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Aoraki staff suffering back-to-school blues

Spare a thought for tutors and students at Aoraki Polytechnic where low morale and stress from restructuring means a number of staff have resigned, or are on sick leave, just as the teaching year begins.

TEU national president Sandra Grey says morale has been very low generally across Aoraki Polytechnic for at least the last year because of constant restructuring and redundancies.

The Timaru Herald reported this week that staff in the outdoor education department, where the four staff are currently on sick leave work, have felt particularly undervalued.

"The issue is broader than just the handful of people on sick leave becaue of worklace stress or those who have resigned," said Dr Grey.

The Timaru Herald reports that the outdoor education programme leader had resigned in the latter half of last year.

In the last fortnight, two campus managers – in Dunedin and Christchurch – had also resigned.

Dr Grey says Aoraki staff are not alone in suffering stress due to constant restructuring. Last year there were over 50 major restructures or reviews in public tertiary institutions.

"Many institutions are returning to record numbers of students, but fewer staff to do the job and uncertainty about whose job might be next. It’s a direct result of government funding cuts and it is creating stress for both staff and students," said Dr Grey.

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Academics turn down 4 percent pay, want better education instead


2. Union members vote again to end ITP MECA


3. International students caught in PTE "hit and run"?


4. Obama protects education from budget cuts


5. Other news

Academics turn down 4 percent pay, want better education instead

Protecting the quality of teaching and research may cost academic staff at the University of Auckland a pay rise but they’re prepared to make this trade-off and use industrial action to achieve it.

At meetings across every campus at the University of Auckland, academic staff are exasperated at their employer for trying to take away conditions crucial to doing their job well. The university is offering a 4 percent pay-rise, which academics have said they would rather not take if it means they lose key conditions from their employment agreements.

The vice chancellor is proposing to move key conditions out of the collective agreement and into university policy.

TEU national president Sandra Grey says staff cannot believe that their vice chancellor is trying to buy out staff with a 4% pay rise provided he is able to make major changes to their collective agreement.

Associate professor Alexandra Sims from the University of Auckland, says the changes would leave staff without any say over conditions which are fundamental to their roles. For example one condition is around managing their research.

"We want to ensure that students’ qualifications at Auckland are still highly sought after and we can only do this if our teaching is informed by research."

University of Auckland senior lecturer Kim Dirks says their vice chancellor repeatedly says he wants Auckland to be the number one university in New Zealand.

"Staff are warning the vice chancellor that if they are forced to let go of these important conditions of work, then attracting first-class academics and postgraduate students will be much harder."

Union members vote again to end ITP MECA

TEU members at each of the six polytechnics previously covered by the ITP multi-employer collective agreement (MECA) have overwhelmingly voted down their employers’ proposal to negotiate a new MECA.  Union members at NorthTec, Unitec, Bay of Plenty Polytechnic WINTEC, WITT, and Whitireia Community Polytechnic have all rejected their employers’ proposal by at least 80 percent.  

These just concluded ballots followed a series of meetings where TEU members had already voted in favour of replacing their MECA with separate, site-based agreements at each of their polytechnics. Despite that vote the six employers had initiated for another MECA, forcing a second ballot on the issue.

TEU has now written to each of six polytechnics, advising them of the outcome of the respective votes, and has initiated for a site based collective agreement at each polytechnic.

TEU members are now planning to organise claims meetings and establish bargaining teams, to start the bargaining process at each polytechnic.

National industrial officer Irena Brorens says that staff at the six polytechnics have been waiting a long time now to be able to negotiate a collective agreement.

"These staff have been through a lot of unnecessary hassle and they deserve the chance to finally negotiate a collective agreement that addresses some of the issues they are experiencing as workers."

International students caught in PTE "hit and run"?

"Hit and run" private training establishments (PTEs) are threatening to ruin the success of New Zealand's export education industry, said Labour MP, Raymond Huo to the New Zealand Herald.

His comments follow an article in Indian Newslink by Feroz Ali, the Chief Executive of the New Zealand Career College, who accused some private tertiary enterprises (PTEs) of "exploiting students".

"ome PTEs and unscrupulous people exploit international students for their personal gains. The converse may also be true but in a majority of cases, students become victims."

