Union members consider pay deal
Union members are being balloted over the next fortnight to determine whether or not to commence bargaining to renew
enterprise-based collective employment agreements. If a proposed pay deal is accepted, staff at the seven universities
involved in the national bargaining process will receive salary increases of between 4 and 7.5 percent this year. The
meetings, which started on Tuesday this week, will run until Friday 14 July.
The balloting follows last week’s announcement by the Minister for Tertiary Education, Dr Michael Cullen, that
universities will receive an additional $26 million funding this year to ensure their long-term sustainability. Union
members will vote on a recommendation from their bargaining team, that local negotiations take place as soon as possible
to secure local pay deals which incorporate the new government funding. That new funding will provide for a salary
increase of approximately 3 percent for academic staff and 1 percent for general staff and; as their contribution,
vice-chancellors have agreed to add a minimum of 3 percent when increases fall due under the current collective
agreements. This means that total salary increases of between 4 and 5.5 percent will be offered to general staff and
between 6 and 7.5 percent to academic staff.
Association of University Staff General Secretary, Helen Kelly, said that the proposed salary increases were the result
of the unions’ national approach to bargaining, which had successfully created a forum in which national issues facing
all universities, such as funding and salaries, could be dealt with on a national basis. “Our intention was to involve
government, as the primary funder of the sector, in the resolution of those problems, and one of the real achievements
of the tripartite process is the Minister’s statement that this year’s funding boost is an initial contribution,” she
said. “The parties have agreed to continue working in the tripartite process on funding and salary issues, and we are
also recommending that the formal agreement between the unions and vice-chancellors, committing them to work
constructively in this process, be renewed.”
Ms Kelly said that, if the combined unions’ national bargaining team recommendations were accepted, local bargaining
teams would be established to conclude salary negotiations and then deal with a number of non-salary issues on a
problem-solving basis.
The new university funding follows tripartite discussions involving the Government, vice-chancellors and unions over the
past year and a report prepared earlier this year by the accountancy firm Deloitte, which showed that New Zealand
universities are under-funded and that salaries are inadequate as a result. The report also indicated that universities
in New Zealand do not have the internal capacity to increase salaries to the required level.
Also in Tertiary Update this week
1. Advertising spend typifies stupidity of funding system
2. Back to the future for NZUSA
3. AUT VC reappointed
4. Academic links agreement signed
5. Draft report slams US higher education
6. MPs to investigate loss of Chinese courses
7. Iraqi academics targeted for death
8. Date set for election of lecturers’ union leader
9. Connolly laughs his way to top of the class
Advertising spend typifies stupidity of funding system
The Minister for Tertiary Education, Dr Michael Cullen, has told Parliament that he is concerned at the level of
spending by public tertiary-education institutions on advertising and marketing, saying it typifies the stupidity of a
funding system based on “bums on seats” and needing “advertising to attract those bums”. In response to questions from
Green Party spokesperson on Education, Metiria Turei, Dr Cullen also told the House that he finds it frustrating that he
has to fund universities which say that they cannot afford to pay staff a fair wage while, at the same time, public
tertiary-education institutions spent more than the $26 million of new funding on advertising and marketing.
Last week, the New Zealand University Students’ Association released research conducted by AC Neilson which showed that
public tertiary-education institutions spent an estimated $28 million on advertising and marketing in 2005, a 6 percent
increase on the 2004 figure of $26.6 million.
During question time last Thursday, Dr Cullen told Parliament that Cabinet is currently considering a review of the
funding system, which will ensure that, in the future, institutions will focus on improving the quality and relevance of
tertiary education rather than on chasing student numbers. He said that the new funding formula would also be related,
in part, to the outcomes rather than the inputs.
In response to a question about whether the increase in university funding would be applied to wananga, Dr Cullen said
that it would apply only to universities. “Only one of the wananga has postgraduate qualifications of a standard that
might be considered comparable with those of the universities,” he said. “In any case, I repeat that this decision is a
result of tripartite discussions between the universities, the Association of University Staff and the Government. The
problem here, of course, is attracting staff comparable with those overseas; that is not such a big issue in relation to
the wananga, it has to be said.”
