The prime minister, John Key, and the minister of tertiary education skills and employment, Steven Joyce, this week foreshadowed several tertiary education budget initiatives.

Mr Joyce told Radio New Zealand that he would be shifting funding away from humanities and commerce towards maths, science, engineering and technology.

“We pay a higher subsidy for humanities and commerce than the Australians do, we pay a lower subsidy for science and engineering.”

“That tends to mean that universities are a bit more biased towards those other subjects because we end up paying, probably, a little bit more than they need to encourage those subjects and not enough for the science, technology and engineering subjects,” Mr Joyce said.

His statements follow a Tertiary Education Commission edict to tertiary institutions to increase enrolments next year in science, technology, engineering and maths and, if necessary, to cut other courses to do that.

Meanwhile Mr Key told business leaders it would be another zero budget, and, to help achieve that, people with student loans, who currently pay back 10 cents for each dollar they earn, will have to pay them back faster.  Then Mr Joyce said that the government would cut allowance costs by ensuring allowances are targeted at those in the early years of study and to those that can least afford it.

NZUSA president Pete Hodkinson said that any cuts to allowances would reduce access, denying New Zealanders an opportunity to improve their lives, and would lead to greater debt.

While in detention at Evin Prison, Prof. Ghanbari was interrogated for 25 days in a row and forced to confess under duress to unproven charges. Nasrin Sotoudeh was his lawyer until she was herself condemned to a six-year sentence in Evin prison for “propaganda against the regime” and “acting against national security”.

In 2007, Prof. Ghanbari had already been detained for 120 days and sentenced to a six-month suspension from teaching and exiled from Sari to Pakdasht. Prof. Ghanbari has no known political connections. He was previously involved in teacher union activities until his union ITTA was dissolved in 2007.

Education International is calling on the Iranian authorities to stay the execution of Prof. Ghanbari and revoke the death sentence; to drop all charges against all detained trade unionists and release them immediately; to comply with the international labour standards and respect the rights of Iranian workers to freedom of association, assembly and expression. You can support the campaign here.

New Zealand Tertiary Education Union

A working paper for NTEU’s Future of Higher Education Conference, 22-23 February 2012, University of Sydney

View or download ‘When the government steers the market: implications for the New Zealand’s tertiary education system‘ as a pdf

Introduction

Three decades of policy development and change has significantly altered the operation of the New Zealand tertiary education sector. Rather than policy that supports the important autonomous characteristics of tertiary education, successive governments have put in place policy levers focused on disciplining what is seen as an ‘unruly’ subject – the tertiary education sector and in particular its staff. The policy approaches of successive governments have imposed a market-led framework on tertiary education; have created a single ‘tertiary education sector’; and, have heightened the government’s ‘strategic steering’ of the sector. The result is that the primary focus of the tertiary education sector has moved from that of broad-based social, human, scientific, and economic progress, to the much narrower goal of economic advancement. We argue the changes experienced have been detrimental to the sector and the nation. By examining the major policy trends since the mid-1980s we aim to contribute to the current understanding of how the ‘rules of the game’ have shaped the nation’s tertiary education system, and propose a change of direction for the sector.

Continuous reviews reflect international trends and local regime change

For three decades New Zealand’s tertiary education sector has been under a state of continuous review. In 2003 McLaughlin (17-19) noted seven government initiated reviews and/or reports which were carried out on the tertiary education sector in the 1980s and 1990s (1987, 1988, 1991, 1994, 1197-8, 2000 and 2001). Since that time there have been further major reviews. The Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) noted in 2005 some of the work it was completing included reviews of the Performance Based Research Fund, Adult and Community Education funding, and a review of Private Training Establishments (PTEs). In 2009 government agencies were charged with reviewing the provision of tertiary education in greater Auckland, the framework surrounding PTE funding, and the development of the New Zealand Skills Strategy (TEC 2008: 19-22). And there is currently a major review of industry training which the Ministry of Education (2011: 14) notes “has the potential to significantly alter the delivery of vocational education in New Zealand”. The result of all these reviews has been major legislative changes; the cessation of some government agencies and the creation of new ones; the modification of funding environments; redefinition of roles of institutions and those within them; changes to the way institutions are governed; and, the creation of new accountability and auditing models. We have no space in this paper to cover all of the changes that have been made to tertiary education but identify three major shifts in the rules surrounding the tertiary education sector which have significantly changed the operation of universities, polytechnics, wānanga, and other education providers.

New Zealand is unique because it clusters all parts of the sector together under a single strategy (Mahoney, 2003: 8)

The changes seen in New Zealand reflect international trends in tertiary education. In particular, there has been significant literature on the imposition of neo-liberal rules on public education globally (See Abbot 2004 for references to major international literature). And the drive to develop a national tertiary education strategy is evident in a range of jurisdictions as was noted in the opening of its briefing to the Minister of Tertiary Education in 2008:

A recent Organisation for Economic Co-oporation [sic] Development report notes a worldwide trend for governments to link their tertiary education systems to their social and economic objectives:

The imperative for countries is to raise higher-level employment skills, to sustain a globally competitive research base and to improve knowledge dissemination to the benefit of society.

National strategies are found in South Africa, France, and Britain, however, New Zealand is unique because it clusters all parts of the sector together under a single strategy (Mahoney, 2003: 8 ) and the implications of this will be evident as this paper progresses.

As well as reflecting international trends towards commercialisation, marketisation, ‘massification’, and steering, the policy approach imposed on the tertiary education sector in the last three decades has been part of New Zealand’s shift from a Keynesian welfare state, to a more market-driven state. Like many English-speaking democracies, from the 1980s New Zealand rejected Keynesian economic management in favour of a more market, less state, neo-liberal approach (Boston et al (eds) 1999; Castles 1996). The neo-liberal project affected both policy direction and the operations of the public sector through the instituting of the ‘New Public Management’ (NPM) (Sharp, A. 1994; Boston, J. (ed) 1995). Corporate management and marketisation (Davis and Rhodes, 2000: 75) led to contracts and other competitive market mechanisms becoming the preferred public sector methodology (Reddel 2004: 133). The Fourth Labour Government’s 1988 State Sector Act replaced input focused (implying high levels of trust) permanent secretaries with output focused (emphasis on efficiency) chief executives contracted to ministers and responsible for determining and delivering outcomes – the ‘new public management’ model (Bale 2003:210). This fundamentally altered the relationships between politicians, the public sector, and the public. However this ‘neo-liberal project’ changed over time. As Larner (2003) notes:

Indeed, it can be argued that New Zealand’s neoliberal project has now been through three distinct ‘‘phases’’: during the 1980s the state withdrew from many areas of economic production, while at the same time attempting to preserve — and even extend—the welfarist and social justice aspirations associated with social democracy; the more punitive phase of the early 1990s which saw an extension of the marketisation programme accompanied by the introduction of neo-conservative and/or authoritarian policies and programmes in the area of social policy; a third phase in the late 1990s characterised by a ‘‘partnering’’ ethos and in which discourses of ‘‘social inclusion’’ and ‘‘social investment’’ sit awkwardly alongside more obviously neoliberal elements such as economic globalisation, market activation and contractualism (Larner 2003).

A unicameral legislature with a single level of bureaucratic organisations implementing government decision-making set the ground for New Zealand to be a ‘laboratory’ for social and economic policy change since colonisation, including in the 1980s when Rogernomics (the nation’s neo-liberal programme) saw rapid and deep change instituted. Added to this New Zealand operates on a three-year election cycle which means that the longer term vision for tertiary education frequently gets lost in the upheaval of changes in government.

The New Zealand tertiary education sector

New Zealand’s tertiary education sector comprises public tertiary education institutions – universities, institutes of technology/polytechnics, wānanga – and a number of other providers, including smaller community providers such as Rural Education Activities Programmes (REAPs), and other small government-funded providers (for example Te Tari Puna Ora o Aotearoa – the New Zealand Early Childhood Association). The sector also includes approximately 800 private training providers – both for-profit and not-for-profit and an industry training sector which includes industry training organisations, responsible for setting industry standards and arranging workplace education and training.

The central agencies responsible for policy and funding decisions for the sector are the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) and the Ministry of Education. TEC was set up in 2004 to take responsibility for policy development, auditing and funding but as of 2010 were responsible primarily for funding and auditing. TEC comprises at least six but no more than nine Commissioners appointed by the responsible Minister. The Ministry of Education is the main agency responsible for education from early childhood to tertiary education and has been responsible for the policy advisory function for the tertiary sector for decades. The National-led government in 2011 created a crown agency to market New Zealand institutions on the international education market – Education New Zealand. And there are currently two agencies responsible for quality assurance: New Zealand Qualifications Authority and Universities New Zealand (through the Committee on University Academic Programmes).

As well as these central agencies, there are a number of other government agencies such as the Ministry of Social Development, Te Puni Kōkiri (Ministry of Māori Development) who have a small percentage of their budgets allocated to funding tertiary education and training.

