Radio NZ reports Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce has asked Canterbury’s three main tertiary providers to examine all possible options, including mergers, as they look towards the next 20 years. Mr Joyce told RNZ the earthquakes mean Canterbury University, Lincoln University and the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology have to take [...]

The Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) could use ‘Compacts’ with individual tertiary education institutions in conjunction with performance linked funding to drive the government’s economic growth strategy. In its publicly released, but highly censored, briefing to the incoming minister TEC notes that overseas jurisdictions such as Australia and some US states [...]

TEU believes new academic timetables at the University of Canterbury are much better than first drafts, after it met with two assistant vice-chancellors earlier this week. Last week the Christchurch Press reported that academic staff were up in arms over changes to the way timetables are set, “forcing lecturers to [...]

Twenty-four University of Canterbury staff will lose their jobs, after opting for voluntary redundancy, according to the Press. The soon-to-be redundant staff were responding to a request by vice-chancellor Rod Carr asking staff to consider taking voluntary redundancy as the university tries to restore its finances, after losing students because [...]

Tertiary Update Vol 14 No 38 The Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) has announced that it will adopt three of TEU’s proposed recommendations for conducting the 2012 PBRF Quality Evaluation of earthquake affected PBRF eligible staff in the Canterbury region. The commission has agreed, following feedback from TEU and the affected TEIs, to [...]

Academics who teach small classes will be among those at risk of redundancy, University of Canterbury vice-chancellor Rod Carr told the Press last week. Dr Carr said the university would wait for voluntary redundancies before deciding how many staff would lose their jobs. There was “no doubt” staff who were [...]

Sandra Grey, National President, NZTEU  Melbourne, 7 October 2011 New Zealand is in the middle of Rugby World Cup fever. In every city and town I visit, there are signs welcoming visiting teams and supporters; events to ensure they enjoy their time in New Zealand; and, of course plenty of All Blacks [...]

Tertiary Update Vol 14 No 37 Hundreds of TEU members denounced the possibility of forced jobs cuts at Canterbury University this week and committed themselves to campaign to protect and promote education for local Canterbury people. A large crowd of TEU members gathered at a stop-work meeting this week and [...]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Tertiary Update Vol 14 No 35 Tertiary education minister Steven Joyce yesterday afternoon guaranteed that the University of Canterbury, Lincoln University and CPIT would be funded for the number of students they had prior to the September 2010 earthquake. Prior to his announcement nearly a thousand people had already signed [...]

Tertiary education providers outside Christchurch should not be advertising in Christchurch to encourage students away from Canterbury according to TEU national president Sandra Grey. Dr Grey told The Press that tertiary instituions need to rethink their marketing strategies under such “extraordinary circumstances”. “It’s about showing respect for Christchurch and trying to [...]