyrocket as one in five academics lose their jobs.

The polytechnic has released a review of faculties that proposes disestablishing nearly thirty of its 146 full time equivalent lecturers.  The proposal, if it goes ahead, will see student-staff ratios increase from about 40:1 to 55:1.

TEU organiser Phil Dyhrberg says that cuts will make it harder for students to contact their lecturer.

"Fewer lecturers means less contact time for students.  One of New Zealand’s most significant distance learning providers will become more distant from its students.  That puts unnecessary pressure on lecturers and students, ” said Mr Dyhrberg.

The report plans to cut 12.8 FTE staff from the School of Business, 8.4 from the School of Information and Social Sciences and 8 staff from the School of Workplace Learning.

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs says the cuts, like those at other polytechnics around the country, are the result of government funding cuts.

“Lecturers at polytechnics want to help people find the skills and qualifications they need to get work.  Instead, short-sighted government cuts mean that those lecturers themselves are also losing jobs,” said Ms Riggs.

In the School of Business the polytechnic is predicting 2100 EFTS next year, but intends they will be taught by 37.5 EFTS rather than the 50.3 EFTS currently employed in 2010.  That means a change in ratio from 1:42 to 1:56 (up 33 percent). Similar increases are intended for the other two schools as well.

"An institution cannot reasonable ask 114 full time equivalent lecturers to do the same job that 144 are currently doing without that converting into either an undue increase in workload or significant pressure on quality," said Ms Riggs.

Other news

The Eastern Institute of Technology and Tairawhiti Polytechnic are consulting staff on plans to merge the two institutions. The consultation follows agreement in principle between the Councils of the two institutions for a merger that would take effect from next year - EIT

Parliament will vote for the third and final time on Wednesday next week on the Act Party's bill to compel voluntary student membership on students associations.  It is likely that the bill, if passed, will cost tertiary institutions millions of dollars as they try to provide student support and services that had previously been funded directly by students.

Childcare for studying parents in Palmerston North just got more expensive with at least four Palmerston North early childhood education centres - Turitea Child Care Centre, Hokowhitu Children's Centre, Massey Child Care, and UCOL's Early Education Centre - forced to increase prices by up to 15 percent and reduce the number of qualified teachers this year - Manawatu Standard

University of Waikato staff are losing their jobs because of bad planning and decision-making by senior management at Waikato University, the TEU claims. In a letter leaked to the Waikato Times, TEU says Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences staff are being penalised because of bad planning by senior management. The university is proposing to cut about 13 jobs from Arts and Social Sciences – Waikato Times

UCU has warned that Lord Browne's recommendations for higher education in Britain would have a devastating effect, seeing some universities forced to close and the curriculum dangerously narrowed, as the cost of university is effectively transferred from the state to the family – University and College Union

Can academic freedom exist in a country where speech is not free? Can liberal education flourish in an illiberal context? These are two of the questions that Yale University faces in considering whether to establish, in partnership with the National University of Singapore, a liberal arts college in Singapore – Inside Higher Ed

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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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