Back to the future for NZUSA
The New Zealand University Students’ Association has changed its name to the New Zealand Union of Students’
Associations, reflecting the fact that the Association has broadened its membership to include polytechnic and college
of education students’ associations, as well as those in universities. The new name almost replicates the original name
of the Association, which was established in 1929 as the New Zealand National Union of Students.
NZUSA Co-President, Joey Randall, said that, while the name of the organisation had changed, the acronym and the goals
would remain the same. “We have changed our name to reflect the fact that NZUSA is made up of polytechnic and college of
education students’ associations, as well as university members,” he said. “NZUSA has a real commitment to represent the
needs and aspirations of all students involved in public tertiary education in New Zealand. We want to involve other
associations in our organisation and this change reflects how NZUSA is evolving.”
Mr Randall said that NZUSA would remain committed to working for a better public tertiary-education system. “We will
continue to campaign against fees, for a universal living allowance, greater public funding of tertiary education and a
quality education for New Zealand students,” he said.
The decision to change its name was made at the NZUSA mid-year conference held in Hamilton this week and attended by
around 120 delegates.
AUT VC reappointed
The Vice-Chancellor of the Auckland University of Technology, Derek McCormack, has been reappointed for another five
year term, starting in April 2007. In a media statement, AUT Chancellor Sir Paul Reeves said that the University’s
Council congratulates the Vice-Chancellor on his able leadership, and looks forward to working with him in the
challenging future that lies ahead.
Mr McCormack became AUT Vice-Chancellor in April 2004, replacing Dr John Hinchcliff. In his previous role as Deputy
Vice-Chancellor, Mr McCormack played a central role in managing the transition of AUT to university status, in
development of the University’s strategic plan and in the review of the Council, Charter and Constitution.
Mr McCormack is also a former National President of a predecessor of ASTE, the union for staff members in polytechnics
and institutes of technology.
Academic links agreement signed
An “academic links” agreement was signed late last week between the Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (HRK - German Rectors’
Conference) and the New Zealand Vice-Chancellors’ Committee (NZVCC). The agreement is essentially a framework which
provides for and encourages greater bilateral co-operation between universities in each country, and promotes exchange
in research, scholarship and teaching.
HRK President, Professor Margret Wintermantel, and Professor Roger Field, Lincoln University Vice-Chancellor and Chair
of the NZVCC Committee on University Academic Programmes, formalised the agreement at the HRK offices in Berlin.
Under the agreement, undergraduate student exchange and graduate placement are furthered by a set of recognition
standards. Primarily, research collaboration, research staff exchange, symposia participation and co-operation in
electronic networks, publications and teaching materials will be facilitated by the agreement.
Professor Field said that all eight New Zealand universities had maintained links with German institutions and there was
a long history of academic co-operation between the two countries. Close to a thousand German students are currently
studying in New Zealand universities, about half of them at postgraduate level. “This new agreement should further serve
to raise the quality of scholarship in universities in each country. Research collaboration will be mutually beneficial
to the economies involved,” he said.
Professor Wintermantel emphasised that German and New Zealand university rectors and vice-chancellors shared many common
concerns. These include enlarging institutional capacities to accommodate a broader participation in higher education;
pursuing consistent strategies to ensure quality in higher education; linking both study and research to the needs of
the knowledge society and generating pertinent knowledge by research; ensuring sustainable financing for higher
education and institutional autonomy; and meeting the imperatives of globalisation.
Worldwatch
Draft report slams US higher education
A draft report by the United States Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education is harshly
critical of higher education in that country, and squarely blames the rising cost of higher education on an “abdication
of responsibility” by colleges and universities. The report, which was released late last week, singles out a “failure
to seek institutional efficiencies”, “disregard for improving productivity” and “dysfunctional, inefficient and
inadequate” financial systems as the main contributing factors. It says that too much emphasis is placed on research,
and institutions fail to “substitute capital for labour by using technology to lower their instructional costs”.
The draft claims that “undergraduates are being shortchanged” because the quality of student learning is inadequate and
asserts that “university standards have become diluted and teaching methods outdated”. “Lack of coherence and lax
standards ... often characterise the undergraduate curriculum,” the report says, while “many professors are excessively
preoccupied with research [and] pay too little attention to innovative teaching techniques”.
The draft floats a number of proposals to solve higher education’s woes, emphasising standardisation of curriculum and
credit transferability, testing and assessment, distance learning and support for “non-traditional” education providers
such as for-profit colleges.
