AUS Tertiary Update

Tertiary-education sector union talks get under way
Representatives from among the main unions in the tertiary-education sector will meet in Wellington next week to begin discussions on the possible formation of a single tertiary-education-sector union. The meeting follows the decision of the Association of University Staff (AUS) Annual Conference last November to support in principle an amalgamation with the Association of Staff in Tertiary Education, the union which represents academic staff in polytechnics, institutes of technology and wananga. Officials from the Tertiary Institutions’ Allied Staff Association, which represents support staff in the non-university tertiary-education sector will also participate in the discussions.
AUS National President, Professor Nigel Haworth, said that the two-day meeting would concentrate on developing a structure for a proposed new union, defining areas of coverage and dealing with representation and how decisions should be made on the establishment of any new union.
Professor Haworth said the meeting was the first step in a process towards amalgamation, but that any decision on whether to proceed would ultimately be made by union members. “We plan to be in a position to consult thoroughly with members on a detailed proposal for the establishment of a new union in May, following which feedback would be considered and any changes incorporated,” he said. “From there, we plan to have a final proposal available and will ballot members on the issue sometime in August. The AUS Conference would then adopt the ballot result and, if the proposal for the new union is supported, transitional arrangements would be made and the new union formed in June 2008.”
Professor Haworth said that, with mergers between the colleges of education and the awarding of university status to AUT, it had become inevitable that the unions would have to consider different ways of working together. “Amalgamation gives an opportunity to increase our industrial and political strength and to benefit from economies of scale. We must also be careful to ensure that members support such a move and that the current strengths of our organisation are reflected in any new union,” he said.
The AUS will be represented in the discussions next week by the National President, four vice-presidents, the General Secretary and staff.

Also in Tertiary Update this week
1. Pay and employment equity reviews on horizon
2. Research capability gets the thumbs-up
3. 3000 Modern Apprentices complete training
4. Open Polytechnic’s top mark in audit
5. International student slump confirmed
6. US falling behind in degree attainment
7. University funding to rise by 6 percent
8. US university sues Government
9. Porters immunised against students

Pay and employment equity reviews on horizon
The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU) will this evening launch a new DVD, On the Level, which is described as an informative way of getting up to speed on pay and employment equity issues. The launch coincides with International Working Women’s Day and comes ahead of pay and employment equity (PaEE) reviews which will get under way in New Zealand universities this year.
A PaEE tertiary-sector steering group, comprising the Ministry of Education, the unions, including AUS, representatives of the New Zealand Vice-Chancellor’s Committee and the Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics of New Zealand, will be established soon to oversee the review process in the tertiary education sector. It is proposed that reviews will begin by the second half of this year and will all be competed by December next year.
AUS General Secretary, Helen Kelly, said that the reviews would include the requirement that each university conduct what is essentially a stocktake of employment practices to identify all areas of gender inequity and then identify the best way of hoe to respond to them. The reviews would be conducted through a bipartite process involving both the employers and unions at each of the universities.
Ms Kelly said the reviews would be expected to show areas where gender bias existed, with each university then required to develop and implement a response plan. “It could be that the reviews show up areas where women are employed in the same positions as men, but are appointed at lower starting-salary rates, that fewer professional development opportunities exist in female-dominated occupational classifications or that the operation of current salary scales are discriminatory,” she said. “We would expect that these differences would then be addressed as a part of the Government’s five-year plan to close the gender-pay gap.
The Minister of Labour, Ruth Dyson, will launch the DVD this evening, with other speakers including Helen Kelly in her role as Vice-President of the NZCTU and Philippa Hall, Director of the Department of Labour’s Pay and Employment Equity Unit.

Research capability gets the thumbs-up
The level of university research and its alignment with business and government priorities is improving, as is research income that universities earn from funding sources that are subject to peer review, according to a major report just published by the Ministry of Education. The report says that around 29 percent of New Zealand’s PBRF-eligible staff were assessed as having produced original and innovative research, while around 6 percent of PBRF-eligible staff produced highly original and innovative work that was esteemed by the international academic community. The number of students being awarded PhDs is increasing and the completion rates for PhDs rising.
State of Education in New Zealand 2006 provides an extensive overview of education in 2006 using data mostly obtained during 2005. The report provides a system-wide assessment of key aspects of the education system and of education outcomes that can be monitored over time. It also highlights national trends in various areas, considers how New Zealand compares with other countries in education and skills development and helps identify key issues to inform strategic planning, policy, research and information priorities.
In its analysis of the tertiary-education sector, the report looks at participation, achievement, international education and research. Among the findings are that 41 percent of students starting bachelor degree qualifications have successfully completed their study after five tears and 58 percent of those starting at postgraduate level have completed after five years, while 37 percent of those starting at sub-degree level have completed within the same time. Rates of completion have not changed much over the years, with some areas declining slightly.
Demographic characteristics are reported to make a difference to tertiary completion. Younger students do better than older ones at bachelor degree level, while older students do better once adjusted for such study differences, as older students being more likely to study part-time or combine work and study. Women have higher completion rates than men, but the gap narrows the higher the qualification. Asian students have the highest completion rates, while Maori and Pasifika students have lower rates, more particularly at postgraduate level.
State of Education in New Zealand 2006 can be found at:
http://educationcounts.edcentre.govt.nz/publications/homepages/State-of-Education/index.html