Mr Ali argued that some PTEs are ignoring NZQA approved entry criteria for many qualifications to lure students into their school.

Raymond Huo, says bad experiences at language schools are making many international students look elsewhere to continue their education.

As a result, New Zealand is gaining a reputation overseas for providing "ghetto education", he says.

Mr Huo will be introducing a member's bill to parliament, which would require PTEs to belong to an organisation with high professional and ethical standards.

Education Directions chief executive Dave Guerin though has suggested that rather than passing a new law the sector simply needs NZQA and Immigration NZ to take a tougher line on the "shady operations" that are currently ignoring regulations. Mr Guerin notes that all courses must already be approved unless exempted by NZQA, and those exemptions are limited to a very few situations.

Meanwhile TEU has published a column warning international students to be on the lookout for unscrupulous tertiary education institutions.

Obama protects education from budget cuts

In a 2012 budget blueprint that administration officials portrayed as austere and Republicans derided as profligate, US President Obama kept his promise to privilege spending on education and research -- though not without some potential pain for programmes important to colleges and students.

"Education is an investment that we need to win the future -- just like innovation is an investment that we need to win the future; just like infrastructure is an investment that we need to win the future," the president said in unveiling the budget at a Baltimore math and science school. "And to make sure that we can afford these investments, we’re going to have to get serious about cutting back on those things that would be nice to have but we can do without."

Unlike House Republican leaders, who in their first crack at a Tea Party-friendly federal budget plan cut disproportionately from health, education and labour programs, President Obama's 2012 budget blueprint generally shields what he calls "investments" in education, research and a few other key areas. The rest of his budget however begins a five-year drive to freeze most federal spending and reduce the deficit. The Education Department's overall budget would grow by 4.3 percent in 2012 under the president's budget.

In many of its priorities and emphases, the president's proposed budget for 2012 stood in stark contrast to legislation put forward by House Republicans on Friday to fund the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year, which ends in September. While the Republican Party measure would slash grants, end funding for several other student aid programs, and slice billions of dollars from agencies that support academic research, the Obama budget for 2012 keeps those and other programs largely intact.

From Doug Lederman at Inside Higher Ed

Other news

Education Minister Anne Tolley has announced that up to 4000 young people will be retained in education and skills training in the year ahead instead of dropping out of the system, as a result of the Youth Guarantee and wider government initiatives. She then explains that the government has provided funding for 2500 of those students but that polytechnics and PTEs will actually be teaching 2700 youth guarantee students – or 8 percent more than they have been funded to teach – Anne Tolley

Ten staff members at the Open Polytechnic, many long-serving, were made redundant yesterday following a review that also resulted in a large number of voluntary redundancies. TEU organiser Phil Dyhrberg is questioning how this happened when the Open Polytechnic received an increase in Student Achievement Component funding from the government of nearly half a million dollars this year.

The Court of Appeal has ruled disability workers must be paid the minimum wage for doing sleepover shifts, leaving question marks about where the extra money will come from. The court's decision yesterday upheld an earlier Employment Court decision that ruled in favour of Idea Services support worker Phil Dickson, who argued he should be paid the hourly minimum wage while doing a sleepover shift - The Dominion Post

A bill to abolish compulsory membership of student associations has been delayed by Labour and Green Party MPs. In Parliament tonight they put up a raft of amendments to the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill and it did not complete its committee stage before the 10pm adjournment. That means it won't be ready for its final stage, the third reading, for about six weeks - NZPA

Senior academics at the University of Cambridge will rethink a proposal to create a large tuition fee waiver for poor students by slashing bursaries after the institution’s governing council heard arguments against the plan. They had recommended that the university charge the maximum £9,000 tuition fee in 2012-13 but alleviate the impact on poor students by offering them a discount of £3,000 a year. However, students were angry that the current maximum bursary of £3,400 would be cut by more than half, to £1,625, to fund the scheme. –Time Higher Education Supplement

David Hall, an internationally recognised expert in public service investment, privatisation, asset sales and public private partnerships, argues that public spending drives economic growth. David Hall’s expert summing up of the case for public spending is now on YouTube. It is essential viewing for anyone interested in the debate about privatisation and asset sales.

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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.

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