TEU Tertiary Update Vol 12 No 12

TEU MEMBERS ENDORSE UNIVERSITY NATIONAL BARGAINING AGAIN

With just a few votes yet to be counted, TEU members at the country’s eight universities have again endorsed a bargaining strategy that seeks a nationwide university collective employment agreement. If successful, the strategy would see twenty-one existing collective agreements across eight universities amalgamated into just two: one for academic staff and one for general staff.

About 90 percent of TEU members who are academic staff and 94 percent of general staff members around the country who voted, endorsed the national bargaining strategy. Other unions representing different staff at various universities are also balloting their members on the strategy and although not all the votes have been counted yet, it seems likely that they also will endorse the strategy.

“As in the past, there is strong support for national bargaining,” said TEU deputy secretary Nanette Cormack, “because people see that it’s the best way to achieve our goals, and especially to get some consistency of working conditions and terms of employment across the sector. Members have professional and industrial connections that are wider than just their own university.”

Ms Cormack says that the next stage of the national bargaining process will be to develop a refined set of national claims that reflect the goals of the members. This is already underway, with meetings taking place this week and next week to canvass members’ opinions on the most important issues they face.

ALSO IN TERTIARY UPDATE THIS WEEK:

1. A year in the military to pay for study
2. OECD report opposing MECAs and education spending
3. Tairāwhiti plans to keep local students
4. Waikato celebrates Kīngitanga day as Māori staff redundancies loom
5. Investment in universities provides good returns
6. Bishop tries to ban Obama from university speech

A YEAR IN THE MILITARY TO PAY FOR STUDY

“It seems boot camps are not just for students who don’t want to be in education – they are also now for those who do.” That’s the sentiment of TEU national secretary, Sharn Riggs, in response to a government proposal that school leavers be offered a gap year in the military to pay for their tertiary education.

Defence minister (and associate tertiary education minister) Wayne Mapp revealed the volunteer service proposal on Tuesday as part of a white paper review of the defence force. Students would spend a year in the Army, Navy or Air Force before going on to university and earn a salary or credit off their student loan.

“It’s outrageous that the government has seemingly given up on the widely accepted goal that tertiary education should be accessible to all on the basis of ability rather than wallet size”, said Ms Riggs, in response. “If the government really wants more people to study, then why not pay for it directly rather than telling people they should first spend a year or so in the military?”

“No disrespect to the territorials – the professional work our armed forces do around the world is widely respected, but I am sure they have got better things to do than to babysit students who can’t afford the growing student fees that government encourages tertiary education institutions to charge,” concluded Ms Riggs.

OECD WANTS LOWER WAGE BILL FOR NZ EDUCATION WORKERS

An OECD report released this week has called on the government to tighten spending in the public sector and in particular to discourage the use of multi-employer collective agreements (MECAs) in the public sector.

The 2009 OECD Economic Survey of New Zealand argues that public expenditure has risen disproportionately in three areas: education, policing/corrections, and health, driven largely by personnel increases and wage settlements. It criticises the former government’s use of MECAs and says wage increases in the public sector have “seldom been linked to expected efficiency or productivity gains.”

The report’s authors say that the new government should ‘tie future wage increases, especially in health and education, to measurable productivity outcomes’ through the use of performance targets.

More generically, the OECD report says New Zealand needs to cut company taxes and regulations, and consider privatising state-owned transport and energy assets.

CTU Secretary Peter Conway says the report misses the point.

“Although there are some good suggestions made, overall the prescription is to privatise in electricity, ports, ACC and health despite the fact that we have just witnessed massive private sector failure in financial management which has required huge bailouts by the public sector. Yet the OECD continues to push for ever greater market-based models across social provision and strategic infrastructure. This illustrates that the OECD seems to have learned nothing from the global financial crisis.”

Mr Conway said proposals to raise the retirement age, introduce more road toll charges, formally separate hospitals from DHB funders and outsource hospital management will also raise major concerns.

TAIRĀWHITI PLANS TO KEEP LOCAL STUDENTS

The Tairāwhiti Gisborne region has developed a collaborative project to stop young people leaving the district to fulfil their career needs. It aims to bring together tertiary education providers, industries, secondary schools and other groups to work together to better meet students’ needs locally.

An outline of the strategy was presented to members of the Tairāwhiti District Partnership last week, following consultation with stakeholders.

Tairāwhiti Polytechnic business development director, Glenis Philip-Barbara, told Tertiary Update that the project gives staff in the area the opportunity for greater collegiality, which she believes is important in a small town. She says a number of tertiary education staff in the region have commented to her that they would value the opportunity to work collaboratively with others in different institutions.

Ms Philip-Barbara said a key to the success of the proposal was the shift from a competitive funding model to a cooperative one that allowed people to look to the interests of the region rather than competing for the same students.

“It puts us in a greater position to share information with each other.”