3000 Modern Apprentices complete training
Three thousand Modern Apprentices have now completed their training, proof, according to the Minister for Tertiary Education, Dr Michael Cullen, that the Government’s revitilisation of trades training is continuing to bear fruit. Dr Cullen made the announcement during a visit to Auckland yesterday to congratulate carpenter Phillip Newport, the 3000th Modern Apprentice on completing his training.
Latest statistics show that at 31 December 2006 there were 9466 Modern Apprentices in training, 13 percent more than in December 2005. Total industry trainees in 2006 numbered 123,859, up 5 percent from 2005.
The Modern Apprentice scheme was introduced by the Government in 2000 to improve the participation of young people in trades training.
The 2006 Budget allocated an additional $34.4 million over four years to expand the number of Modern Apprenticeships to 14,000 by December 2008. As at 31 December 2006, there were 9466 Modern Apprentices in training of which 91 percent were male and 9 percent female. Of the total number, 76.9 percent were European/Pakeha, 15.1 percent Maori and 3.1 percent Pacific peoples.
The building, construction, engineering and motor engineering trades accounted for 41.8 percent of total Modern Apprentices. Not surprisingly, the highest number was in Auckland, which, at 2284, was 17 percent more than December 2005. Of these, 511 were in building and construction, about 36 percent of all building and construction Modern Apprentices.

Open Polytechnic’s top mark in audit
New Zealand’s largest polytechnic says it has received top marks after an academic audit by Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics Quality (ITP Quality). It means that the institution, which specialises in distance education, has Quality Assured Status for the next four years.
The audit team concluded that The Open Polytechnic is performing commendably in the design and delivery of learning materials and provides a range of well resourced and effective support mechanisms for students. The report noted the forward thinking nature of the Polytechnic in tying digital communication technologies together with its course design capabilities, ensuring it remains an integral member of the network of tertiary provision in New Zealand.
The audit team identified eleven examples of good practice and a number relating to delivery and student support. Eight recommendations were made to improve policies and procedures, including the re-design of the quality-management system.
The Chief Executive of The Open Polytechnic, Dr Paul Grimwood, says staff at the Lower Hutt-based institution work extremely hard to ensure they deliver a high quality of service to their learners and stakeholders, and the outstanding audit result reflected that. “We have a strong internal audit culture at The Open Polytechnic which ensures that we continually monitor and update our organisational processes to reflect the changing needs of our organisation,” he said. “No corrective actions were signalled in the ITP Quality audit, which shows the robustness of those internal measures.”
ITP Quality conducts academic audits based on twelve academic standards developed by the sector and carried out by a team of three or four auditors. Those polytechnics teaching at degree level usually include an auditor with experience in degree teaching/research. When an institution has successfully met the twelve standards, ITP Quality grants the award of “Quality Assured Status” for a period of four years.

International student slump confirmed
International student numbers continued to fall in 2006, with an 8 percent drop in the number of students and a corresponding drop of more than 10 percent in tuition-fee income overall, according to a report in Education Review.
The report says that education providers lost $7.365 million in tuition-fee revenue from international students last year. Polytechnics and private tertiary establishments were among the hardest hit, with drops in income of 17 and 15 percent respectively.
Income overall was down 11 percent, from $641.3 million in 2005 to $567.7 million last year.
The two colleges of education remaining at that time showed the biggest proportional drop, from $4 million to $2.7 million. Polytechnics also saw a big drop in income, down 17 per cent from a high of nearly $80 million in 2005 to just under $66 million last year, while university income was down 9 per cent from $335.17 million in 2005 to $304.9 million in 2006.
Among private providers, PTE income fell 15 percent, from $48.6 million in 2005 to $41.2 million in 2006 and English-language-school income fell 7 percent, from $57.68 million in 2005 to $53.42 million last year.
Education Review says the figures showed the total cumulative number of foreign fee paying students in New Zealand in 2006 was 76,173, down 8 percent from the 82,629 recorded in 2005. Of last year’s students, 33,000 were at publicly funded tertiary providers and 30,770 at private tertiary providers.

