Scoop  Education

Whitireia tutor wins intellectual property argument

A ruling this week by the Employment Authority means Whitireia tutor Anne Abbott has the intellectual property rights to maths workbooks which the polytechnic was trying to claim as its own. Ms Abbott, who has worked for Whitireia for over 20 years as a Foundation Studies tutor, had developed and updated a collection of workbooks for her own use in her teaching.

In 2004 Whitireia introduced a new intellectual property policy claiming that it had the ownership rights over property created by staff members in the course of their employment or when using polytechnic time, resources or facilities.

Whitireia wrote to Ms Abbott in 2009 claiming ownership of her workbooks and threatening disciplinary action if she did not acquiesce. Ms Abbott rejected the claim, saying that she had created the workbooks in her own time and also uses them as part of her secondary employment as a private tutor.

The authority found that Ms Abbott's job description did not require her to make workbooks and that she was able to meet the requirements of her job without using the workbooks.

"While the workbooks arose out of her employment and are informed by it, they nonetheless were the result of the applicant's intellectual curiosity and sense of professionalism and do not belong to Whitireia."

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. TEC claims there’s more money but where is it?


2. Govt should compensate for VSM


3. EFTS cap forces redundancies at Waikato Uni


4. 'Insidious' market encroachment following economic crisis


5. Other news

TEC claims more money, but where is it?

The minister of education Steven Joyce says figures released by the Tertiary Education Commission show overall government funding to institutions increased significantly between 2007 and 2009.

"Universities have enjoyed an increase of 12.6 percent; polytechnics 11.1 percent and wānanga have seen an increase of 27 percent.

The figures, which span budgets from both the current and previous government, also show net assets within each sector rose from $5.3 billion to $5.7 billion (7.5 percent) at universities, $1.4 billion to $1.6 billion (14 percent) at polytechnics, and $123 million to $218 million (77 percent) at wānanga.

However, the Universities New Zealand-Te Pōkai Tara chair Derek McCormack says the increase in student numbers at our universities, combined with the increase in university costs during this period, means that the TEC figures for total government funding actually represent a decrease in real terms since 2007.

TEU national president Dr Tom Ryan pointed out that the TEC figures relate mainly to the period when the former government was investing in tertiary education. "The figures for the period 2009-2011, when the Key-led government has been in charge of the sector, will tell a quite different story."

"Tertiary institutions all around the country now are battling the same harsh reality – that over the past two years Mr Joyce’s government has reduced real funding to the sector, while at the same time economic recession and a demographic bulge of school leavers are driving extra demand for higher education and training."

"Last year there were 15,000 more students at universities, polytechnics, and wananga than there were in 2008. But the government provided funding for only half of them."

"The result is that academics and general staff around New Zealand are being made redundant as institutions restructure, close programmes, and cut spending to the bone," says Dr Ryan.

Govt should compensate for VSM

The government should compensate tertiary institutions if it is intent on introducing voluntary student membership, says TEU national president Dr Tom Ryan.

His comments follow the Education Select Committee's support for the Act Party's Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill. Student leaders are lobbying National Party MPs to use their final vote on the bill to support the 98 percent of submitters, including institutions, staff, and students who opposed the bill, rather than follow the select committee's recommendation.

Dr Ryan says that for tertiary institutions there are really only two possible outcomes from voluntary student membership.

"Either those institutions will start offering all or most of the services that students’ associations now offer, and also accrue the cost of running those services; or they won’t pick up those services, which will mean less pastoral care, cultural atmosphere, and community support, which can only translate as harder time for students and the staff that are trying to teach them. Either way, if the government wants tertiary institutions to pay for more services, or to have a tougher job teaching students with less pastoral care and social support, it should compensate tertiary institutions."

Dr Ryan said it was disappointing that the Education Select Committee had recommended the Bill be passed, because the ideology on each side of the debate is irrelevant when compared to the likely impact of the bill on students, staff, and tertiary institution communities.

"It also makes a mockery of the government’s recent decision that from here on the TEC must regularly publish indicators of student learning performance at each tertiary institution. There can be no doubt that student learning performance generally is going to suffer once the effects of the VSM Bill kick in. Only compensation from government to institutions is going to avert that."

EFTS cap forces redundancies at Waikato Uni

The Waikato Times reports that thirteen staff will lose their jobs at the University of Waikato under a proposal that will see General and Applied Linguistics lose 4.5 fulltime equivalent (FTE) positions, English  lose 2 FTEs, History 2.25 FTE, Music 1.5, Theatre Studies 1, and Psychology 1.11 FTEs. Geography and Tourism will lose 3 FTEs, to be partly replaced by two new jobs in Environmental Planning.

The dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), Professor Daniel Zirker, says the process is still under consultation, but is blaming the extent of latest round of proposed redundancies on the government imposed funding cap on students.

"I am working closely with HR colleagues to make sure this is a very robust and transparent process, to fulfil our obligations to both staff and the university."