Policy implementation is undertaken through the Tertiary Education Strategy, which identifies priorities for the sector through the Statement of Tertiary Education Priorities (STEP). Individual institutions then outline how they will address these priorities through their investment plans (negotiated with government representatives), which must reflect their institutional profile (wānanga, institute of technology, university etc.). (For a more details see OECD’s Thematic Review of Tertiary Education – Country Reviews).

So what norms, ideals, and philosophies guide this government machinery and what does it mean for those who work and study in the tertiary education sector?

The rules of the New Zealand tertiary education system

There are three clear discourses (sets of rules) which have impacted upon the operations of public tertiary education in New Zealand over the past three decades:

1. The imposition of free-market ideals;
2. The creation of a single tertiary education sector; and,
3. The implementation of strategic ‘steering’ of the sector to meet pre-determined government objectives.
   
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To market we go

Policy approaches which moved tertiary education from an old ‘elite’ model of provision to a ‘market’ model has occurred in many parts of the globe (as noted in Marginson 2007, and others). Whilst some like to present this shift as a seamless transition from one model to another, in reality in New Zealand it occurred over several decades, through a range of mechanisms and policy changes, rather than through one single policy or legislative change.

The ‘massification’ and commercialisation of the tertiary education system resulted in rapid and extensive growth in the sector

The ‘massification’ and commercialisation of the tertiary education system resulted in rapid and extensive growth in the sector. The 1997 Green Paper supported high levels of participation, particularly by school leavers, and enrolments rose by 17% from 1997 to 2002 (Mahoney 2003: 3). Polytechnics took advantage of the autonomy given to them under the 1989 Education Act and set up a range of new programmes and degrees. This led to what was perceived as an unnecessary duplication of courses (Russell 2007:112). As the Ministry of Education (2008:25) notes:

During the 1990s, the tertiary funding system was designed to support increased access and equity through a market-led model. This system successfully increased access and showed considerable improvements in equity, but there were increasing public concerns about the rising cost of study and the quality and relevance of provision, particularly at sub-degree level.

During the 1990s the market driven approach to education intensified and successive governments sought to create a tertiary education system that was efficient, innovative and responsive to the ‘market’ (McLaughlin 2003: 22). This expectation of efficient use of resources continues in current state documentation: “Rising demand for tertiary study in a period of significant fiscal constraint means that we expect our investment to be used efficiently and effectively by tertiary education organisations and students” (TEC TES 2010-15: 3). This drive for efficiency resulted in higher levels of learner contribution to individual tertiary education costs (See McLaughlin 2003: 15) and increased accountability mechanisms being introduced into the sector.

Creating the single sector

The second major policy change in the tertiary education sector in New Zealand was the move to create a ‘single sector’. This began with the Hawke Report of 1988 and the Labour government’s Learning for Life policy statement, both of which defined tertiary education as all post-compulsory education irrespective of where it was happening (Eppel 2009: 76). This ‘single sector’ approach was enshrined in legislation with the passing of the 1989 Education Act.

The early legislation and policy left private training establishments (PTE) and industry training out of the single tertiary education sector. However, over the coming two decades both were integrated into the tertiary education sector. In 1992 the Industry Training Act resulted in Industry Training Organisations (ITOs) being brought into the sector. And following the 1997 Green and White papers on education released by the National government, a pool of contestable funding was created and PTEs were given the opportunity to bid for public monies (Abbott 2004: 2).

Codd (2001: 13) states that this move to create a single post-school education sector can be seen in other parts of the world but that New Zealand has gone much further with the creation of a single sector than other countries. This is also noted in Mahoney (2003: 2): “NZ is currently unique in that no other country has clustered its community, vocational, and academic education together in quite this way.”

Time to steer the tertiary education ‘market’

The market model and single-sector approach to tertiary education was overlaid in the early twenty-first century with a strategic steering model. When the Labour-led government was elected in 1999 it set up the Tertiary Education Advisory Commission (TEAC). The Commission was (amongst other things) to develop a widely-shared strategic direction for the tertiary sector. TEAC recommended more active engagement by government in the tertiary education system, including policies such as capping student numbers, targeting funding, and funding institutions based on differentiation and the creation of strategic investment plan for each institution. TEAC was responding to the perceived lack of direction in the sector, the result of which was seen as inefficient use of funding (OECD Thematic Review 2006: 135).

While many of the market-led traits remained in the tertiary education system, the government shed the massification approach of previous decades. “The government recognises that its investment system needs to change to support tertiary education organisations to shift their focus from participation and funding to achievement and the long term needs of stakeholders” (TES 2007-12: 13). Strategic steering was seen as important if New Zealand governments were to enhance the ‘knowledge economy’ (TEAC 2000a: 4) and broad goals for the sector were set out by TEAC (2000a: 6):

Tertiary education has a key contribution to make to New Zealand’s economic and social development, including:

• Cultivating the intellect and personal well-being;
• Reducing inequality;
• Preserving, renewing and transmitting culture;
• Building research capability and creating new knowledge
• Responding to the needs of the labour market;
• Supporting business and industry development; and,
• Promoting social cohesion.

The consultation process carried out by TEAC led to the creation of the Tertiary Education Commission. The role of TEC was that of being “the proactive steerer” of the tertiary system (Parliament Library Overview 2003: 6). The Commission (in conjunction with the Ministry of Education) was to oversee the development and implementation of the Tertiary Education Strategy (TES). As has been noted earlier, this strategy is reinforced by the Statement of Tertiary Education Priorities (STEP) and the development of institutional charters and profiles which outline their unique contribution to the government’s national objectives.

While rhetoric around the need for strategic steering has increased in recent years, it has always sat in the background of the New Zealand tertiary education sector. As noted by Simon Marginson (2007: 79) the “idea of a University is nested in national contexts, historical identities and conditions of possibility. In the ‘Westminster’ countries (UK, Australia, New Zealand) national systems combined university autonomy with explicit central steering.” The notion of national objectives for the sector can be seen in the 1989 Education Act:

The object of the provisions of this Act relating to institutions is to give them as much independence and freedom to make academic, operational, and management decisions as is consistent with the nature of the services they provide, the efficient use of national resources, the national interest, and the demands of accountability (Education Act S. 160).

What develops over the last decade is a much closer focus on aligning the actions of tertiary organisations to the goals of the government: “The aim of reforms since the early 2000s has been to link public investment in tertiary education more closely with identified social and economic priorities, to increase stakeholder influence, and to improve fiscal certainty for government, providers, students and their families” (MoE 2008: 25). The philosophy underpinning the decision to increase strategic steering was based on a belief that the education system, left to itself, was incapable of recognising economic imperatives (Mahoney 2003: 4).

Critiquing the new ‘economic focus’ of the tertiary education market

The changes discussed above have had a major impact upon the activities of those who govern and manage the tertiary education sector, as well as the students and staff within each institution. The question is – do policy advisers know what they have created and continue to impose upon the tertiary education sector? In Foucault’s terms policy makers “often know what they do; they frequently know why they do what they do; but what they don’t know is what they do does” (In Middleton 2009: 193).

Some of the changes may have had positive outcomes for some individual staff and students. Certainly government agencies claim the policy environment has improved the quality and efficiency of the tertiary education sector. For example, bibliometric data is used by governments to demonstrate that the Performance Based Research Fund has improved research performance within universities. In the 2003-2007 year the relative academic impact of New Zealand institutions was higher than G8 Australian universities in three of ten areas; and higher than non-G8 universities in eight of ten broad subject areas (Smart 2009: 5). And improved course and degree completions is seen as another positive indicator that the policies put in place as part of the government’s steering is working (for example http://www.tec.govt.nz/Learners-Organisations/Learners/performance-in-tertiary-education/what-the-indicators-mean/completion-of-qualifications/). Though, even government agencies acknowledge that some of these outcomes have been overstated: “While good progress has been made in implementing some major policy changes, it is too early to say whether the reforms are delivering the gains in quality and relevance that were sought. On-going monitoring of progress and impact will be required” (MoE, 2008: iii).

While governments may claim success from the new policy approaches, we argue that on balance the three discourses bounding New Zealand tertiary education are doing harm to the sector, its staff and students, and to society. It is crucial that the professionals working in the sector – the academics, librarians, technicians, tutors, teachers, administrators, and so on – demonstrate these harmful effects clearly and definitively, because the Ministry of Education states that the TES approach is “accepted by the sector as the necessary way forward” (MoE 2006: 17-18).

While these harmful effects need to be demonstrated, this paper is not a treatise against ensuring taxpayers dollars are well-spent. Neither is it an attempt to reify some mythical past in which tweed jacket-wearing professors offered gems of wisdom to eager minds who spent their days on campus debating whether Kant had unpacked the true meaning of existence or if Einstein’s theory of relativity is accurate. What we aim to do is to illustrate why the approach outlined above of a centrally steered tertiary education ‘market’ with an increasing emphasis on economic outcomes is not serving the needs of our society, communities, or our economy.

