Tertiary Update Volume 12 Number 42

The minister for tertiary education, Hon Anne Tolley, announced last week that she was looking for nominees to fill the four ministerially-appointed councillor roles in up to 31 tertiary education institution councils, including universities, wananga and institutes of technology and polytechnics.

The minister’s notice to interested parties noted that she will have a number of council appointments to make throughout 2010, and that she would like to pull together a pool of quality candidates who are interested in being considered for appointment.

Mrs Tolley’s call for nominations, which arrived at the Tertiary Education Union late on Thursday evening last week, closed on Monday this week, giving potential nominees just two working days to submit their expressions of interest. The union is unaware of any earlier public call for nominations, other than the email sent last Thursday.

Sections 171 (4) and 171 (5) of the Education Act suggest that candidates should reflect the ethnic and socio-economic diversity of the communities they serve, and that half should be male and half female.” There should also be a sufficient number of members with expertise in management, experience of governance, and specialist skills.

The minister’s statement says that ideal candidates will have” a portfolio of public, private, or not-for-profit sector board appointments; and/or a career history that includes executive level leadership of private or public sector organisations; and/or expertise in a relevant professional area such as education, finance, law or social policy.

TEU president Dr Tom Ryan says that these appointments could have particular significance for the ITP sector, as a new and less democratic council structure is likely to be introduced there early next year.

“Those ministerial appointees to ITP councils will effectively have a voting majority from next year, so people the minister picks will from now on be playing an important role in the direction of education for our polytechnics and institutes of technology.”

“It’s unfortunate we have been unable to forward any nominations for these positions. Two days is an impossibly brief time to try to complete such a process.”

Also in” Tertiary Update this week:

1. Bargaining concludes at Auckland, Waikato, Otago and Vic
2. Minister replaces training allowance with smaller loan
3. Keep education out of WTO agreements
4. ‘What? There is no University of Newlands?’
5. Govt readies NZ for spending cuts
6. 60-year-olds rack up student loan debt

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:” http://scr.im/stephenday