In a letter sent out to staff with the attached proposal, he said the faculty was struggling financially due to the capped funding environment.

Current projections forecast the faculty running a deficit of $610,000 in 2011 with it rising to $1.5 million by 2013 if changes weren't made.

TEU national president Tom Ryan told the Waikato Times he is "extremely concerned" that jobs were again being cut in the faculty.

"FASS over the past decade or so has continually been expected to bear major cuts in staffing while at the same time it has been expected to contribute higher amounts of profits back to subsidise other parts of the university," Dr Ryan said.

'Insidious' market encroachment following economic crisis

TEU national president Dr Tom Ryan has returned from Education International's 7th International Higher Education and Research Conference which was held in Canada, saying New Zealand needs to learn quickly from failed tertiary education experiments in other parts of the world if we are to maintain and build upon our international standing and respect.

Conference participants from 33 countries deliberated common issues that concern the sector in different regions, such as ranking systems in higher education, the globalisation and commercialisation of the sector, and equity and inclusivity for students and staff.

Dr Ryan said that New Zealand's collegial public education system compared favourably to others in the world, but that much that is good in it would be threatened if  we mimicked the cost-cutting and privatisation  that is undermining tertiary education in other countries in the wake of the economic crisis.

EI General Secretary, Fred van Leeuwen, referred to the 1997 UNESCO Recommendation on the Status of Higher Education Teaching Personnel, and the need for affiliates to make use of it in calling their governments to account. In particular, he said, higher education unions must fight the encroachments of the market in education, especially given its direct challenges to collegiality and academic freedom.

"Against this privatised vision," said van Leeuwen, "we must more forcefully articulate why higher education and research is important as a public service. I would also submit that the way forward lies in reaffirming the role of higher education staff as actors in society, as those on the front-line tackling the major challenges we face today."

The General Secretary also launched EI’s latest global online petition, which called on the Colombian government to release Miguel Ángel Beltrán Villegas, a university professor and trade unionist, who has been held in prison for more than a year on charges that violate his exercise of academic freedom and his fundamental right to freedom of thought and expression.

Other news

Massey's embattled cleaners say two hours of free counselling is not a fair exchange for their livelihoods. The cleaners pleaded for their jobs during a last-ditch protest outside the office of Massey University vice-chancellor Steve Maharey yesterday. About 40 Manawatu cleaners received letters from employer OCS Ltd on Friday telling them to reapply for part-time jobs or face redundancy within two weeks –Manawatu Daily News

The Australian government will introduce legislation today to restore compulsory student amenities fees at Australian universities. Minister for tertiary education, Senator Chris Evans, said it was important to restore a range of depleted services at universities, particularly in regional Australia, and cited sporting, health and counselling services as key areas. He also took a swipe at the Howard government’s voluntary student unionism legislation which had abolished services and amenities fees for students.  – The Australian

TEU members of Union Climate Action at Eastern Institute of Technology are holding a potluck low carbon breakfast on October 13 for employees who leave their car at home and find alternative ways to travel to work. Their action is one of over 4,100 events in 170 countries that form part of the Global Climate Action Working Bee – Union Climate Action

The former principal of an Aberdeen university has handed back an honorary degree in protest at a similar award being given to Donald Trump. Dr David Kennedy, principal of Robert Gordon University (RGU) between 1987-97, said he was "appalled" at plans to honour the US tycoon next month - BBC

Tuition fees in the UK may need to rise to more than £7,000 a year to compensate universities for the cuts in teaching funding being considered by the coalition government, the president of Universities UK has warned. He referred to newspaper reports that have suggested that the coalition intends to cut the teaching budget by as much as £3.5 billion in a bid to shelter research – Times Higher Education Supplement

Teaching has become separated into various components, now performed by different people according to different values, completely jeopardising university teaching as a research-informed activity. Certain activities, including curriculum planning or assessment, are being hived off and deemed ‘faculty support’ – Joss Jesson, in Churn: The Unacceptable Face of the Global Knowledge Economy? New Zealand Journal of Teachers’ Work, Volume 7, Issue 1, 74-82, 2010.

Workers at the Ministry of Education are holding a two-hour work stoppage at offices across the country today. This nationwide stoppage marks the start of an industrial action campaign by members of the PSA who work for the Ministry. The union wants a fair pay system to be part of its members’ collective agreement. "Our members have had enough of the Ministry’s arbitrary pay system that rewards only some. Last year our members pay was frozen while managers within the Ministry received over half a million dollars in bonuses," says PSA National Secretary Brenda Pilott - PSA

---

TEU Tertiary Update is published weekly on Thursdays and distributed freely to members of the Tertiary Education Union and others. You can subscribe to Tertiary Update by email or feed reader. Back issues are available on the TEU website. Direct inquiries should be made to Stephen Day, email: stephen.day@teu.ac.nz

© Scoop Media

 

Culture Headlines | Health Headlines | Education Headlines