AUS Tertiary Update

New Zealand found wanting in international comparisons
Although New Zealand has increased its investment and participation rates in tertiary education, this country continues to rank poorly internationally in its investment in tertiary education and in the proportion of students who complete qualifications, according to the latest data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. New Zealand is also one of a few countries reported to have expanded participation in higher education by relying more on the financial contributions of students and households.
The latest edition of the annual OECD report, Education at a Glance, shows that New Zealand consistently ranks around the middle of the thirty OECD countries compared across a variety of measures in what is described as a compendium of international education indicators looking at the quality, quantity, equity and efficiency of education systems.
While the figures used are generally from either 2004 or 2005, they show that this country’s expenditure per student on tertiary education, adjusted for purchasing-power parity, is $US8,866 against an OECD average of $11,100. The United States leads the field, investing $US22,476 per full-time student.
In terms of the cumulative expenditure per student over the average duration of tertiary-education studies, New Zealand spends $US27,042 against an OECD average of $44,394. Switzerland leads this field, with expenditure of $$US79,611.
On the brighter side, New Zealand is named as one of nine countries in which more than 40 percent of young people complete university courses, with graduation rates reported as highest in countries where the degree programmes tend to be of short duration. Higher-education enrolment across all of the OECD countries is continuing to grow, with more than 50 percent and, in some cases, 75 percent participating in some form of tertiary education. Unfortunately, New Zealand ranks bottom of nineteen countries listed in terms of “survival rates”, that is, the proportion of students who enter tertiary education and go on to graduate.
In terms of student-to-staff ratios, New Zealand again falls well below the pack. Against an OECD average of 15.8 students to one staff member, New Zealand records 18.2 students per staff member. It is the fifth-worst student-to-staff ratio recorded, although a significant way behind Greece at thirty to one.
The full OECD Education at a Glance report can be found at:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/4/55/39313286.pdf
Summary information can be found at:
http://www.oecd.org/document/30/0,3343,en_2649_39263294_39251550_1_1_1_1,00.html

Also in Tertiary Update this week
1. New boss for NZVCC
2. Universities anti-Semitic?
3. New figures show NZ has more scientists
4. Report looks at integration of skills training with regional development
5. AUSA welcomes freedom for “Algerian Affairs” Spokesperson
6. Scarfies’ flats under spotlight
7. Elite universities plot to scuttle national pay structure
8. University teachers to boycott classes
9. Universities in good financial health
10. Survey exposes high levels of abuse of staff
11. Prosecutors raid Dongguk University

New boss for NZVCC
The New Zealand Vice-Chancellors’ Committee will have a new Executive Director from next year, with the announcement last Friday of the appointment of Penny Fenwick to the position. Ms Fenwick, who has twenty years’ management experience in the public and university sectors, will take over the role from the long-serving Lindsay Taiaroa who is due to retire at the end of the year.
Announcing Ms Fenwick’s appointment, NZVCC Chair, Professor Roy Sharp, said her work as Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at Victoria University of Wellington and service on the Committee on University Academic Programmes meant that she was ideally suited for the post.
Ms Fenwick started her career as a Sociology lecturer at the University of Canterbury and subsequently held management positions in the Department of Social Welfare, Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Ministry of Education and NZ Council for Educational Research.
After serving as Academic Registrar at Victoria for three years, Ms Fenwick later took up the role of Assistant Vice-Chancellor with responsibility for academic matters and managed the establishment of the New Zealand School of Music, a joint venture with Massey University. The implementation of a strategic partnership between Victoria and the Wellington College of Education is listed as a further achievement.
Ms Fenwick holds an MA with first-class honours in Sociology from the University of Canterbury and has served on numerous professional, research, policy and international bodies. In recent years she has worked as an independent consultant in the tertiary-education and public sectors, with clients that included the Department of Labourand its Pay and Employment Equity Unit, the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology and the Wellington Institute of Technology.
Association of University Staff National President, Professor Nigel Haworth, welcomed the appointment, saying that Ms Fenwick appears to have the right credentials to address the many challenges facing the universities and to engage constructively with unions in the sector.

