AUS Tertiary Update
Tertiary-education PaEE review progresses slowly
The
sub-sector group which as been monitoring the Pay and
Employment Equity Review in institutes of technology and
polytechnics (ITPs) has found the review is struggling to do
its job adequately. In May 2004, the government launched the
Pay and Employment Equity Plan of Action to ensure that
remuneration levels are free of gender bias and to remove
barriers to employment equity for women in the sectors that
the plan covers.
Part of that plan of action includes
sectoral reviews to identify the barriers to employment
equity. All 39 public-service departments, the 21 district
health boards, and the public-school sector have finished or
will shortly finish their sectoral reviews this year. All
those reviews have found that women earn less than men, with
pay gaps ranging from 3 to 25 percent. They have also found
a lack of career pathways, unequal participation, and
inappropriate behaviour, including tolerance of bullying and
undervaluing women’s contributions.
The second round
of reviews also began recently in the tertiary-education
sector and kindergartens. AUS and the Association of Staff
in Tertiary Education have been contributing support and
advice to the tertiary-education review. At the moment, some
ITPs are participating in the review but no universities. In
addition, there are eight ITPs newly committed to
undertaking a review in 2009, and some wānanga and
universities are now considering doing so too.
The
problem the review has uncovered is that, while the surveys
and information from the participating institutions is
useful, the analysis tool the review committee is using is
struggling to classify and compare jobs to enable it to
measure whether they are paid equitably.
To address this
problem, the ITP sub-sector group has brought in Robyn
Bailey, senior lecturer in career development at AUT, to
help provide coaching, technical support, and advice to
institutions as they complete their pay and employment
equity reviews. She and Tim O’Flaherty from the Department
of Labour spent last week at UCOL and Waiariki Institute of
Technology overcoming issues those two institutions were
having with their reviews.
The ITP sub-sector group met
again last week and project managers at newly participating
ITPs met for training yesterday. If the reviews are
completed successfully, their findings will direct the next
stage of the plan of action: developing a plan in response
to the findings.
Also in Tertiary Update this
week
1. Tertiary-education unions ask, “What’s the
hurry?”
2. New law school for AUT
3. IT graduates
halved
4. International students need anti-racism
support
5. High stress levels in further
education
6. Spanish revolt against Bologna
7. South
African unions explore amalgamation
8. Tough new
regulations in Greece
9. Universities not run by lefties
– official
Tertiary-education unions ask, “What’s
the hurry?”
Unions currently forming the new Tertiary
Education Union are calling on the government to take a
breath and reassess its priorities before urgently rushing
through its proposed amendment to the Employment Relations
Act. The amendment would deny employees who work in small
businesses or organisations protection against unfair
dismissal within their first 90 days of
employment.
“The first hundred days of a new government
are meant to signal innovative changes that shape the rest
of its term,” said AUS acting general secretary, Nanette
Cormack. “And yet, from this National-led government
today, we apparently find that one of the biggest, most
urgent matters it wants to deal with is to give small
employers the absolute right to fire workers
indiscriminately. It seems that this needs to be dealt with
more urgently than the international financial crises, or
before other pressing environmental and social problems,”
Ms Cormack added.
“The question workers will be asking
is ‘What is the rush?’” said ASTE national secretary,
Sharn Riggs. “Why has the 90-day probation bill been put
into urgency just before Christmas?”
“National knows
that hundreds of thousands of workers and their unions
opposed its last 90-day bill,” said Ms Riggs. “And those
workers campaigned with other New Zealanders to win
political support from the Māori party to defeat the bill.
It appears this time the National-led government does not
want to take the chance of allowing the public to have its
say. We hope the Māori party will continue to oppose this
ill-conceived bill.”
New law school for AUT
The
Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) has announced that it
has given approval for AUT University to offer a bachelor of
laws degree starting in 2009. The degree has been approved
by the New Zealand Council of Legal Education as meeting its
educational requirements for a degree which qualifies
candidates for admission as barristers and solicitors of the
High Court of New Zealand. The degree has also been approved
by the Committee on University Academic Programmes of the
New Zealand Vice-Chancellors’ Committee as meeting the
necessary academic standards for a degree programme in a New
Zealand university.
AUT University vice-chancellor Derek
McCormack said that Auckland is currently under-served
compared to other New Zealand major centres and Australian
cities, and its large population will benefit from having
another law school. “Auckland is home to one-third of New
Zealand’s population and there is huge demand on its only
law school at the University of Auckland,” he said. “The
AUT law degree will complement the existing provision and is
a strong option for students in the region.”
Both the
TEC and AUT conducted separate consultations with the legal
profession, industry, and government departments. Results
from both sets of research apparently showed strong support
for a law degree based in Auckland with a commercial-law
focus.
AUT has appointed Professor Ian Eagles as dean of
law. Professor Eagles was formerly a law professor at the
University of Auckland and is regarded as one of New
Zealand’s leading experts in competition law and
intellectual property. He has published widely in these and
other areas.
The AUT law school will be based at the
university’s city campus in the Auckland CBD. Degree
courses will commence in semester one, 2009, with a first
year intake of 100 students and the university is already
taking enrolment applications.