Ms Philip-Barbara says one of the benefits of the project is that is gives tertiary staff the chance to develop relationships with programmes that pathway to or from their own, allowing for greater cohesion for students looking to move between courses of study.

Although the project has only this week been signed off by the Tairāwhiti Polytechnic Council it has already resulted in a change of practice by staff at institutions in the region.

“As a result of working through the process we have already been able to achieve a bunch of things,” said Ms Philip-Barbara, pointing to work with WINTEC to provide midwifery training in Gisborne and collaboration with MIT over how to introduce its tertiary high school concept as examples. “It’s great to be able to actually get on and achieve real outcomes for our region.”

WAIKATO CELEBRATES KĪNGITANGA DAY AS MĀORI STAFF REDUNDANCIES LOOM

The University of Waikato/Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato affirmed its relationship with the Kīngitanga this week with an inaugural one day festival of presentations, seminars, panel discussions and workshops, and the biggest ever mass haka performance on campus.

The Kīngitanga, or Māori King Movement, is currently celebrating 150 years of existence. In 1858 the Kīngitanga was established by iwi Māori with the purpose of putting an end to Māori land alienation, halting inter-tribal warfare, and preserving Mana Māori Motuhake. The current reigning monarch of the Kīngitanga is Arikinui Tūheitia who ascended to the throne in 2006.

TEU Te Pou Tuarā, Lee Cooper, commends the leadership of the Vice-Chancellor and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Māori) of Waikato University, along with the efforts of staff, students, and community for initiating and hosting a successful day. “It’s important to see Waikato University affirming its relationship with Tainui in meaningful and practical ways acknowledging their distinctive heritage, histories, and relationships.”

Mr Cooper is hoping that the goodwill shown by Waikato University management will flow through as part of its current review of the School of Māori and Pacific Development where staff are presently facing the prospect of significant redundancies and restructuring. “The School leadership and staff must work together with management on a positive way forward.”

INVESTMENT IN UNIVERSITIES PROVIDES HIGH RETURNS

Universities Australia has released a report showing that if the Government were to implement the funding and regulatory reforms recommended by the Bradley Review of Higher Education (total cost of AU$6.5 billion over four years), the real rate of return to Australia is in the order of 14-15 percent.

An AU$11 billion boost to higher education funding by 2040 would generate an additional $137.8 billion in gross domestic product, including an extra AU$1.5 billion in export income from international student fees, according to the study conducted by consultancy firm KPMG.

The study predicts that a boost in university funding from 1.6 percent of GDP to 2 percent and an increase in commonwealth grants from 42 percent to 50 percent will generate a 5.8 percent gain in GDP and a 5.2 percent rise in living standards.

The economic benefits, which would not be apparent in the first few years as higher education enrolments increased, would come chiefly from the labour force and productivity improvements that flowed from higher graduation rates. Research and development would generate about one-third of the GDP boost, or AU$3.3 billion.

Recent public statements from Education Minister Julia Gillard and Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner suggest the Government is trying to "manage-down" expectations from the higher education sector that had been raised by Kevin Rudd's heady rhetoric of an education revolution and its own Bradley review.

“These estimates may actually underestimate the returns on public investment in our universities because they do not attempt to measure the indirect economic or social benefits such as improved health outcomes and greater social cohesion,” said Dr Carolyn Allport, national president of NTEU, Australia’s counterpart to the TEU.

“Failure by the Federal Government to implement Bradley funding recommendations would represent a significant lost opportunity in both the short and long term.”

From Luke Slattery at the Australian

BISHOP TRIES TO BAN OBAMA FROM UNIVERSITY SPEECH

Controversy has erupted at Indiana’s catholic university Notre Dame, after its president Rev. John Jenkins invited US president Barack Obama to receive an honorary degree on May 17 and to give a commencement speech.

Bishop John M. D’Arcy, who oversees the part of Indiana where Notre Dame is based and 41 other US bishops have called for the invitation to President Obama to be rescinded because of his support for abortion and stem cell research.

The Indiana Conference of the American Association of University Professors has weighed in on the controversy expressing support for Rev. Jenkins for standing by the invitation and expresses concern about "the efforts of external groups to prevent President Obama or any other invited guest from speaking on campus. ... Notre Dame has a worthy tradition of inviting new presidents to speak at commencement even though none agree with all aspects of Catholic dogma. To disinvite a commencement speaker over public policy disagreements is an anathema to open discourse."

While Bishop D’Arcy and his supporters have said they will not be attending the graduation ceremony that does not seem to have deterred other academic staff. Due to high demand for seats the university’s registrar has started to allocate lottery tickets to decide which of the university’s full-time faculty members eligible to seek tickets can attend.

President Obama will be the ninth US president to be awarded an honorary degree at Notre Dame and the sixth to be commencement speaker.

From the Chicago Tribune and Inside Higher Ed

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