While many tertiary education staff around the country have faced restructuring and redundancy this year as tertiary institutions look to cut costs and reduce staff numbers, there is one oasis of job growth in the sector.  The Ministry of Education started advertising this weekend for assistant policy analysts, policy analysts, senior policy analysts, chief policy analysts, a business analyst, a senior manager of tertiary policy, and a student loan programme manager, all positions being in its Tertiary Education Group.

Given the dramatic redundancies at the Tertiary Education Commission last year, and the government’s apparent preference for the Ministry of Education to be its main source of policy advice, rather than the commission, it is not surprising that the Ministry appears to be increasing its capacity to provide advice on tertiary education.

As recently as August the Public Services Association announced that the Ministry was cutting over 100 jobs, However, Tertiary Update understands that those cuts did not impact on the Ministry’s Tertiary Education Group

TEU national president Dr Tom Ryan said it was important that the policy support the TEC was previously funded to provide is replaced.

“The apparent growth of the Ministry’s Tertiary Education Group shows how politically-driven last year’s attacks on the commission were.  Just as a good tertiary education system needs to pay for good people out in the various tertiary education institutions around the country, so it also needs good people in its central bureaucracy,” said Dr Ryan.

“But maybe this means there is an opportunity for some of the many good people who lost their jobs in the sector this year to find a job advising the minister on tertiary education?”