“There is no evidence that shifting funding to favour younger students getting degrees will have any impact on the economy at all. In fact Treasury’s focus on degrees at the expense of other qualifications will take away opportunities from some New Zealand families who most need education to lift themselves up and contribute to New Zealand’s economy.”

Dr Grey was responding to Treasury’s advice to government ministers, which was released today.

“Treasury thinks it can pick winners and invest only in them. This denies opportunities to all other ordinary New Zealanders,” said Dr Grey.

Dr Grey says Treasury’s desire to shift research funding to favour research that private firms ask for is effectively an attempt to privatise our public research institutions.

“We should not research things only because a private firm thinks it can make a profit. Often there is a crucial need for research that is not solely in the interests of private companies.

“If Treasury wants a vibrant growing economy and communities, it needs to invest equitably in all types of education and research,” said Dr Grey.

For more information:

Sandra Grey, TEU national president, 021 844 176 or 04 801 5098

Stephen Day, TEU communications officer, 021 2900 734 or 04 801 4792

http://www.teu.ac.nz

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 by Tuesday evening, about 2,400 scholars had put their names to an online pledge not to publish or do any editorial work for the company’s journals, including refereeing papers. Protesters accuse Elsevier of charging too much and supporting laws that will keep research findings bottled up behind a company pay-wall.

Employees of the universities of Auckland, Lincoln and Otago have signed the pledge as well as one staff member at NIWA.

Brett S. Abrahams, an assistant professor of genetics at the USA’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine, told the Chronicle, “The government pays me and other scientists to produce work, and we give it away to private entities. Then they charge us to read it.” Mr Abrahams signed the pledge on Tuesday after reading about it on Facebook.

According to the boycotters, Elsevier, which publishes over 2,000 journals including the prestigious Cell and The Lancet, is abusing academic researchers in three areas. First there are the prices. Then the company bundles subscriptions to lesser journals together with valuable ones, forcing libraries to spend money buying things they do not want in order to get a few things they do want. And, most recently, Elsevier has supported a proposed US law that could prevent agencies like the US National Institutes of Health from making all articles written by grant recipients freely available.

However Elsevier rejects the complaints saying, globally, the amount of research that is published is going up every year but library budgets are not keeping pace.

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. WITT gains from PTE closure
2. TEU negotiates improved Canterbury timetable
3. University of Auckland pushes Teach First
4. Student loan debtors escape on OE

Other news

Wintec settled a collective agreement with its academic staff late last year. NorthTec is now the only one of the old ITP MECA polytechnics not to settle a collective agreement with its staff. NorthTec wants an employment agreement which allows it to direct staff to work any days, evenings and weekends. Tutors have not had a pay increase since November 2008.

“The government should be focusing on creating jobs and getting money into the pockets of low and middle income people by stimulating the economy rather than an inflexible deficit target,” says CTU Economist Bill Rosenberg. “We have had over 150,000 unemployed and 250,000 jobless almost constantly now since mid 2009. The unemployment rate at 6.6 percent is barely below its financial crisis peak in December 2009.” – CTU

Lower Hutt is in danger of losing its last provider of adult community night classes. Hutt City Workers’ Education Association (WEA) president Maurice Payes confirms a funding squeeze has forced the group to lay off its two part-time workers, who are owed wages. Four Lower Hutt colleges abandoned running adult community courses in 2010 when the National Government cut $13 million out of the $16m annual Adult Community Education (ACE) budget. That left the WEA as the last provider – Hutt News

United States President Obama brought his campaign for college affordability to an audience of Michigan college students last week, pledging that his administration would be “putting colleges on notice” over rising costs and issuing a call for continued public support for higher education by states so that the USA does not become a nation where education is reserved for the well-to-do – Chronicle of Higher Education 

Teach First NZ says similar schemes operate overseas, including in Britain, and it would help cover shortages in hard-to-staff areas such as South Auckland. However, the Herald on Sundayreported that two South Auckland principals are critical of the plan saying it was insensitive and not the right way to tackle inequality in education.

MIT’s director of external relations, Stuart Middleton also expressed concern about the proposal saying:

“It is also somewhat ingenuous to put the Teach First programme forward as a key contribution to lifting the value of low decile schools. There is little evidence that low decile schools need bright young novice teachers any more than any school does.”

The report identifies that nearly 60,000 former students who have completed their study since 1999, left the country and have not yet returned to New Zealand.

The report, Going abroad: What do we know about people going overseas after tertiary study?, concludes “a large proportion [of student loan borrowers] had been away for longer than three years and was still based overseas at the end of our data series. And there were few distinctive characteristics of those who returned that mark them out from those who stay away… More than half of those who stay overseas for an extended period see their loan balances rise, not decrease, over time, as interest and penalties outweigh any repayments.”

TEU national president Dr Sandra Grey says that for New Zealand it does not matter greatly whether student loan borrowers return from overseas or not, so long as they are happy and their education is serving them well, wherever they reside.

“But we do need to be wary that large debts may be either encouraging young Kiwis to head overseas, or discouraging them from returning once they have left. Having an education should not become something that makes it harder for New Zealanders to feel as if they cannot live in their own country.”