Universities anti-Semitic?
A wide-sweeping claim that New Zealand universities suffer from chronic anti-Semitism has been made in a book, World’s Apart: The Re-Migration of South African Jews, by a South African-Australian academic, Colin Tatz, and reported in the current issue of Education Review.
Education Review says that, in a section on contemporary anti-Semitism in the book, Tatz describes two controversial cases, one each at the Universities of Waikato and Canterbury, and what he says was the associated “ill grace, impatience and disdain of senior academics with Jews”.
The first case, that of Joel Hayward’s 1993 MA thesis on the fate of Jews in German hands, was contested in 1999 by the New Zealand Jewish Council, which unsuccessfully asked the University of Canterbury to revoke the thesis because of it’s Holocaust-denying nature The second case, an acceptance by Waikato for Hans Kupka to undertake a PhD study on the German language in New Zealand, including interviews with Holocaust survivors, provoked an outcry in 2000 when it was alleged Kupka had neo-Nazi links and ran a Holocaust-denying website.
Asked if his conclusions about New Zealand’s universities were too harsh, Tatz told Education Review that the Hayward and Kupka cases had precedent, including a call by the University of Otago Medical School in the 1930s for New Zealand not to accept Jewish doctors.
Tatz told Education Review that a “wide supporting cast” of academics and managers in the universities involved had been guilty of failing to take the concerns of Jews and others seriously.
Despite his claim of chronic anti-Semitism, however, Tatz goes on to say that his verdict on New Zealand universities is generally positive as the two cases cited were not swept under the carpet, university staff were not punished for whistle blowing and the processes that surrounded the cases were remarkably open.
The University of Canterbury told Tertiary Update that it stands by the statement it made on 20 December 2000 on the release of the report by the Hayward Thesis Working Party that it does not support Holocaust revisionism and does not harbour anti-Semitic feeling.

New figures show NZ has more scientists
Latest figures from Statistics New Zealand show an increase in the number of scientists and other research staff working to advance innovation and keep New Zealand at the cutting edge of research and development, according to the Minister of Research, Science and Technology, Steve Maharey. The Research and Development Survey 2006 reveals a 7 percent increase in research staff since 2004.
Mr Maharey says this shows that the Government’s commitment to innovation is paying off. “This Government is committed to building a talented skill base to increase our knowledge base and today’s figures prove that’s working,” he said. “With international competition for talented people it is great to see we are able to attract and retain valuable research staff.”
An earlier summary of the survey released in June showed that total spending on research and development increased 10 percent since the last survey in 2004 to $1.8 billion. That includes public and private expenditure.
Mr Maharey said the figures show private funding is increasing, but much more investment is needed to bring New Zealand businesses into line with other OECD countries. “The Labour-led Government aims to boost private investment with a $630 million tax incentive announced in Budget 2007 for businesses to carry out their own research,” he said. “This will make New Zealand more internationally competitive, overseas companies will find it more attractive to invest in R&D here and it will help our businesses be more innovative and successful.”
The survey shows Government is still the largest funder of research and development, providing $785 million, or 43 percent of funding, in 2006. That figure is up 8 percent on 2004.

Report looks at integration of skills training with regional development
Significant progress has been made in the last seven years in integrating labour-market policies and vocational-training policies with regional economic development, according to a new report prepared by Lincoln University economist Professor Paul Dalziel for the OECD.
The report, Integrating Employment, Skills and Economic Development, says that, while there was little central-government attention paid to regional economic development between 1984 and 1999, there has been a large amount done at both regional and national levels since then by the current Government.
Responding to the release of the report, Minister for Tertiary Education Dr Michael Cullen said that, since 1999, New Zealand has seen more people in work than ever before, more people in industry training, more young people getting skills through apprenticeships and record levels of participation in tertiary education. “The OECD report finds that the Government’s work with councils, businesses, unions and the training sector has been a major driver of this success. But the OECD is correct in its call for further action,” he said. “One of the consequences of our record-low unemployment rate has been persisting skills shortages. While we continue to see more and more New Zealanders enter the workforce and more gaining qualifications, we need to grow those numbers and ensure people have the right skills to meet industry demands.”
Among the core recommendations of the report are that the Tertiary Education Commission develop specific guidelines to require high-level statements of regional-education needs, gaps and priorities to take into account relevant regional economic development strategies and that a multi-agency working group be created to consider how current government resources could be pooled to produce more sophisticated regional labour-market analysis.
The full report can be found at:
http://www.dol.govt.nz/publications/general/iesed/summary.asp