Steering the sector with both eyes on the economy

Government does and can legitimately (on behalf of citizens) have expectations that tertiary education institutions will “produce public value” (Moore 2005 in Pearman 2009: 8). But steering is complex (OECD 2006: 41). In particular, we would argue that goals can easily become too narrow. As time has passed the New Zealand tertiary education sector has been driven much more to meet national, or more correctly government, objectives (See McLaughlin 2003: 25-28; Zepke no date: 3). Economic benefit has become the predominantly desired outcome (Zepke no date: 5) and the immeasurable outcomes of tertiary education are set to one side (See an example of this in work of Bhaskaran et al 2007: 4). A comparison of the opening statements from Briefings to Incoming Ministers since 2005, show the narrowing of objectives for tertiary education:

The tertiary education system is expected to deliver outcomes for learners, stakeholders and New Zealand’s strategic goals. In addition, tertiary education research is expected to achieve outcomes for New Zealand’s research goals. The concept of outcomes can be summarised as a combination of performance, quality and relevance. It means that the results of the education and research offered by tertiary education organisations and undertaken by learners are positive for the learner and meet the needs of the relevant part of the wider community (TEC 2005:4 para 19).

For New Zealand to participate effectively in the global environment, it needs to develop networks of world class firms, research institutions and tertiary education organisations that collaborate for the benefit of New Zealand’s economic and social development, cultural identity and environmental sustainability (TEC 2008: 6).

Key Priorities

Strong fiscal and performance imperatives require a further lift in tertiary education performance over the next term of Government. There are three particular priorities that should shape the agenda for the sector: First is the drive to enhance New Zealand’s economic growth performance and raise labour productivity. Greater added value in our products and services will require more effective use of high-level skills in our population and more efficient application of new knowledge and ideas. This applies just as much in the vocational and applied technology areas as in the more general areas of academic study. (MoE 2011: 3)  

Increase the incentives for research and tertiary education institutes to undertake more firm-relevant research and to transfer knowledge to firms (Treasury 2011: 5).

The Government wants relevant and efficient tertiary education provision that meets the needs of students, the labour market and the economy

The first Tertiary Education Strategy took a broad and inclusive approach to cover the diversity of tertiary education. This Strategy continues that inclusive direction but sharpens the focus. The focus is much more explicitly on what the government expects the tertiary education system to contribute and the priority outcomes for the immediate future.

The driver for increased economic gain from tertiary education budgets has also seen governments demanding improved linkages with industry by sector. Progress in this regard will be measured “increased research contract income at tertiary education providers from industry” and “increased placement of research students in industry and business” (TES 2007-12: 39). A systematic examination of the types of research being carried out in New Zealand tertiary education institutions is needed to understand whether the focus on economic outputs has had an effect on the breadth of research being undertaken.

In short, the National-led coalition government has “…removed the boundaries between academic and non-academic type post-school education, and has shifted the position of publicly funded tertiary education from one of an individual right to that of a tool for national economic growth” (Mahoney, 2003: 2). The aim is to improve the ‘alignment of tertiary spending with the government’s economic growth goals and to ‘use research to support its economic growth goals’ (MoE 2011:4-9). As well as aligning tertiary education outputs with economic growth, successive governments want the sector to be more ‘business-like’.

An economically efficient tertiary education sector

Evidence that education is viewed as a business is found in multiple government policy documents and funding decisions. For example TEC (2008:32) noted: “The challenge is to work with the sector to transition to sustainable business models that support this focus on quality and outcomes.” And the Ministry of Education (2009a:1 emphasis added) stated: “Completion is useful as a measure of the rate of production of qualifications from New Zealand’s tertiary education system, and hence as an indicator of the rate of a country’s skills acquisition.”

The most significant manifestation of this corporatisation of the sector can be found in the drive for greater economic efficiency in the tertiary education sector. Over the next three years there is a shortfall between the costs of running the sector and the funding provided by the state of $1.1bn (see Figure 1)

Figure 1

This shortfall means that government agencies are repeatedly noting that there is “a continuing need for fiscal restraint in the public sector and a drive for cost effective education” (MoE 2011: 7).

The focus on economic efficiency has had a direct effect on what courses are taught, and non-economic courses (those with limited or low enrolment) are shed. For example, at Victoria University of Wellington ‘financial reviews’ were used to close Gender and Women’s Studies, the Masters of Strategic Studies, and the Social Science Research and Evaluation programmes during 2009 and 2010. Where institutions once used cross-subsidies between departments to keep courses running for pedagogical reasons even if enrolments were low, it seems in the new tertiary market this is less likely to occur.

TEC’s Financial Performance Information shows the rising numbers of students and falling number of staff in the sector. In 2008 the student staff ratio was 17.9:1 and by 2010 it was 19.8:1

The focus on ‘economic efficiency’ has also led to a rise in contingent work in the tertiary education sector, as the more efficient sector is seen as one in which ‘research’ is seen as the pinnacle of tertiary education environment. The result is that research stars are given space to ‘research’ and teaching has increasingly been moved to fixed-term/casualised labour. Our members have shared experiences such as departmental heads being pressured to only employ high-ranking researchers, with other staff being threatened with performance management if their research outputs are deemed inadequate. Jobs are advertised highlighting ‘research’ in a way not seen before. And employers have sought to vary collective employment agreements so that staff members who are unlikely to rank highly in PBRF evaluations are not counted for the census date. For example, we are seeing the creation of new categories of ‘academics’ such as Professional Teaching Fellows at The University of Auckland – academic positions with less pay and limited career paths.

The drive for efficiency has also increased the amount of evaluation individuals in the sector and tertiary institutions themselves are required to complete. The requirement for external accountability (for measuring and counting the outputs of the sector) has led to the growth of the ‘centre’. “If the government wishes to reduce the size and cost of the centre, it could review which roles and functions are best undertaken by the centre and which are most properly undertaken by education providers” (MoE 2008: 13). We suspect that the model for the sector has also led to higher transaction costs within each institution (for example, in the increased size of senior management teams to administer accountability measures, or  in the teams needed to meet measures to secure funding allocation requirements under the PBRF funding model). However, as of yet there is no research on the transaction costs of New Zealand’s strategic steering model.

Trampling on the non-economic goals of education

The narrow economic goals set by the government and the corporatisation of tertiary education cut across the primary legislation governing the tertiary education sector – the Education Act 1989. The Education Act sets out clearly that the sector has a:

• Critic and conscience function
• Role in creating good ‘citizens’
• Requirement to contribute to broad social, environmental and economic development goals (Education Act 1989, Sec 159AAA(1)(d) & (e)).

The economic focus also cuts across government rhetoric about institutions contributing to the “success for all New Zealanders through lifelong learning” (TES 2007-2012 : 20). These broad goals are not part of the drive for ‘economic growth’ and ‘labour market productivity’.

The narrow economic goals also impact upon the daily lives of those studying and working in New Zealand’s tertiary education institutions. This is because “with goals, people narrow their focus” (Ordonez et al 2009: 6) and “you get what you reward” (Ordonez et al 2009: 7). Within the tertiary sector, three decades of change have resulted in people being motivated by external rewards rather than intrinsic value of the job itself (Ordonez et al 2009: 15).

In an environment of fiscal constraint the National-led government has decided to ‘target’ its investment on learners aged 18-25

Steering ensures the ‘right’ students are admitted to tertiary study: “There is little value for anyone if learners enrol in tertiary provision that they are unlikely to complete, or which lacks a clear progression to higher-level study.” (MoE 2011: 30). This approach leads to ‘risk aversion’ with regard those studying part-time who are being excluded from tertiary studies through enrolment policies and changes to the student loan policies.

There has also been a drive towards higher-level qualifications. The 2010-2015 TES (11) notes: “There is a significant wage premium for people who complete higher-level study, particularly bachelor’s degrees.”  Because funding is targeted towards higher level degrees, many courses at lower levels have been closed, often with little contemplation of the pedagogical impact. For example, the Ministry of Education (2001: 11) noted it was important to ensure it was “redirecting government expenditure away from low value spending, such as adult and community education courses for personal interest, towards higher value spending, such as degree level study.” Staff have also watched as universities have shed ‘uneconomic’ university preparation in order to hand the work over to neighbouring polytechnics.

TEC may acknowledge that “one challenge is to develop funding arrangements that can be tailored to individual circumstances and support a range of distinctive contributions within the sector” (2008:32) but current approaches have failed to do this. The focus on funding on higher level degrees has led to ‘mission drift’ in the New Zealand tertiary education sector, an outcome being witnessed around the world. As Vincent-Lancrin (2007: 16) notes “New actors – corporate universities, consortia, virtual universities, and others – have entered higher education have started to blur the usual borders between institutions.” The question is how do we stop “‘mission drift’ and convergence around a single dominant model of institution, normally that of the comprehensive research university” (Marginson 2007: 96).

Given that the strategic goals of the government for tertiary education were implemented over the top of the market-led approach to education it should not be surprising that the goals of the sector have been narrowed towards economic growth and labour market productivity.

