Students And Staff Put The Spotlight On The Tertiary Education Commission

Open Letter to Tim Fowler, Chief Executive Officer, Tertiary Education Commission, Jan Tinetti, Minister of Education and the future Minister of Education,

The 1 July 2023 Cabinet paper on risks to higher education capability due to proposed university cuts entirely downplays the severity of the tertiary education crisis. The dissonance between the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) and the concerns of staff and students nationwide has never been so palpable.

It is crucial to question whether the Tertiary Education Commission has provided reliable advice to the Minister of Education. How can we have confidence in the TEC to provide independent, high-quality advice on a problem when it has played a direct role in creating that problem? While the TEC did not establish the funding model they have been responsible for its oversight. They have watched and even encouraged the tertiary sector towards staff cuts as the natural solution. Their analysis dismissing significant risks from staff cuts, and refusal to defer university funding clawbacks from financially struggling universities, affirms this stance.

It is even more crucial to call into question the role and purpose of the TEC. A body that merely focuses on the financing of education divorced from the purpose and goals of education reduces it into a technical exercise of balancing the books. The TEC appears to exist to manage a failing funding model, without advocating for improvements nor a genuine commitment to supporting education as a public good. If the latter were the case, the TEC would engage with us in its proposals to the Minister of Education, and it would actively participate in the broader mission of tertiary education rather than wield ‘punish and reward’ style incentives to providers in the name of ‘learner-centrism.’

Tim Fowler, CEO of TEC said “As to whose side am I on? I’m on the side of a vibrant and sustainable university sector that has the interests of learners at its centre,” in an article in Student Magazine Critic. But we disagree. This funding model is one that has consumers and consumer choice at the centre rather than students’ rights. We want our rights as students back, which surely includes a right to quality education that is not being culled left and right by staff cuts. If the TEC were to genuinely support students, it would not underfund universities whilst asking them to do more, such as undertaking holistic pastoral care for students and generating higher student completion rates.

The TEC are unelected, high-ranking officials with immense power to advance austerity, competition, and staff cuts. Sure, this is the status quo which they administer - but preservation of the state of affairs is still an agenda. Moreover, it is an agenda that has no democratic public mandate, in light of how the Ministers of Education and Finance acknowledged the current funding model is unsustainable and needs a Higher Education Funding Review.

Why has the Minister of Education not given the TEC a clear directive to cease relentless clawbacks to tertiary funding, to treat a tertiary crisis as such, to no longer allow this broken funding system to cause harm to students, staff and institutions? The delay in defining the Review’s scope to December 2023 and allowing this funding system to eat away at our institutes of higher learning until the review is completed, does not safeguard the future of tertiary education.

We call upon the Tertiary Education Commission, political parties, the current and future Minister of Education to:

Commit to comprehensively review the TEC’s purpose and functions in the Higher Education Funding Review.

Commit to ensure the Higher Education Funding Review is led by a mixed group of independent experts, university staff, and students, as we cannot trust government officials and the Tertiary Education Commission to investigate themselves.

Establish accountability mechanisms to university staff and students for future TEC proposals related to staff redundancies.

In acknowledgment of a tertiary education crisis, return the $51.8 million clawback to financially struggling universities and halt clawbacks until the Review’s completion.

New Zealand Union of Students Associations (NZUSA),

Victoria University of Wellington Students Association (VUWSA),

Otago University Students Association (OUSA),

Te Tira Ahu Pae (Massey University Students Association)

Dougal McNeill Tertiary Education Union - Victoria University of Wellington Branch President

Tertiary Education Union - Otago University Branch

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