IT graduates halved
The
number of tertiary-education graduates coming out of
information-technology courses has halved over the past four
years and technology businesses are said to be scratching to
fill roles, according to a recent story in the NZ Herald.
University of Auckland professor of computer science and
director of the centre for software innovation, John
Hosking, is quoted as saying that this is threatening the
technology sector’s ability to increase its “volume of
development”.
“You need the people to do the
spadework, to develop the products,” Professor Hosking
said, adding that, because IT is “utterly pervasive” in
business, the whole economic infrastructure is at risk.
“It seems the stereotype of the IT nerd is the main force
turning young people away from a career in the
sector.”
One reason given for the drop is that parents
often have a strong influence over their children’s career
selection and, following the dot-com crash, there has been a
perception that IT is not a solid career choice. Another is
that secondary schools have different standards for
assessing IT as a subject, and many students turn it down
because it does not contribute as many points towards their
final grade for the year. “We are losing people there
because they think it’s a second-rate subject,”
Professor Hosking concluded.
Managing director of IBM New
Zealand, Katrina Troughton, is quoted by the Herald as
saying that the company struggles to find IT graduates with
a broad understanding of business and communication as well
as technology skills. IBM often recruits from overseas or
has to invest in training the candidates. It also works with
tertiary-education institutions to promote the opportunities
available in IT. “It’s not just about sitting in front
of a computer all day,” Ms Troughton said.
International
students need anti-racism support
Education providers
need to do more to protect international students from
racial attacks, says Race Relations Commissioner Joris de
Bres. He added that the fate of Jae Hyeon Kim, a 25-year-old
South Korean who was murdered on the West Coast in 2003, is
a reminder New Zealanders need to do everything possible to
make the country safe for visitors.
Kim could well have
been one of the many international students New Zealand
attracted, Mr de Bres told last week’s International
Education Association conference in Auckland. “You
[education providers] have a particular responsibility to
ensure the safety of your students, to make them aware of
the risks, and to provide them with easily accessible
processes to report instances of racial harassment,” he
said.
An informal survey of tertiary-education
institutions has found that they are reluctant to recognise
a problem with racism in their own areas, and that there is
little information available on racial harassment of
international students. “There are few specific processes
for international students experiencing racial harassment
off campus and little specific information on student safety
for international students,” Mr de Bres said.
The 2007
national survey of international students found
three-quarters of them had experienced discrimination by
other students on campus. About half had experienced
discrimination by teachers, administrative or support staff,
and other international students. Mr de Bres urged education
providers to liaise with police, ethnic councils, and local
government in order to deal with these problems.
Visa
numbers for international students were up 33 per cent
between July and November compared with the same time last
year. Export education is estimated to contribute $2.3
billion a year to New Zealand’s economy, 1.13 percent of
the country’s gross domestic product, compared with 1.06
percent in Australia and less than 0.5 percent in each of
Canada, the United States, and Britain.
World
Watch
High stress levels in further education
Stress
levels for UK staff in further education (roughly the same
as New Zealand’s institute of technology and polytechnic
and industry training organisation sectors) exceed the
averages for other workers on seven key measures, according
to a recent survey of 3000 workers in further education. The
survey, carried out by the University and College Union
(UCU), and reported in Tackling Stress in Further Education,
used a methodology devised by the Health and Safety
Executive which analyses stress amongst the general working
population, including those in education.
The results of
the UCU survey show that workers in further education
reported lower levels of well-being, which equated to more
stress, in all seven areas in comparison to the national
population. The areas with the most marked differences for
further-education workers included how change is handled at
work, the demands made upon them, and their understanding of
their role at work.
In addition, 87 percent of
respondents reported “sometimes”, “often”, or
“always” experiencing levels of stress at work that they
found unacceptable. Nearly four-fifths of respondents (79.8
percent) “agreed” or “strongly agreed” with the
statement, “I find my job stressful”. More than half (55
percent) reported “high” or “very high” general
levels of stress.
In response to the survey, UCU general
secretary, Sally Hunt, said, “Our members in further
education have worked in an environment of continual change
where there is barely time to consolidate one new policy
before the next comes along. This survey clearly shows this
is the root cause of a great deal of stress,” Ms Hunt
added. “The economic downturn looks set to herald more
change as further education will be at the heart of
responses to increasing levels of unemployment.”
Spanish
revolt against Bologna
Resistance to the Bologna process
of rationalising university-degrees is growing among
academics and students in Spain. The Spanish government has
tried to defuse the situation, but last week more than 600
students were occupying various buildings at the University
of Barcelona while, in other actions, there were large
demonstrations in Madrid, students blocked train lines in
Barcelona, and others interrupted a senate meeting in
Valencia.
The students are protesting at what they see as
a creeping privatisation of state universities, in which
they allege private interests, such as those of employers,
are taking precedence over the common good. With few grants
available and, as yet, no student loans, most Spanish
students work and study at the same time. They complain that
Bologna developments such as the European credit are
increasing workloads and making this impossible.
