Massey Singapore campus inappropriate.

In a recent email to staff, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa | Massey University announced that it is “in the final stages of progressing a Joint Venture Agreement in Singapore.”

The email describes Singapore as “a market of strategic significance for Massey” and “an opportunity to diversify revenue sources”.

In a separate presentation to staff, entitled “our current context and our future” Vice Chancellor Jan Thomas describes one of “four big shifts” as “build Singapore as a major face-to-face campus and explore other opportunities to ensure transnational education provides the resources Massey needs to maintain itself as a world class university.”

Kaiwhakahaere | Organiser Ben Schmidt has described this move as “a classic example of public education being inappropriately run as a business instead of a public good.”

“It is disturbing to witness Massey setting up shop in another country while cutting hundreds of jobs in Aotearoa. It shouldn’t need to be said but apparently it does - instead of building empires abroad, the university should be keeping staff it already employs, and serving the students and the communities it is funded by our government to serve and has a responsibility to first and foremost.”