AUSA welcomes freedom for “Algerian Affairs” Spokesperson
University of Auckland students have warmly welcomed the recently won freedom of Algerian refugee Ahmed Zaoui and say they look forward to hearing from their long-lost Algerian Affairs Spokesperson. Ahmed Zaoui was appointed the Auckland University Students’ Association (AUSA) Honorary Algerian Affairs Spokesperson at a Special General Meeting in October 2004 attended by hundreds of students.
AUSA President, Lesieli Oliver, said that students are pleased that Mr Zaoui now has the ability to live a full life unencumbered by legal uncertainties and that he may someday be reunited with his family. “Mr Zaoui has a real contribution to make in promoting interfaith dialogue and understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims in New Zealand. AUSA shares Mr Zaoui’s commitments to peace and social justice,” she said.
AUSA Education Vice-President David Do said that Mr Zaoui’s wisdom would be welcomed by many at the University of Auckland, a campus with over 5000 international students and an increasing number from countries like Pakistan, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia. He said that Mr Zaoui could come to campus and to AUSA for any seminars or lectures he might like to hold, should he wish to enlighten students on Algerian affairs or, indeed, anything at all from his wide breadth of knowledge and experiences.

Scarfies’ flats under spotlight
Television New Zealand reports that, for the first time in a decade, the Otago University Students’ Association is running a house and garden contest, putting the best and worst of Dunedin's student flats under the spotlight.
There are the outstandingly good, such as that of the six female law students who have created a home away from home, and there's the absolutely shocking such as a flat with six male commerce students that has perhaps never seen a clean cloth or vacuum cleaner and has only an informal cooking roster of sorts.
Competition judge Sandy Adams says some of the entries in the Scarfieville section leave plenty to be desired. “Some students live in hovels and that’s really disappointing, and that’s probably a combination of environment and obviously their own doing,” she said.
However, the house and garden contest apparently also reveals lots of students take pride in their places and, after the recent rioting, restoring pride around campus is said to be high on the agenda.
Dunedin’s house and garden student flat winners will be announced tonight.
One News

Worldwatch
Elite universities plot to scuttle national pay structure
The University and College Union (UCU) in the United Kingdom says that leaders of an elite group of universities are sharing strategy ahead of an effort to try to break out of national pay talks. UCU representatives within the Russell Group universities have called a “council of war” on 17 October in response to reports of alleged deal-making by vice-chancellors on industrial action and national pay bargaining, with reports that human resources managers have already approached branch representatives to sound them out about breaking away from the nationally negotiated pay structure.
UCU says the vice-chancellors are “networking like mad” and have agreed on strategy to take the union on, including plans to dock the salaries of any staff taking industrial action by 10 percent of their annual salary.
Talks with employers in July on the review of the Joint Negotiating Machinery for Higher Education Staff were suspended until November.
UCU General Secretary, Sally Hunt, said that national bargaining provided the best protection to staff and that vice-chancellors could not be trusted to offer fair local deals. “Many of them have poor records when it comes to the pay and conditions of their staff and to ensuring equality of treatment for all,” she said.
Ms Hunt acknowledged, however, that current bargaining arrangements do need reform and that the UCU was committed to “moving the process forward with employers”.
From The Times Higher Education Supplement