Hollowing out the tertiary education sector

The creation of a single tertiary education market has resulted in the ‘public good’ element of education being overshadowed by the private benefits of completing post-compulsory education. Debates around student loans illustrate the dominance of the idea that education is a ‘private good’. “Reintroducing interest on student loans would create greater incentives for students and/or their families to save for tertiary education without significant adverse effects on tertiary education participation” (Treasury 2011: 15).

The shift to seeing tertiary education as a private good has led to rising costs for students, an increased ‘private burden’. New Zealand is one of the nine OECD countries where private income contribution exceeds 30 per cent of the total income of tertiary educational institutions (OECD 2006). We need to debate in New Zealand the point at which this contribution of private funding into tertiary education will become ‘intrusive’ on teaching and learning, and on any equity goals.

Meanwhile steering has stifled academic freedom (Codd 2001: 17) and has cut across research for knowledge (Zepke no date: 4). We only need to consider how government agencies think of academic freedom to see this effect.

The focus is now on research for ‘business’ which devalues the critic and conscience role of academics.

The absence of academic considerations in the direction of the tertiary education sector is in part due to the ‘public choice’ rhetoric which took hold in New Zealand during the 1990s. As was noted earlier, under the ‘market liberal’ philosophy interest groups (and that would include staff and their representative unions or associations) are seen as ‘self-interested, ‘vested’ interests, seeking special advantages or ‘privileges’ for themselves which are contrary to the public interest and to the long term prospects of the country” (Olson 1982, Vowles 1993 cited in Mulgan 2004, p. 212). Purging tertiary institutions of its ‘vested interests’ has meant dismantling collegiality and staff participation in decision-making (Russell 2007: 113). This has been extended into the governance of institutions. Prior to the Education Amendment Act 2010, staff representatives were elected to the councils of polytechnics. Now the government has primary responsibility for appointing these boards and we have witnessed the imposition of a corporate governance model on the sector. Even the public (citizens who pay for the sector thought their taxes) do not seem to feature the consultation and documentation which sets the strategic direction of the sector.

What we have seen in New Zealand, as in other nations where market philosophies and economic drivers now underpin tertiary education policy, is a clash of cultures

–  a clash between the independent autonomous tradition of the tertiary sector with a corporate-managerial approach (Morris 2005: 388). The market model has in many ways eroded the core of the sector (Codd 2001: 2). The policy regime has resulted in is the creation of the corporate-managerial tertiary institution: one that receive credentials from outside; is part of a command chain; is about hierarchy not voluntary cooperation; and one where you evaluate teaching and research by reference to external criteria (Hedley 2010: 119-120). It is a low trust model with high levels of external ‘accountability’ measures. For our members, in many cases this led to workload intensification, larger classes and increased demands to meet administrative requirements.

Course planning and curriculum development, marking and assessment (including moderation) and internal administration (and advisory committees) account for the highest increases in workload reported in recent times (i.e. since 1989) (McCormack, D, Ovens, J et al 1997: 19).

It is not just the autonomy of institutions which has been trampled on by external accountability, but the autonomy of individual professionals within them. The market model, with its high level of external monitoring, is an approach that conflicts with the underlying tendencies which motivate ‘professionals’ to work hard. A significant body of research shows that professional identities are based on both (internal) self-determination and (external) definitions of oneself that are offered by others (Middleton 2009: 196). Increasingly in the New Zealand tertiary sector we see the domination of the external definitions – for academic staff and professional staff from administrators to librarians to technicians – and little room for self-determination. Perhaps one of most discussed disciplining tools has been the PBRF. Codd (in Middleton 2009: 196) notes that the individualisation, and compulsion, of the PBRF suggest that its “consequence for academic identity are likely to be greater than is the case with the RAE”.

Our problem is not with the concept of efficiency but rather a wariness of the benchmarks being set. “The NPM sees national systems as economic markets and imagines institutions as firms driven fundamentally by economic revenues and market share, not teaching, research and service as ends in themselves” (Marginson 2007: 80). We are also wary of the drive for continual improvement and ever increasing economic efficiency. “The

There must be a point where efficiencies have been reached. For example, at what point do student: staff ratios reach an optimal level? At what point are we allowed to say we have reached the optimal point that allows for economic efficiency and quality learning?

Having reflected on what is happening in New Zealand, we agree with Hedley that it is the increased monitoring role of the government that is of significance to the sector (2010: 125). Hedley (2010: 141) also notes that tighter central control of university activities results in more information about their activities, which in turn is treated as revelation of further “problems’, the remedy of which is taken to be even greater control.

It is difficult to get a balance between autonomy and control in the tertiary education sector. It is naïve to think the state would bankroll the sector without attention to how money is spent, but there must be a balance between control and freedom (Hedley 2010: 132). We argue that the harm being created in the sector is evidence that the balance has shifted too far towards heavy-handed government steering.

There is an indication that politicians know that the sector requires a light hand. Steve Maharey (the Education Minister responsible for introducing ‘steering’ through TEC and now Vice Chancellor of Massey University) noted “What the government is looking for from TEC is firm but unobtrusive steerage of the whole system towards relevance, excellence, access, capability, and collaboration” (in Mahoney 2003: 15). And in 2006 then Shadow Minister for  Education Bill English stated: “Tertiary institutions should advocate for a much-simplified system with less central bureaucratic discretion, certain sanctions, and greater institutional autonomy. They should be demanding that central government stick to quality monitoring and funding limits until it can demonstrate that its own strategic processes can in fact add value to the institutions.” But government agencies seem to feel that the steering imposed on the sector has not gone far enough. “There is much to be done to more effectively leverage our investment in tertiary education to grow and strengthen the economy” (MoE 2011: 25). We have seen the sector overall (universities, ITPs, wānanga) ‘disciplined’ in order to meet ‘national objectives’, which in a parliament democracy where the term of government is three years, means fulfilling ever changing and altering national objectives of major political parties.

Heavy handed steering is problematic for a number of reasons. Firstly, the government has over-estimated what it takes to steer the sector. “Tertiary education systems inherently are complex and resilient, which makes steering a daunting task.” (OECD 2008: 41). Secondly, the steering has a negative impact on the autonomy so crucial to a flourishing tertiary education sector. What we have seen is creation of processes to determine strategic direction at the expense of ensuring that the sector has the freedom to teach and research unhampered by whatever political ideology has currency (OECD 2008: 42). Thirdly, like the rest of the state sector, the model which now characterises the tertiary sector is, we would argue, a low trust model, in which tertiary education staff are no longer viewed as professionals but as vested interests, who must be monitored and controlled. The lack of trust and autonomy is detrimental to the long term future of tertiary education and the commitment of staff to the sector. In fact in most of the government documentation, staff appear to be absent. Reference is made to ‘stakeholders’ (usually students and business), of tertiary institutions, of consultation with peak bodies and industry, but rarely with staff.

The time frame for the achievement of the government’s economic goals is also problematic. In practice in New Zealand there is a frequent shifting of goals, priorities, and objectives because of our three year election cycle. The latest briefing to the incoming tertiary education minister states: “Strong fiscal and performance imperative require a further lift in tertiary education performance over the next term of Government” (MoE 2011: 3 emphasis added)). Even the major strategy itself is changed with each new government: “This Strategy will revoke and replace the previous Tertiary Education Strategy 2007-2012, as required by the Education Act 1989” (TEC 2010: 3).

Can we change the rules of the game?

The first step in redressing the harm being done the tertiary education sector is to create a new vision for the tertiary education sector. We are not alone in seeking to carve out a vision for the future. Vincent-Lancrin (2007: 3) notes that the urge to reflect on the future of higher education worldwide is highlighted by number of on-going projects on the subject, the increasing literature on this subject, and, policy papers reflecting future directions for education.

A twenty-first century society needs a vibrant, diverse, creative, and dynamic tertiary education sector. We need to be able to effectively respond to the major challenges facing the world and the response required will not merely be an economic response. While government documentation limits tertiary education to achieving ‘economic’ outputs (MoE 2011: 6) there is room to move beyond a narrow economic framework. Compulsory education is still seen as having very broad goals: “Our over-riding goal is a world-leading education system that equips all learners with the knowledge, skills and values to be successful citizens in the 21^st Century” (MoE 2011: 3). We need to reassert that these broad goals apply not only to compulsory education, but to life-long learn. Even for the economy a broad teaching and learning environment is important. We need workers who are innovative and responsive to change, and this comes through broad based curriculums offered at a range of levels. And we need citizens who are broad minded and life-long learners.

New Zealand’s citizens and taxpayers do not need people to be trained solely for them to earn a larger salary in order to purchase more. We need tertiary education to provide our society, our communities, our families, and our economy with people who can fully take up their place creating, innovating, learning, fixing, mending, and developing all that is needed to ensure that our world is a better place. The collective good of tertiary education will only be realised if we allow freedom and space for teachers and learners to do what they all want to do so desperately – to teach and learn.

The collective good of tertiary education will only be realised if we allow freedom and space for teachers and learners to do what they all want to do so desperately – to teach and learn.

