Lobbying efforts by TEU and others mean that the Tertiary Education Commission will change the way it calculates and reports on PBRF ranking. Currently researchers rated R or R (NE) are included in a tertiary institution’s Average Quality Score. TEU argued that this led to a number of universities targeting R [...]

Tertiary Update Vol 15 No 11 TEU has just won a significant employment authority case that challenges the use of confirmation at Otago University. The employment authority found yesterday that the University of Otago breached Dr Jane Millichamp’s right to natural justice and its own duty of good faith when [...]

A lobbying disclosure bill that is to be debated by parliament could impact tertiary institutions that currently pay lobbying agencies to influence politicians.  Last year Tertiary Update revealed that private lobbying and consultancy company Saunders Unsworth lists among its past and present clients Massey University, Otago University, the six metro polytechnics, Victoria University of Wellington, [...]

Tertiary Update Vol 15 No 8 Employment negotiations for thousands of university staff at seven of New Zealand’s eight universities will begin in three months’ time, and union members are already working out what the main issues they need to see addressed to improve their working life. One of the [...]

Tertiary institutions are in a constant state of restructuring says TEU deputy secretary Nanette Cormack. Last week TEU’s national council heard that there are 59 reviews affecting 500 jobs currently underway across 17 different tertiary education institutions. “500 members are about 5 percent of our membership. When one in twenty [...]

Tertiary Update Vol 15 No 1 At least nine New Zealanders have joined a global boycott of Elsevier, the world’s largest scientific journal publisher. The protest has rapidly gained momentum since it began as an irate blog post at the end of January. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education [...]

As part of its on-going campaign for Pay and Employment Equity TEU is supporting the CTU’s petition to encourage workers to invite Department of Labour inspectors into their workplaces to check the time and wage records of their employers for any discrimination. CTU President, Helen Kelly said “The Ministers of [...]

TEU members at the University of Otago have begun and then, quickly, finished their collective agreement negotiations, settling on a 3 percent increase in salaries for both academics and general staff and a one-year term. The agreement also contains some enhancements for general staff and extended coverage, so that more [...]

A long queue of publicly funded tertiary education institutions and organisations are, or have recently been employing the services of private lobbying and consultancy company Saunders Unsworth. Saunders Unsworth lists among its past and present clients Massey University, Otago University, the Metro Polytechnics, Victoria University of Wellington, and the Industry [...]

The University of Canterbury will send up to 500 of its students to study at the University of Adelaide for the next four months because of the Christchurch earthquake, according to TVNZ. University of Canterbury vice-chancellor Rod Carr has announced the university has accepted an offer from the University of [...]