Twenty five Massey staff within the School of Engineering and Advanced Technology at Wellington campus face having their positions disestablished before Christmas. A management proposal released last week calls for the complete withdrawal of Massey’s current face-to-face engineering offerings  on its Wellington campus.

TEU is awaiting confirmation that Massey University Council will decide this matter at their December 3 meeting and will be advocating to the Council against the closure.

If the decision proceeds it will mean the end of the country’s only product design engineering degree.

The university says it would compensate the 50 affected students, and offer them the option of continuing their study at either Palmerston North or Albany.

TEU member and School of Engineering and Advanced Technology senior lecturer John Heath told the Dominion Post most of the 25 staff would probably lose their jobs if the move went through, while students already enrolled for 2011 would have to make alternative arrangements.

While the school did not have a strong roll, it had been increasing. “It’s nothing to do with performance, it’s nothing to do with quality, it’s to do with budgets and bottom lines and spreadsheets,” said Dr Heath.

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs agreed saying the union would be arguing the proposal before the university’s next council meeting.

“This is yet another round of redundancies that students don’t want, tertiary education doesn’t need and New Zealanders cannot afford. How will we give people the skills and knowledge we need if we keep cutting away at courses like this?”