The outputs of the sector should be evaluated but New Zealand needs to drop the single focus of ‘economic efficiency’. Governments and their agencies are also going to have to abandon policy evidence based solely on outputs that can be ‘measured’ or ‘counted’. Data from the tertiary education sector is limited and this needs to be fully acknowledged before the data become ‘facts’.

A tertiary education sector that delivers broad social, scientific, human, and economic progress needs a funding and policy regimes which achieves a balance between: research; teaching; community service; and credentialing (providing degrees). Pedagogical considerations must be weighted as being more important, or at least as equally important, as economic considerations when deciding on who can learn and what they can study. We need to reassert that “the benefits from attaining tertiary qualifications are much broader than purely monetary ones” (Bhaskaran et al 2007: 213). We need to foster creativity and innovation. Managers in the tertiary sector and governments needs to consider the way in which creative industries are beginning to ‘free up’ staff from strict accountability for every minute of their day and allowing them room to flourish as creative actors. It is also important to cease the continual change in the sector and provide some security for those who work within it so they can focus on long term goals, particularly with regards to research (not single year or multiyear goals, but goals stretching out over several decades). Job security, what for academics was once called tenure, can help creativity flourish but does require high levels of trust. Improving job security and removing competition for funding may also help individuals and their institutions to co-operate for the good of all New Zealanders, rather than competing for the good of their institution, their department, or for their own career advancement.

Collaboration and co-operation is important if tertiary education to flourish. We need to find ways in which to stop debates which pit investment in students against investment in staff. This competition is evident in government documentation: “Universities have been framing what they describe as an under-funding issue in terms of striking a better balance between investment tin student support and direct investment in institutions, and the basis on which cost pressures are met through the funding system.” (TEC 2008: 27). And we need to find ways to value what is done in the many parts of the sector. In recent years both university and polytechnic lobbies have been putting out documents which illustrate that the government investment in their sector is the most economically efficient way forward. This narrative of competition is harmful if we want to ensure that a diverse range of teaching and learning approaches flourish in New Zealand.

Finally, there is no doubt any solution in the short terms means we must “make best use of scarce resources” (TEC 2008: 27), but in the long-run staff, students, their families and communities will need to demand greater investment in tertiary education even if it means giving back tax cuts.

How do we know that this is the best direction for tertiary education? This directionare justified by the aims of the sector as set out in the Education Act (a normative base) as well as in the needs of the world we live in (an empirical basis). We know it is needed because we have listened to the professionals who work in the sector. And this is the final piece of the puzzle, the government – if it is going to steer the sector – must listen to the staff who are experts in their fields (teaching, research, education support). Documents by government agencies repeatedly note that the ‘system’ has a role to play in identifying where future investment should go (See For example the TES 2007-2012: 36). The question is, who do agencies mean when they are talking about ‘the system’ and ‘stakeholders’? There is no indication that the government agencies mean staff who work in the sector, other than the ‘managers’ of the system. Larner and Craig maintain that the NPM environment delegitimised expertise gained by years of experience, replacing it with imposed requirements of “managerialism”, “professionalization”, “skill development”, and “technical capacity” – all terms which offer a common sense understanding but are often expressed without an explanation of actual implications (2005, pp. 408-409). In the tertiary sector it means that the advice of teachers, researchers, technicians, librarians, and so on, is ignored in tertiary education decision-making.

A fundamental philosophical change – a paradigm shift – is going to be needed if we are to see the recreation of the New Zealand tertiary education sector in a way that fits the Education Act. We have two paths that may lead to this paradigm shift. The first is to allow the current rules of the game to reach their natural end, and watch as the sector fails. However, this will have huge human costs – it with harm staff, to students, to whole communities. The second path is to keep fighting back. We need to show up the system for what it is. Such an approach requires constant and concerted effort at all levels of our institutions and government machinery. We need to find way to get our voice back.

Over the last decade the voice of the sector has been muted, a symptom of the restructuring of tertiary education itself. Many of the professionals in the sector are too tired, too busy, or too scared to speak up. We must stand up and defend the autonomy of the sector as a whole. Fatigue, apathy, and fear can be overcome if we fight collectively. What better place to start than to lay bare the very changes that have disciplined our behaviour – the single tertiary education market that is steered by government to meet economic goals. Not only to lay bare this travesty of a system but to seek its demise.

References

Primary sources

TEC (2005) Briefing to the Incoming Minister: Post Election 2005, Tertiary Education Commission, National Office, Wellington, October 2005.

Ministry of Education (2006) OECD Thematic Review of Tertiary Education: NZ country background report Ministry of Education, Wellington January 2006.

Ministry of Education (2008) Briefing to the Incoming Minister, Ministry of Education, Wellington, November 2008.

Ministry of Education (2009a) Completion of tertiary education, Ministry of Education, Wellington, December 2009.

Ministry of Education (2011) Briefing to the Incoming Minister, Ministry of Education, Wellington, December 2011.

New Zealand Treasury (2011) Briefing to the Incoming Minister of Finance: increasing economic growth and resilience New Zealand Treasury, Wellington.

Office for the Minister of Tertiary Education (2010) Tertiary Education Strategy 2010-15, Ministry of Education, Wellington.

OECD (2006) Emergence of Private Higher Education Funding within the OECD area, Kiira Kärkkäinen September 2006, http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/19/20/38621229.pdf

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2008) OECD Reviews of Tertiary Education: New Zealand www.oecd.org

Tertiary Education Advisory Commission (2000) Shaping a Shared Vision: strategy, quality, access, Tertiary Ministry of Education, Wellington, August 2000.

Tertiary Education Advisory Commission (2001a) Shaping the system: Second report of the Tertiary Education Advisory Commission, Ministry of Education, Wellington, March 2001.

Tertiary Education Advisory Commission (2001b) Shaping the strategy: Third report of the Tertiary Education Advisory Commission, Ministry of Education, Wellington, July 2001.

TEC (2008) Briefing to the Incoming Minister, Tertiary Education Commission, National Office, Wellington, November 2008.

Secondary sources

Abbott, Malcolm (2004) ‘Commercial Risks and Opportunities in the New Zealand Tertiary Education Sector’, School of International Studies, AIS St Helens, New Zealand, Working Paper No. 3, June 2004

Barton, Chris (2102) ‘Who’s speaking out on today’s big issues?’ New Zealand Herald, 3 February 2012, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10782885

Boston, J. (ed) (1995) The state under contract. Wellington: Bridget William Books.

Bhaskaran, Nair, Warren Smart, and Roger Smyth (2007) ‘How does investment in tertiary education improve outcomes for New Zealanders?’ Social Policy Journal of New Zealand, Issue 31, July 2007, 195-217.

Castles, F., et al (eds) (1996) The Great Experiment Labour Parties and Public Policy Transformation in Australia and New Zealand. Auckland: Auckland University Press.

Clear, Tony (2006) ‘TEAC Research Funding Proposals Considered Harmful: ICT Research at Risk’, Research paper, Auckland University of Technology.

Codd, John A. (2001) ‘New Zealand Universities and Tertiary Education Policy: TEAC and Beyond’, Paper presented to the Annual Conference of the New Zealand Association for Research in Education, Christchurch, 6-9 December 2001

Davis, G. and R A W Rhodes (2000). ‘From hierarchy to contracts and back again: reforming the Australian public service’ in M. Keating, J. Wanna and P. Weller (eds.), Institutions on the Edge: Capacity for Governance, St Leonards: Allen and Unwin.

Earle, David (2010) ‘Tertiary education, skills and productivity ’, Tertiary Sector Performance Analysis and Reporting Strategy and System Performance, Ministry of Education 2010

Edwards, Meredith (2003) ‘Review of New Zealand Tertiary Education Institution Governance’, Ministry of Education, Tertiary Advisory Monitoring Unit, May 2003.

Engler, Ralf (2009 ) ‘Future demand for tertiary education in New Zealand; 2009 to 2025 and beyond’, Tertiary Sector Performance Analysis and Reporting Strategy and System Performance, Ministry of Education, 2009

English, Bill (2006) ‘The TEAC (Tertiary Education Advisory Commission) reforms’, Journal of Management and Organisation, Volume 12 Issue 1 – 2006

Eppel, Elizabeth Anne (2009) ‘The contribution of complexity theory to understanding and explaining policy processes: A study of tertiary education policy processes in New Zealand’, PhD Thesis Victoria University of Wellington.

Larner W (2003) ‘Guest editorial: Neoliberalism?’ Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 21(5):309–312

Larner, W., & Craig, D. (2005) ‘After neoliberalism? Community activism and local partnerships in Aotearoa New Zealand,’ Antipode, 37(3), 402-424.

Macpherson, Reynold (2010) ‘The Professionalization of Educational Leaders through Postgraduate Study and Professional Development Opportunities in New Zealand Tertiary Education Institutions’, Journal of Research on Leadership Education, July 2010, Volume 5, Number 6: 209-247.