Worldwatch
US falling behind in degree attainment
The United States is falling behind other developed nations in terms of the share of its population with a college degree, and the gap will widen substantially unless the nation makes post-secondary education much more accessible, according to a report released this week.
The report, Hitting Home: Quality, Cost, and Access Challenges Confronting Higher Education Today, says that, if current patterns persist, the United States will have 15.6 million fewer bachelor and associate-degree holders by 2025 than it needs to keep up with its top economic competitors.
To avoid such an outcome, the report says that the US needs to increase its annual degree production by more than 37 percent, which will require graduating many more students who are members of minority groups, from low-income families or beyond the traditional college age. Based on the assumption that 55 percent of the residents of competing nations will have at least an associate degree by 2025, some US states, such as Arkansas and West Virginia, need to increase their degree production by more than double.
The report was prepared by Jobs for the Future, a Boston-based research organisation, as part of a multi-year project called Making Opportunity Affordable which has as its goal expanding college access.
Chronicle of Higher Education

University funding to rise by 6 percent
The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) announced this week that it will make available £7,137 million in funding for 2007-08 to universities and colleges in England. The total grant represents an overall cash increase of 6.4 per cent compared with 2006-07.
The funding increase will allow for an additional 33,000 full-time-equivalent (FTE) students for 2007-08 and a further 16,000 in 2007-08 and 2008-09 to support growth in key areas, such as foundation degrees, courses co-funded with employers and Lifelong Learning Networks which enable students following vocational courses to progress into and through higher education. The allocation will also provide for a 2.75 percent increase in the unit of funding per student for teaching, a 2.7 percent increase in funding for widening participation and a 5.4 per cent increase in research funding.
Additional funding of £25 million will be allocated for certain very-high-cost science subjects that are important to society and the economy but may be vulnerable because of relatively low student demand. These are Physics, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, and Mineral, Metallurgy and Materials engineering.
HEFCE Chief Executive, Professor David Eastwood, said that the settlement was a good one for universities and colleges, providing both stability in terms of their forward planning and a healthy rate of growth.
Meanwhile, The Times Higher Education Supplement says that scores of academics will be denied research grants, postdoctoral research positions will be scrapped and hundreds of PhD students could be prevented from embarking on academic careers after the Government announced it would take £68 million away from research councils’ budgets.
The money will be taken from the eight research councils to help fill a shortfall in the Department of Trade and Industry’s budget.
One source on the board of a research council estimated that the cuts could mean about 3,000 fewer research grants would be available for research across the sector and the loss of many postdoctoral research positions.

US university sues Government
The University of Nebraska at Lincoln has sued the United States Government to try to force it to respond to a petition filed twenty-one months ago by the institution as part of the process of hiring a Bolivian historian. It is understood to be the first time that a US higher-education institution has gone to court to counter what critics say is a growing number of cases in which the Government has kept out foreign scholars for ideological reasons.
In June 2005, the University submitted a visa petition on behalf of the Bolivian whom it had hired as an assistant professor of History and Ethnic Studies. The petition simply sought to establish that the historian has the professional qualifications to apply for a visa for the job.
Since then, officials have not acted on the petition, instead telling the University that the matter is under consideration.
The lawsuit argues that the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the part of the Department of Homeland Security to which the petition was filed, has no legal reason to hold up consideration of the case.
Meanwhile, the American Association of University Professors has filed a lawsuit against the Government on behalf of noted Muslim scholar, Tariq Ramadan. Late last year, the Government confirmed that it was banning Professor Ramadan from entering the country after having allegedly provided “material support” to a terrorist organistion in violation of the Patriot Act. The allegation was based on several donations, which were declared to authorities, that Ramadan made between 1998 and 2002 to Palestinian relief organisations registered in France. In 2003, after Professor Ramadan’s final donation, the organisations were deemed by the US to be terrorist ones.
Chronicle of Higher Education and AAUP

Porters immunised against students
Porters at the illustrious Cambridge University in England are being immunised against hepatitis, saying that the binge-drinking culture among students means that consumption of excess amounts of alcohol and resultant vomiting has become more common than the consumption of vast amounts of information and its regurgitation in exams and essays.
Contract cleaners at some of Cambridge’s colleges are reported to be getting hepatitis jabs routinely and are said to be “furious over a recent puking surge”. They blame “swotty straight-A types away from home for the first time”.
Several Cambridge colleges have now banned drinking games at formal dinners and imposed a limit of half a bottle of wine on undergraduates at the events, while many of the University's notorious drinking clubs have also been banned.
From the London Evening Standard

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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

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