The report has caused an outcry among both some commission members, who said it was drafted without their input and was
unnecessarily hostile to higher education, and many members of the higher-education community.
After further consultation, the final report will be submitted to US Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, in
September.
MPs to investigate loss of Chinese courses
British members of parliament are to investigate plans by Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) to drop Chinese
courses as part of a reorganisation of one of its faculties. The Financial Times reports today that, despite growing
public awareness of China’s future economic clout, university managers have decided to drop the courses to concentrate
on those with higher demand and greater growth prospects. German courses will also be abandoned as part of the
restructuring of the Faculty of Business and Law. French, Spanish and Japanese will remain only as an element of other
courses, such as tourism and business studies.
University management recently told staff that German and Chinese would no longer be offered and that the BSc in
e-business would also be axed. At least forty-one academic and administrative jobs will be lost.
The investigation into the dropping of Chinese courses is something from which New Zealand politicians and
vice-chancellors could well learn, after a decision, earlier this year, by the University of Canterbury to cut staff
numbers in its College of Arts. Despite widespread opposition, Canterbury proceeded to cut one staff member from its
Chinese programme and dismiss its only specialist in Islamic Studies.
Meanwhile, staff at LJMU protested against the loss of jobs at the University’s Council meeting yesterday, saying that
the decision had been rushed and did not make financial sense.
Iraqi academics targeted for death
Iraqi academics are targets for attacks in a concerted campaign to rid Iraq of its intellectual class, according to
several international human-rights groups. Last week, the London-based Network for Education and Academic Rights issued
a written statement saying that scientists, doctors and university professors were the targets of “a co-ordinated
liquidation process”.
The Network cited statistics compiled by Iraq’s Ministry of Education which included that, in 2005, 296 professors and
staff members were killed, including 80 from the University of Baghdad alone. Thousands of Iraqi academics are fleeing
the country, fearing for their lives, the group reported.
John Akker, Executive Secretary of the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics, which is helping endangered Iraqis
resettle in Britain, said the security situation for Iraqi academics was deteriorating rapidly. Mr. Akker said that both
the scale and the intent of the attacks were different from the kind of violence Iraqi academics faced shortly after the
American invasion, when many professors who were former Ba’ath Party members were threatened and attacked in what
appeared to be politically motivated reprisals. “There’s a real change in the numbers, there’s a real change in the kind
of people who are being targeted, and there’s a real change in how well organized and thought through these
assassinations are,” he said. “You could not call these political assassinations any longer. They are simply
anti-intellectual and anti-education.”
Another international organisation, UNESCO, is asking the rest of the world to come to the aid of the besieged
professors. UNESCO Director General, Koichiro Matsuura, has called for solidarity with Iraqi academics and
intellectuals, saying that they are “subjected to a heinous campaign of violence”.
From the Chronicle of Higher Education
Date set for election of lecturers’ union leader
A new general secretary for the newly formed University and College Union (UCU) will be elected in March next year,
following the recent merger of the two British academic unions, the Association of University Teachers (AUT) and the
National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (Natfhe).
Voting will begin in early February and close early in March. It is understood that Sally Hunt, the UCU joint General
Secretary and former AUT General Secretary, and Roger Kline, formerly Natfhe’s Head of Higher Education, will contest
the position.
The timing of the election will ensure a new leader will have been elected in time for the first UCU conference, to be
held in May.
Connolly laughs his way to top of the class
Billy Connolly, who left school at fifteen to work in a shipyard, donned an academic gown yesterday to accept an
honorary degree. The comedian joked that his doctorate from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow,
for services to the performing arts, was “like getting your picture on the wall in art class”. He added: “If you don’t
go through higher education in the first place, you go through life thinking you’re not that bright. I read that David
Attenborough has twenty-nine honorary degrees, but I think two will do me.” Connolly, who also has a doctorate from
Glasgow University, said such honours used to go to classical musicians or Shakespearean actors.
The Daily Telegraph
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AUS Tertiary Update is compiled weekly on Thursdays and distributed freely to members of the Association of University
Staff and others. Back issues are available on the AUS website: www.aus.ac.nz. Direct enquires should be made to Marty
Braithwaite, AUS Communications Officer, email: marty.braithwaite@aus.ac.nz