McCormack, D, Ovens, J (1997) ‘Workload Working Party Report’, A joint report compiled by members of the Association of Staff in Tertiary Education and employer representatives of the Polytechnic Group – UNITEC Institute of Technology, Christchurch Polytechnic, Manukau Institute of Technology, Waikato Polytechnic, Auckland Institute of Technology, Eastern Institute of Technology.

McInnis, Craig, Roger Peacock & Vince Catherwood (2006) ‘Internationalisation in New Zealand Tertiary Education Organisations’,  New Zealand Ministry of Education International Division, Wellington, MAY 2006

McLaughlin, Maureen (2003) ‘Tertiary Education Policy in New Zealand’, Research Report, Ian Axford (NZ) Fellowships in Public Policy.

Mahoney, Paul (2003) ‘Tertiary Education Funding – Overview of Recent Reform’, Parliamentary Library.

Mahoney, Paul (2006) ‘Higher Education Funding – Overseas Models’, Parliamentary Library, Wellington, 2006/05 September.

Marginson S (2007) ‘Global university rankings’ in Marginson S (ed) (2007) Prospects of higher education Sense Publishers, 79-100.

Middleton, Sue (2009) ‘Becoming PBRF-able: Research Assessment and Education in New Zealand’, in Besley, Tina (A.C.)  (ed.), Assessing the Quality of Educational Research in Higher Education, Sense Publishers, 193–208.

Mulgan, R. (2004). Politics in New Zealand (3^rd edition, updated by Peter Aimer). Auckland: Auckland University Press.

Pearman, Geoff (2009) ‘Stakeholder Engagement and the New Zealand Tertiary Education Reforms: A sea-change or the emperor’s new clothes?’ Research Paper, Principal Partners in Change, www.partnersinchange.co.nz

Reddel, Tom (2004) ‘Third Way Social Governance: Where is the State?’ Australian Journal of Social Issues, 39(2) May 2004, pp. 129142.

Russell, Matt (2007) ‘‘Slicing Up the Funding Pie’ Tertiary Funding in New Zealand: Where It’s Been, and Where It’s Going’, New Zealand Journal of Teachers’ Work, Volume 4, Issue 2, 111-116

Sharp, A. (ed) (1994) Leap into the Dark: The Changing Role of the State in New Zealand since 1984. Auckland: Auckland University Press.

Shulruf, Boaz, Sarah Tumen, and John Hattie (2010) ‘Student pathways in a New Zealand polytechnic: Key factors for completion’, Full Length Research Paper, International Journal of Vocational and Technical Education Vol. 2(4), pp. 67-74, August 2010

Smart, Warren (2009) Making an impact, Tertiary Sector Performance Analysis and Reporting Strategy and System Performance, Ministry of Education, Wellington.

Zepke, Nick (No date) ‘What of the future for academic freedom in higher education in Aotearoa New Zealand?’ Research paper.

By Paul Michel Taillon

The vandals are at the gate, according to David Robinson, Senior Advisor at Education International (a trade union federation representing thirty million education employees around the world) and former Associate Executive Director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers. So who are these ‘vandals’? And what ‘gate’ have they reached?

The ‘vandals’ for Robinson are those who believe in the philosophies of the free-market and have foisted then upon public tertiary education. Just a few of the negative effects are the undermining of the integrity and independence of the academy; narrower of research agendas; constrained of professional autonomy; and, attacks upon academic freedom.[i] Then there’s the impact on the academic workplace: the rise in fixed- and short-term contracts; stagnating salaries; greater levels of micromanagement; and pressure to cough up research outputs to meet the requirements of metrically-driven research funding regimes for tertiary institutions (never mind that the quality of those outputs can end up taking back-seat).

And do these developments help academic staff produce an educated critical-thinking citizenry, equipped to deal with the economic, ethical, social, and factual complexities of contemporary life? Despite lip service to the importance of teaching, there are few incentives to devote oneself to teaching well (a 1990s study of US universities found that staff commitment to teaching was negatively correlated with compensation).[ii] Overall, academic citizenship—academic freedom, the responsibility to participate in the governance of the institution, and the social and the moral obligation to serve various communities (from students to the wider public)—has diminished over the past three decades because tertiary education institutions have been turned into large markets and required to act as private corporations.[iii]

I’d say the vandals are not just at the gate—they have breeched the walls.

All of the negative effects David Robinson (and a host of others) talk about should sound familiar to anyone who has paid attention to tertiary education in New Zealand over the past decade. The vandals have ravaged public access, public funding, and public governance of tertiary institutions. So what’s to be done? My answer: organise and unionise.

As I see it, academic unions are the best (perhaps only) hope to reverse the spread of heavy-handed corporate style micro management, defend academic freedom, reinvigorate academic citizenship, and address the spread and condition of contingent teaching staff.[iv] If attacks upon academic freedom, the undermining of academic self-governance, and the erosion of university working conditions are the result of a ‘more market’ philosophy running rampant, then it follows that unions, as entities historically dedicated to ameliorating the pitiless effects of market forces, can be effective counters to these management practices.

If university senates have become marginalised and withered as effective means of representing the views of staff, and vice-chancellors operate more as CEOs than as members of communities of scholars, then unions, which are set up to engage with senior management, must take up the challenge of not just bargaining for decent wages and working conditions but also advocating for meaningful staff participation in university governance.

Such an agenda must begin with resisting the trend to fixed-term, casual employment. Unions can also negotiate for participation clauses in collective agreements that require the university to include the union in discussions around policy changes that may affect conditions of employment. More fundamentally, unions can argue for promotion policy criteria and workload norms that not only allow for staff to engage in service – to their students, their disciplines, their workplaces, and their communities.

Unions must also play a key role in revitalizing academic citizenship. To flourish, academic citizenship needs space in the workplace, and unions are best placed to deliver it. Union members can demonstrate academic citizenship through example (in my experience, they tend to be the most active and collegially-minded members of staff) and unions can nurture academic citizenship by reminding members of the responsibilities they bear as academic citizens.

Universities are not-for-profit entities.[v]  Of course, their purpose is to make doctors, engineers and the like. However, they must also create citizens, fully-developed human beings who can tackle the social, economic, and ethical dilemmas facing our world. The market may value the former but has little use for the latter. By defending the conditions necessary to academic citizenship, unions can help universities fulfill this vital function.

One place to start this defense is by highlighting just what has happened to public education in New Zealand. David Robinson’s lectures, organised by the Tertiary Education Union, will help spark debate about the world the vandals armed with corporate ideals and market philosophies are leaving in their wake.

Mr Robinson is also the Associate Executive Director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) representing more than 65,000 academic and general staff at 121 universities and colleges. He is responsible for the association’s research and advocacy work. Prior to joining CAUT, he was the Senior Economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Canada’s leading progressive think tank and worked as a Lecturer at Simon Fraser University and Carleton University.

Mr Robinson’s three public presentations are:

1 Auckland 27 February at the University of Auckland

What are the international directions in tertiary education policy? What do they mean for vocational training and higher education?

2 Christchurch 28 February at the University of Canterbury

Lessons from Hurricane Katrina and other disasters – what happens when natural disasters are being used to radically reshape the tertiary education provision in a city.

3 Wellington 1 March at Victoria University of Wellington

GBLT1, Government Buildings Law School

6pm – 7pm, with drinks beforehand

The paradox – in New Zealand, like virtually every other nation, successive governments say tertiary education is one of the most important things to invest in. And yet the system itself and people who work in it are under more pressure than ever before.

For background information on Mr Robinson’s work:

1. Death Of The University As We Know It, New Matilda Magazine, 16 February 20122
2. Robinson’s abridged Vandals at the Gate presentation to TEU conference 2011
3. An op-ed piece for the Times Higher Education supplement a few years ago on commercialization of university research.
4. A short introduction to a study on higher education financing in Eastern European countries that tries to make the case for how the issues arising there are reflected in broader global debates. (Warning: big file size and some odd editing changes – e.g. signals becomes singles).
5. Two chapters to the Education International book on corporate taxation and quality public services.
6. A paper on university rankings that will be published by UNESCO in upcoming collection on the topic.
7. A report on the status of HE personnel in Anglo-American countries, including New Zealand. More recently, and far more controversially, Robinson wrote a similar study for Israel and Palestine.
8. A Vocational Education and Training package of materials that Robinson produced for Education International over the past few years.
9. A number of reports, documents  and briefing notes on trade in education can be found on the Education International website.

The Tertiary Education Union is organising Mr Robinson’s visit and we can coordinate time for an interview with him if you would like.  You can contact Stephen Day, at DDI 04 801 4792 or 021 2900 734.

“It is virtually impossible to find politicians of any stripe anywhere in the world who will not say that tertiary education is one of the most important things we should be focusing on, and yet, at the same time, the system itself, and the people who work in it, are under more pressure than ever before.”

Mr Robinson gave a global perspective to TEU’s annual conference this week, talking about the increasing convergence around the world of managerialism and privatisation in tertiary education.

He began by noting that the number of fixed term casual positions is increasing everywhere. In Brazil 80 percent of staff are on limited term contracts, and in the United States 75 percent of people who teach in colleges or universities are in casual or fixed term employment.

