TEU council has agreed to campaign to highlight the detrimental effect that the current government is having on public tertiary education.

“Virtually every major policy that this government has introduced in its two and half years of power has been bad for public tertiary education,” Said TEU national president Dr Sandra Grey. “Funding has fallen, institutions have been consistently reorganised so they are in a constant state of flux, students have been excluded from decision-making, community representatives have been prevented from having a say in the governance of their local tertiary institutions and staff workloads are continuing to grow.”

“New Zealand has a world-class tertiary education system with world-class people teaching and researching for it. But our tertiary education system should not have to withstand this onslaught.”

“What we are saying to the public is that if you intend to vote for this government next election you need to tell it to change its tertiary education policy, because at the moment, good people are missing out on the chance to learn.”

The union introduced at its last annual conference a public education policy against which it has been judging government and institution polices.