“The
Bologna criteria, such as continuous assessment, the need to
attend more classes, the emphasis on lots of hours of
personal work at home, are all very valid criteria,” said
Francesco Castells, a sociology student at Barcelona
University, “but they mean students can no longer combine
work and study.”
Many students also believe the new
system will force students to complete an often-expensive
master’s degree to obtain the same recognition and job
prospects they would formerly have earned with a first
degree.
From Rebecca Warden in University World
News
South African unions explore
amalgamation
Following a successful vote and presentation
by the National Tertiary Education Staff Union (NTESU) at
the recent congress of the National Union of Tertiary
Employees of South Africa (NUTESA), the two largest
tertiary-education unions in South Africa have agreed to
enter a period of engagement on amalgamation. The move
follows several years of a “One Voice” campaign
conversation and trends in the international union movement
which have seen mergers in the UK, Australia, and New
Zealand.
In the long-awaited vote at the NUTESA congress,
its branches agreed to a memorandum of agreement to
establish a joint task team to develop a proposal on
amalgamation. In the face of attacks on academic freedom,
attrition in the established posts of institutions, low
salary rates, and deteriorating conditions of service, it is
increasingly being seen as imperative that a single voice
appears to speak for union members in the tertiary-education
sector.
NTESU national deputy president, John Landman,
said, “With a potential to attract 25,000 or more members
from the 21 institutions of higher education, and more if
the further-education colleges are included in the
recruiting pool, the prospect of combating the problems
faced by the sector and raging managerialism on campuses
would be hugely improved by a merger.”
It is believed
most of the gains from an amalgamation would be at the
national, consultative level with the Ministry of Education,
Council on Higher Education, and the employer body, Higher
Education South Africa.
Tough new regulations in
Greece
Tough new measures are being imposed by the Greek
Ministry of Education on universities and institutes of
technology. Although the institutions are supposed to be
autonomous and self-administering, the government intends to
exercise greater control over their operations, restrict
academic freedom and trade union activity, and curtail
student mobilisation.
The new measures have been
introduced following the failure of almost all the
higher-education institutions themselves to produce their
own internal regulations as demanded by legislation brought
in by the government last northern summer.
Six months
after the introduction of the legislation, the Education
Ministry exercised an option to introduce its own Model
Internal Regulations for the Operation of the Higher
Education Institutions. These are compulsory for those
institutions that have not proposed their own and will apply
until they produce them.
The regulations interpret and
expand the provisions of the legislation in assessment, the
four-year rolling financial programme, duration of studies,
credit units, appointment of a secretary-general, plant and
building management, and security. They also introduce a
series of disciplinary measures, a great deal more severe
than existing ones, covering academic staff and
students.
The new regulations expressly forbid the
conscious use of other people’s work without proper
mention of their contribution in the research or teaching
project; conscious neglect to declare a possible conflict of
interest by a participant in a research project; the
unauthorised use of areas and/or equipment in a way that is
in direct conflict with the institution’s mission and
without the express permission of those responsible; and,
finally, engaging in behaviour not in accord with the
provisions of the Civil Service Code.
Rather than seeking
ways to reach an accommodation with the academic community,
the government seems intent on sharpening the conflict. In
the past, the institutions have refused to implement
government directives and they appear reluctant to do so
this time.
From Makki Marseilles in University World
News
Universities not run by lefties –
official
Australian universities are not controlled by
left-wing academics hell-bent on brainwashing students, a
Senate inquiry has found. The previous Liberal-National
coalition government established the inquiry into
allegations of academic bias a week before it lost control
of the upper house earlier this year. Its final report,
however, states that there is no evidence of bias in the
nation’s universities.
“The committee’s finding is
that, in view of the relatively tiny number of submissions
received from the hundreds of thousands of students who are
said to be affected, there can be no basis for arguing that
universities are under the control of the Left,” committee
chair Gavin Marshall wrote in the report. “If there is a
Left conspiracy to influence the direction of the nation’s
affairs and its social and economic priorities through the
process of subverting a generation of undergraduates, this
is not yet evident.”
When tabling the report, Senator
Marshall said the inquiry was a waste of time and Labor
members of the committee said the inquiry was instigated by
Liberal student organisations. Furthermore, Labor government
senators were puzzled why students didn’t complain about
perceived bias to their universities “rather than to a
Senate committee”.
In the majority report, they asked
whether a left-wing bias among academics would even pose a
problem if it did exist. “The issue is whether this has
any bearing on teaching and learning, or any effect on the
intellectual development of students.”
Liberal senator
Mitch Fifield said, however, that, while specific examples
of deliberate bias appeared to be “uncommon”, real bias
could be seen in the curriculum taught in many faculties.
“It ensures a monoculture,” he told the Senate. The
coalition senators’ minority report recommends a charter
of academic freedoms be developed to protect students’
rights to religious and political expression. “This
charter should be adopted by all universities as a condition
of funding,” the minority report states.
The coalition
also wants universities to conduct a full review of their
complaints processes for students.
From the Age
More
international news
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http://www.universityworldnews.com
AUS Tertiary
Update is published weekly on Thursdays and distributed
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