TEU national president Dr Sandra Grey says the data is yet another signal to the minister of tertiary education that he needs to change his approach.

“It’s pretty self-evident that investing in tertiary education helps protect people and countries from economic troubles. It is a shame our current government has chosen to systematically cut hundreds of millions of dollars from tertiary education since 2009.”

“New Zealand has great tertiary education institutions, great students and great teachers. With a little more belief and support from government we could lead New Zealand’s recovery from the economic downturn. Instead, because of savage government cuts we are also mired in our own internal downturn,” said Dr Grey.

For more information:

Sandra Grey, TEU national president, 021 844 176 or 04 801 5098

Sharn Riggs, TEU national secretary, 027 443 8768 or 04 801 4732

“Destiny’s outlandish ‘university’ makes a mockery of the public education responsibilities of New Zealand’s real universities, polytechnics and wānanga,” said TEU President Dr Sandra Grey. “Our public universities all provide accredited evidence based high quality public education. That is what New Zealanders expect when they hear the term ‘university’.”

“In all likelihood Mr Tamaki’s ‘university’ will do none of those things. It is likely that his own battered reputation will be enough to ensure most Kiwis are not conned into paying for an education of little value. However, there are thousands of other pseudo-educational institutions like Mr Tamaki’s out there in the world, many wanting to expand their market access into New Zealand.”

“The Government’s Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, currently being negotiated with the United States and seven other countries, will ensure those sham-universities have the same rights to set up business in New Zealand that Mr Tamaki has. In effect, the combination of proposals like Mr Tamaki’s and the TPPA threatens to open the floodgates for dozens of foreign privately-owned, extremist sham-universities to set up a campus in New Zealand and seek public funding.”

For more information:

Sandra Grey, TEU national president, 021 844 176 or 04 801 5098
Stephen Day, TEU communications officer, 021 2900 734 or 04 801 4792
http://www.teu.ac.nz

Thanks to Curtis Gregory Perry at Flickr for the photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/curtisperry/118610793

“Mr Joyce talked regularly, during his first term as minister of tertiary education, of the need for greater pastoral care of students and for helping people into study who would not otherwise have that opportunity.”

“In this second term of Mr Joyce’s ministership we would like to see the policy that supports those ambitions.”

“Tertiary education should not settle into a role of providing further education to those who are already succeeding. We want to help New Zealanders who need opportunities to contribute to our economy and our communities. But that means policies that focus on improving access to education and giving wrap around support for those who want to learn but do not know where to begin.”

“As professionals who work and study in tertiary education every day, we have got a suite of simple ideas to help students and potential students learn. We’re looking forward to the chance to meet with Mr Joyce so we can work together on protecting and enhancing New Zealand’s world class tertiary education system”, said Dr Grey.

For more information:

Sandra Grey, TEU national president, 021 844 176 or 04 801 5098
Stephen Day, TEU communications officer, 021 2900 734 or 04 801 4792

An increase in the amount borrowed for course fees caused the rise in overall student borrowing.

"On average, students borrowed $5,080 for course fees in 2010, an increase of 6.5 percent on 2009 (up $310). The average amount borrowed for both living and course-related costs remained relatively similar to those of 2009," Statistics New Zealand reports.

Statistics New Zealand also reported that former students who left study in 2009 earned less than their predecessors did. The average income one year after leaving study for students who left in 2009 was down 4.5 percent compared with those who left in 2008 ($31,300 down to $29,900).

"This is the third successive year that average income has decreased for students entering the workforce and reflects the impact of the recession on earnings in the labour market.”

The drop in income was particularly evident for students aged 20–24 years, down 7.0 percent compared with that received by students of the same age who left in 2008.

The report received significant media attention this week when it showed New Zealand had one of the largest increases in inequality over the last 25 years.

It noted that a rise in the supply of skilled workers in many countries helped offset the increase in wage inequality. Raising the skills level of the labour force also had a significant positive impact on employment growth.

It calls for “three pillars” of actions to close the gap – investing more in education and training, helping all groups into jobs, and closing tax loopholes to make the rich pay a fairer share of taxes.

“There is nothing inevitable about high and growing inequalities,” said OECD secretary-general Angel Gurria.

The OECD also noted that a decline in collective bargaining and workers’ rights contributed to inequality.

“Part-time work increased, atypical labour contracts became more common and the coverage of collective-bargaining arrangements declined in many countries. These changes in working conditions also contributed to rising earnings inequality.”

“If we don’t have strong evidence that charter schools provide better outcomes for students, why would we adopt them? What’s our purpose?”

Mr Marsh says a central component of New Zealand’s successful and highly regarded education system is its focus on ensuring all schools employ staff who are educated and qualified to be teachers. Most models of charter schools in other countries move away from that premise, by freeing private education providers to hire teachers with qualifications or registration.

Dr Peter Lind, Director of the Teachers Council has also warned that charter schools do not have any strong evidence to support their introduction.

“Bringing an American governance model into New Zealand right now may distract attention and resources away from initiatives to strengthen teaching here,” said Dr Lind.

Mr Marsh says it would be a shame to see charter schools undermine the value and integrity of New Zealand’s teacher education system by sending out a message that high quality teacher education is optional.