“Clearly you can’t have academic freedom without security of employment.”

In Romania last year the government simply tore up the collective agreement it negotiated with its tertiary employees last year. In the United States, Wisconsin has attempted to take away the right to negotiate collectively from tertiary education staff.

He also noted that salaries are stagnating or even being cut across the world and there is an increasing loss of professional autonomy where more authority is concentrated in the hands of institution managers.

“Increasing managerialism is evident everywhere in the sector – Japan, France, Germany and Israel.”

Mr Robinson noted increased accountability requirements on both institutions and staff.

“Tertiary education is increasingly seen around the world less as a public service or public good and more as a lightly regulated private market in which consumer demand is sovereign.”

Mr Robinson concluded by noting that the global tertiary education system currently bears much in common with the global financial system prior to its collapse in 2008.

“There is an irrational exuberance about the potential profitability that exists in the system. It is based largely on debt financing and we need to expose that this is not sustainable. It could end up as a bubble that has burst”

You can hear Mr Robinson’s speech as well as NTEU assistant secretary Matt McGowan, who also gave TEU’s conference an Australian perspective on managerialism in tertiary education.

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 flags, shirts, and posters. Go the Blacks. Front pages have been adorned with stories about the injuries suffered by our rugby elite and what this means for us as a nation.

While the rugby has been fun to watch and the general ‘party’ that has been generated by the Rugby World Cup has been great to be part of, there is a problem with rugby fever – it is pushing from sight the extremely serious political issues facing the country and the difficulties in public education.

When glancing at the news, you would hardly know that New Zealand is eight weeks from a general election and a major referendum on our electoral system

In the New Zealand tertiary education sector we are struggling to find spaces in which we can raise our concerns about the government’s on-going pressure on the tertiary sector and what this means for staff, students, and the communities they come from.  And there are serious pressures facing the sector which come from the very direction being required of our institutions by the government.

The New Zealand government’s Tertiary Education Strategy contains within it a drive for ‘increased productivity’ and ‘increased accountability’ for public expenditure. The market-model approach underpinning the strategy has created a range of disputes in universities and polytechnics that threaten the very essence of public tertiary education – the very essence of universities and vocational training.  In fact, I would argue that the current government’s approach to higher education and vocational training has pushed the tertiary education sector to capacity and it is now starting to crumble around us.

A round-up of the actions of members of the New Zealand Tertiary Education Union from the last few months signal that this is a sector under immense strain. Members at CPIT (the polytechnic in Christchurch which is supposed to be at the forefront of training workers for the rebuild of the city after all the earthquakes) held a full week of strike action to defend core conditions; members at the University of Auckland are currently carrying out industrial action to defend their core conditions (withholding information for our research assessment exercise PBRF); we have seen lightning strikes at WelTec; stop work meetings at the University of Canterbury, NMIT, and WelTec; public rallies and demonstrations at five polytechnics (Whitireia, NorthTec, Unitec, BoPP, Wintec), at the University of Auckland, and at Victoria University of Wellington. The demonstrations have not just involved staff but students as well.

Interestingly in almost all cases there are two issues at the heart of the disputes our members are engaged in and both of these are based in the deep desire held by university and polytechnic staff to defend accessible quality public tertiary education. The two issues are the defence of core conditions which enable quality research and teaching in the tertiary sector; and the interconnected issue is an attempt to defend (or reclaim) professional autonomy.

First, to the on-going attack on core conditions for research and teaching which is being played out in the New Zealand tertiary sector. At both our universities and polytechnics this has been an issue in 2011 and will continue to be an issue into 2012. I will use two examples to illustrate this issue:

• The on-going industrial action at the University of Auckland
• And the on-going industrial action at CPIT

At the University of Auckland, our members are seeking to defend a range of core conditions which currently sit in their collective agreement – including clauses on research and study leave, promotions criteria, and disciplinary guidelines. The vice chancellor is demanding academics agree to move these core conditions that are crucial to academics doing their job out of their collective agreement and into policy over which they would have no control.

The unionised academic staff are wise enough to know that it is not worth trading off these conditions for a 4 percent pay rise, and earlier this year even offered to take a nil pay increase if their conditions were left in the collective agreement. Why? Because the core conditions being defended by academic staff are not privileges or perks, they relate directly to ensuring quality education and research at the university.”

Before moving on I would like to take this moment to thank Graham and NTEU for your support in this dispute.  As was noted yesterday during your deliberations universities and their vice-chancellors want to protect their public image, and having unions and academics from around the world criticising their actions helps our members to push their case.

Back to the Auckland academics from our union who are defending their core conditions. They know there is no such thing as a free lunch in the tertiary education sector.  And this has been made clear by the vice-chancellor of Auckland who stated in a letter to staff who took the pay rise (non-union staff): ‘I need to make it clear that the University can afford a salary increase such as this [4 percent offer] for academic staff only if we can achieve the administrative efficiencies and realise the productivity gains that will follow from the changes to the employment agreements’ (Proposed Salary Increase Offer for 2011, 25 November 2010).

Our members at the University of Auckland have argued that universities are required to operate on evidence-based research and reasoned argument. The vice-chancellor argues that changing the collective agreement will create efficiencies and increase productivity. But he has produced no information to show how savings equivalent to 4 percent of academic salaries would be achieved from changes to research and study leave, discipline procedures, academic criteria for promotions and external employment policy.

Similar demands for changes to core conditions to ensure ‘productivity’ gains are seen at polytechnic sites across New Zealand. Here our members find they are being asked to ‘sell’ their ‘discretionary’ leave back to their employer, to increase their teaching hours, and increase the hours they are required to be ‘at work’ (physically available for duties), in order to increase productivity and justify pay rises.

Last week while at CPIT in Christchurch a number of members pointed out what attacks on their hours of work actually mean. Currently they are required to be at the institution for 34 hours a week; but the employer wants to change their collective agreement and require them to be available for contact for 40 hours a week. Bear in mind that this is not the totality of their jobs. The maths is simple over the working year at the polytechnics, which is 43 weeks that would mean 258 hours more work – over six weeks extra ‘work’ every year, six weeks extra that our members would have to make themselves available on the CPIT campus every year.  What is being offered in return?  Nothing.

For staff who have worked beyond the call of duty this year to make sure students received quality teaching and learning while the city was being besieged by earthquakes the calls for them to work harder and to be more flexible about when and how they teach is galling.

The calls for ‘more productivity’ are unjustified and unnecessary. These demands for rising productivity ignore the fact that public education is not a ‘production line’ into which you can force more raw product and turnout more widgets.

Though even for the hard core econocrats who dislike notions of public good we could argue that the on-going drive for productivity ignores the gains already made in the sector, gains made at a cost I might add. 

In the last three years staff: student ratios in New Zealand have risen from 1:17.9 in 2009 to 1:19.8 in 2011

All of this ‘increased productivity’ has come at a cost. In the terms of what our employers care about and the government, they have cost New Zealand institutions in terms of their reputations. While international rankings of universities are somewhat flawed, we recently noted that in the QS world rankings five of the six surveyed New Zealand universities fell down the international rankings ladder – probably due to the rising staff: student ratios among other things. And the Times Higher Education rankings released today show a similar downward slide for New Zealand institutions on the whole.

In terms of our members, the attacks on core conditions mean increased workloads, a rise in insecure work, a decline in overall morale on campuses (which has serious implications for a sector which runs on good will), and, rising bullying on campuses.

The attack on core conditions at heart is also an attack on professional autonomy at our institutions.  This is clearly what is seen with regard the demands by the University of Auckland’s vice-chancellor who is insisting that academic staff be subject to ‘managerial will’ in regard important conditions for research and research-led teaching.

Another example of these attacks on professional autonomy is being noted by members at Victoria University Wellington and at the University of Canterbury.

At Victoria University of Wellington, a range of academic programmes have been closed or reorganised with no academic input and no real consideration of the research and teaching needs of the institution and the New Zealand community.

A ground breaking case for us will be the decision by the university to make three lecturers in political science redundant, while not changing the teachings of the programme they work within.  The university is not giving financial arguments for the redundancies, which is how it has justified a range of programme closures and job cuts over the last year, in fact it has committed to putting more money into the programme.  What Victoria University management has said is that they want some changes in the direction of the political science programme and so needs to make the three lecturers redundant in order to hire three more senior staff who can reposition the programmes teaching (though they are being hired to teach some of the courses of the now sacked ‘lecturers’).

This is the first time that we have seen senior management dictating the exact teaching to be carried out within a programme. It seems at Victoria University of Wellington, control over degree programmes has moved from being the prerogative of the academic professionals of the institutions, to the realm of the managerial professional. We as professionals who are interested in teaching and learning cannot handover control of our academic courses to ‘managers’. It is crucial that staff, alongside students, have a say in the courses that we teach at an institution, for it is us who know what is happening currently in our academic disciplines around the globe.

