Bottom of the league table for Joyce

A league table of Tertiary Education ministers would have Steven Joyce ranked near the bottom, the Green Party said today.

“On the day Steven Joyce announces league tables for New Zealand Universities, the World University Rankings show our tertiary education providers are slipping,” Green Party tertiary education spokesperson Gareth Hughes said.

"Instead of giving tertiary education providers the funding they need to produce graduates who can build a smart and prosperous economy for New Zealand, Steven Joyce has chosen to place another burden on the shoulders of universities.

"He's already made it harder to get into tertiary study, harder to stay in tertiary study, and more expensive to stay in tertiary study. Now he is making it harder for providers to maintain funding.

"Mr Joyce’s plan threatens funding cuts for under achievement. As we’ve seen from the slip in our rankings the underinvestment by Minister Joyce is already taking a toll.”

Mr Hughes said that part of purpose of tertiary education was to be the critic and conscience of our society, not just money making machines that churn out industry focused graduates.

“By putting the focus on four narrow criteria, Mr Joyce is essentially creating league tables for our universities. If we were to rank him on one of these he would be near the bottom,” Mr Hughes said.

“A performance based funding model will make it harder for people who left school early, come from a disadvantaged background or have problems with the English language to access and afford education.”

The Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings show Auckland University, the only New Zealand University in the top 100, slipped seven places. Canterbury and Massey also dropped as well. Victoria University climbed four positions to 225th

Currently New Zealand spends $3000 less per student than the OECD average.

“We need to stop shuffling money around and start putting money in," Mr Hughes said.

"Australia is spending $5.3 billion extra on tertiary education over the next 6 years.

"Compared with other OECD countries we are ranked 18th out of 30 for the proportion of our population with a tertiary degree at 27 percent. Australia is aiming for 40 percent.

"How are we going to catch Australia by cutting funding when the gap is widening?

"Adequately funded providers play a big role in building strong, educated communities which ends up being better for New Zealand," Mr Hughes said.

LINKS

QS University Rankings
http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/home

Australian Budget Speech
http://www.ato.gov.au/budget/2009-10/content/speech/html/speech.htm

Steven Joyce’s press release
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/greater+accountability+tertiary+spend

ENDS

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