League tables obscure what we already know – TEU media release
Predictably, tertiary institutions with higher numbers of part time students, extramural students, older students and second-chance learners rank poorly compared to other universities, polytechnics and wānanga in today’s Tertiary Education Commission league tables.
“But, that says nothing about their actual performance,” says TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs. “It just says they started with the students who have to travel the longest journey.”
“Education should be about giving everyone a chance to do something good, for themselves, for their families and their communities. League tables like those released today simply tell institutions and their prospective students that we measure success not by how far you come but how far in front you start before the journey even begins.”
“It will be interesting to see, now that the government has its much vaunted ranking of tertiary institutions,” says Ms Riggs, “whether it responds by giving those institutions at the foot of the tables the support they need to keep helping their students achieve, or if it now abandons them to face public scrutiny alone.”
TEU is worried that if students and the public look at these tables without the context of knowing what individual institutions are trying to do, all they will see is irrelevant comparisons and bad measurements. Institutions that are working hard in their local communities will take an unnecessary, and undeserved, hit to their reputation from which it will be hard to recover.
The impact on women of this policy, if applied crudely, could be very detrimental. My research in women gender and ICT, like other international studies, such as Trauth, Adams, and von Hellens, shows that women have multiple pathways into tertiary training. When they choose to take a second or third opportunity, with young or adult children, as the sole breadwinner, or a second earner, they learn the skills and gain employment quickly. Sometimes qualification completion is second place to the pragmatism of securing a position that is achievable now.
Beeby and Amos put in place different styles of education institutions which have stood the test of time based on egalitarian principles and equal opportunity. ROI should measure the experience that women bring to their study, the support they give to younger students, and the wisdom they apply when teach research and study at tertiary level. I trust that we are not going to be used yet again as the reserve army like in other recessions!