And NZTEU will need to look at using New Zealand’s Education Act which includes academic freedom clauses. I would question whether Victoria University is meeting the demands of the law that a university be a place “primarily concerned with more advanced learning, the principal aim being to develop intellectual independence”.  It seems this institution is not respecting intellectual independence. Neither is it ensuring that they respect the legal obligation to ensure that they be “a repository of knowledge and expertise” that has a “role as critic and conscience of society”. This last role of universities as mandated in law in New Zealand includes the role that staff of universities have in being ‘critic and conscience’ on their own campuses!

I do want to mention one battle to defend ‘critic and conscience’ objectives of the Education Act which played out in a very vibrant and colourful way. As part of the ongoing industrial dispute at the University of Auckland staff and students wore yellow rosettes to the graduation.  Attempts were made to take these rosettes of a law student, Vernon Tava, before he graduated and this made headline news.  It was an embarrassment for the university to have the dispute and the actions to ban protest emblazoned across the front pages of local and national papers. Small acts can create extensive disruption.

But back to the issue of attacks on the voice of university staff and their professional autonomy.

Staff at another institution, University of Canterbury, also this week met and argued that their professional autonomy and their professional expertise is being swept aside as the institution undergoes massive change.

As you will all be aware, the city of Christchurch has suffered a series of serious earthquakes over the last 13 months. This has meant a reduction in the numbers of students at the tertiary institutions in the city – in particular with regard to first year students. And in a market model this can only mean one thing, the institution must ‘downsize’ to cope with the drop in revenue. This is an untenable position and we are continually arguing with the government and the SMT of the institutions that they are looking too short term with regard this crisis.  As was noted at a stop work meeting at the University of Canterbury on Monday – what is a short term civil defense emergency must not become a long term crisis for the university, its staff, its students, and the community.

What the staff at the university noted at a stopwork meeting on Monday on this issue was that

they have never been more consulted and less listened to

These attacks on core conditions and the professional voice in the tertiary education sector is being driven by the government’s market approach to education provision. Rising managerialism and an overarching distrust of the ‘public sector’ is creating a tense environment for our members. Once respected as autonomous professionals who would engage in collegial governance, both academic and general staff at universities and polytechnics around New Zealand have found themselves being told ‘they are lucky to have a job at all’ and ‘should feel privileged to teach’.

TEU members in New Zealand are clearly saying back – they are proud to teach and will defend quality public tertiary education with every means they have at their disposal. After all, as was said at Education International world congress this year “our conditions of teaching are our students’ conditions of learning”. We need the public and the government to acknowledge that quality teaching and learning in the tertiary sector is not something that is just ‘nice to have’, the cherry on top of the sundae that is compulsory education, it is crucial to the social, political, and economic wellbeing of New Zealand.

TEU national president Sandra Grey says TEU will be supporting Education International’s campaign.

“Pay equity is a fundamental matter of equality and fairness. When women are paid less than men for work of equal value, it goes against the basic principles of justice.”

“Pay inequity has a heavy impact not only on women, but also on their families and communities,” said Dr Grey. “When women are paid less, children suffer. Increases in women’s earnings are likely to be translated into improved investments in the economic and social sectors.”

Education International notes that women’s right to equal pay for work of equal value, have been enshrined in conventions of the International Labour Organisation. It also has a website where you can send thank you cards to teachers and download pay equity resources such as posters and fact sheets.

The last century has seen a transformation in women’s legal rights, with countries around the globe expanding the scope of women’s legal entitlements. Some of these legal entitlements, such as women’s right to equal pay for work of equal value, have been enshrined in Conventions of the International Labour Organization.

International Labour Organization (ILO)

The ILO (www.ilo.org) is the UN agency responsible for drawing up and overseeing international labour standards, backed up by a supervisory system based on regular government reports. It is unique in being a tripartite organisation of governments, employers and workers.

International labour standards have grown into a comprehensive system of instruments on work and social policy, backed by a supervisory system that is unique at the international level and that helps to ensure that countries implement the conventions they ratify.

Once a country has ratified an ILO convention, it is obliged to report regularly on measures it has taken to implement it. These reports are examined by the ILO Committee of Experts, and open for comments from workers’ and employers’ organisations. A selection of observations is discussed at the ILO Conference.

ILO Equality Conventions

In 1951, the International Labour Conference adopted the ILO Convention 100 on Equal Remuneration; and in 1958 the ILO Convention 111 on Discrimination in Employment and Occupation. These Conventions have been ratified by 168 and 169 countries respectively.

Text of the Conventions
C-100 (Equal Remuneration): http://www.ilo.org/ilolex/cgi-lex/convde.pl?C100
C-111 (Discrimination): http://www.ilo.org/ilolex/cgi-lex/convde.pl?C111

Being two of the eight “Fundamental ILO Conventions”, every ILO member state is obliged to follow the principles expressed in the Conventions on Equal Remuneration and Discrimination in Employment and Occupation. Every two years, governments have to submit a report explaining the measures they have taken to effectively apply the Convention.

Schedule for reports: http://webfusion.ilo.org/public/db/standards/normes/schedule/index.cfm.cfm?lang=EN

 Other ILO Conventions pertaining to gender equality:

• C156 Workers with Family Responsibilities, 1981 (ratified: 41 countries)
• C175 Part-Time Work, 1994 (ratified: 13 countries)
• C177 Home Work, 1996 (ratified: 7 countries)
• C183 Maternity Protection, 2000 (ratified: 21 countries)
• C189 Domestic Workers, 2011 (new convention, no ratifications yet)

Trade Unions and ILO Equality Conventions

Although laws for gender equality exist on paper for most of the world’s women, they often do not translate into real equality and justice. Through advocacy and legal action on the national, regional and international levels, trade unions can contribute to closing this implementation gap.

“Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value” – What does that mean?

• The term “equal remuneration for men and women workers for work of equal value” refers to rates of remuneration established without discrimination based on sex.
• The implementation of the ILO convention 100 involves job comparison.
• There are methods to assess, identify and objectively compare the relative value of work.
• It is necessary to develop job evaluation systems to avoid prejudices or gender stereotypes.

ILO Step-by-Step Guide for Gender-Neutral Job Evaluation for Equal Pay: http://www.ilo.org/ wcmsp5/groups/public/—ed_norm/—declaration/documents/publication/wcms_101325.pdf

Discrimination in Employment and Occupation – What does that mean?

• The Convention addresses discrimination based on race, colour, national extraction, ethnicity/ indigenous and tribal peoples, sex, religion, political opinion and social origin.
• Discrimination occurs when any distinction, exclusion or preference is made which has a negative effect on the enjoyment of equality of opportunity or treatment in employment and occupation.

Trade Union Advocacy for Proactive Laws

So-called “proactive” laws make the implementation of gender equality in public and private organizations compulsory. Generally, a “proactive” law is characterized by the following elements:

• It applies to all employers meeting certain criteria (size of workforce, for example).
• It imposes results-based obligations on these employers, within a specified time period.
• It specifies the main methodological criteria to be used to achieve these results.
• It is carried out in a joint effort by the employer and employee representatives.

ILO Supervisory System

Organisations representing employers and workers play an essential role in the system of international labour standards.

• The regular government reports on the implementation of the Equal Remuneration Convention must be submitted for review and comment to employer and worker organisations in the country.
• These organisations can also supply relevant information directly to the ILO.
• They can initiate representations for violations of ILO conventions in accordance with procedures under Article 24 of the ILO Constitution.
• Employer and worker delegates to the International Labour Conference can also file complaints against member states under Article 26 of the ILO Constitution.

Find more information on the ILO Supervisory System in the EI Trade Union Rights Manual:

http://ei-ie.org/en/websections/content_detail/3279 and contact EI for support: equality@ei-ie.org

Further Reading

Gender equality at the heart of decent work (2009): http://www.ilo.org/ wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_norm/@relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_105119.pdf

Equality at work: the continuing challenge (2011): http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/ @HYPERLINK “http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/%20@ed_norm/@relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_154779.pdf”ed_normHYPERLINK “http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/%20@ed_norm/@relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_154779.pdf”/@relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_154779.pdf

via Education International 

TEU National President Sandra Grey reports that the Education International (EI) World Congress meeting in South Africa has passed a resolution committing to addressing the distinct collective bargaining issues general staff around the world face, including a lack of respect and recognition, and poor pay and working conditions.

Dr Grey says that EI, to which TEU is an affiliate member, believes general staff should enjoy the same status, rights and conditions as other education employees with similar academic and technical qualifications and experience.

“General staff can best contribute to the health, education and safety of students when they are part of a single unified workforce that works directly for the education institutions.”

EI now intends to work directly with other global organisations, especially the ILO, to promote the conditions of work and the rights of general staff, including their right to organize and bargain collectively.

Meanwhile, general staff at Victoria University of Wellington celebrated a belated general staff day yesterday with TEU staff and members delivering cakes to general staff, and then TEU hosting a barbeque lunch and quiz. Over 130 TEU members attended the lunch, many taking the opportunity to discuss employment issues with their colleagues.