University teachers to boycott classes
The Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association (FAPUASA) has said that it will boycott classes for two hours in all public universities this week and the same next week in protest against the country’s Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) refusal to accept a number of its demands. The demands include upgrading teachers, stopping the implementation of a Modern University Ordinance in the Balochistan University, discouraging the appointment of retired soldiers as vice-chancellors and reducing the HEC’s interference in universities’ internal matters.
The HEC has called the protests “propaganda” against the commission.
Around 400 teachers in public universities are waiting for an upgrade, saying that, despite an agreement in January that this would happen, the HEC had done nothing. In turn, the HEC has accused FAPUASA of trying to save the jobs of teachers with fake degrees.
Negotiations held in Peshawar earlier this week have failed to resolve matters.
From the Pakistan Daily Times

Universities in good financial health
The Australian university sector ended 2006 in a particularly sound financial position, with increased assets of $2.6 billion and revenues up by 11 percent to a total of $15.5 billion. Investment income, which grew by 20 percent, and consultancy and contracts, which were up by 21percent, were among the strongest revenue-growth areas. Overall fees and charges rose 8 percent to $3.43 billion and government grants were up 10.6 percent. The operating surplus across the sector rose by what has been described as a remarkable 51 percent.
Australia’s Federal Education Minister, Julie Bishop, has described the increases as reflecting a very healthy state and strong performance and said that the larger operating surplus showed much greater efficiencies in the management of the country’s universities. “For so long [the sector] has had a culture of crying poor,” Ms Bishop said, but now universities are embracing “some of the standard business practices that the corporate sector embraces as a matter of course. We are seeing the results and it is wonderful.”
The latest figures extend a long-term trend of reduced university reliance on government income. Five public universities earned more in 2006 from fees and charges than they did from government grants. Sector-wide, reliance on government funding has declined from 56.7 percent in 1996 to 42.2 percent ten years later.
The proportion of university revenues from fees and charges has risen from 13.4 percent a decade ago to 22.2 percent last year.
The report made no mention of academic or research performance.
From The Australian

Survey exposes high levels of abuse of staff
The first survey of students’ behaviour towards university staff in the United Kingdom has revealed the extent to which staff are subject to harassment, verbal abuse and assault.
More than half the staff responding to a National Student Conduct Survey had experienced student misbehaviour at least five times, while a quarter had encountered physical, verbal or written threats. For 11 percent of staff experiencing a series of incidents, such events occurred on a daily basis.
The survey was carried out by a team at Nottingham Trent University, led by Deborah Lee from the School of Social Sciences.
Dr Lee presented her findings to the annual Universities Personnel Association (UPA) conference last week, saying it is time that universities start to take the issue seriously.
In 2005, figures gained through the Freedom of Information Act showed there had been 1,000 incidents of student aggression towards staff in the previous five years.
Malcolm Keight, the University and College Union’s Head of Higher Education, said that union members are experiencing an increasing lack of respect and, on occasion, this can lead to aggressive and threatening behaviour. “The findings of the report therefore are disturbing but not altogether surprising,” he said.
From The Times Higher Education Supplement

Prosecutors raid Dongguk University
The Seoul Western District Prosecutors’ Office in Korea has raided the offices of both the Dongguk University Board Chair and President to secure evidence that some directors and officials of the University agreed to employ a disgraced curator, Shin Jeong-ah, as an assistant professor despite knowing that her Yale doctorate was bogus.
Three prosecutors and five investigators from the Central Investigation Bureau of the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office were due to seek an arrest warrant for Shin on Tuesday this week on charges of forging academic credentials and obstructing official business, in this case the administration of state-run institutions like the Gwangju Biennale, where she was also a director.
After arresting Shin, the prosecutors were to question the University Chair again to find whether he abused his authority to help Shin’s career. Prosecutors said that Shin submitted a fake Yale degree certificate when she applied for the jobs at Dongguk and the Gwangju Biennale, the country's biggest contemporary art exhibition.
From Englishnews - Chosun.com

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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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