by Gareth Hughes
Last year, Massey University cut enrolments to summer school without telling students. Hundreds were shut out of a summer education.
Massey did this as it was fearful of exceeding Government-imposed enrolment caps. Now Massey is to drastically reduce student numbers by 15 per cent over the next three years directly as a result of the Government’s Tertiary Education Strategy (TES) [PDF]. That’s approximately 2,500 people who will be denied a tertiary education.
So this week, student leaders wrote an op-ed in the NZ Herald outlining the unfairness of the Tertiary Education Strategy.
The Government wants more efficiency in the tertiary sector – that means completing a degree in three to four years. The focus of its TES is on enrolments of full time students who have just left school. Its targeted group of learners are those under 25, preferably Maori and Pacific Islanders.
The trouble is that thousands of tertiary students study part time and can’t complete degrees in six years, let alone three. Many study extramurally at Massey. In fact 16,000 students, mainly women over the age of 25, study extramurally at Massey. A lot of them are Maori who work, and look after children at home. Many are taking a couple of papers to upskill as part of work – which their employer is paying for. Not many are taking out loans for living costs; they don’t take enough papers to qualify for the student allowance, so are hardly a drain on the taxpayer.
But the Government views these students as inefficient because they don’t complete degrees in three years. Tertiary education minster Steven Joyce studied at Massey, and took 21 years to complete his zoology degree. Nearly all extramural students complete their degrees faster, but because most don’t complete them as fast as Joyce would like them to, they are regarded as a non-completion statistic by the Tertiary Education Commission. Consequently universities like Massey will have their funding cut if they don’t reduce extramural student numbers.
Naturally Massey wants to avoid a funding cut even though its older extramural students are performing almost as effectively (and with some academic support and training) even more effectively than their younger counterparts straight from school.
Currently, demand for extramural tertiary education among older people is at its peak due to the recession and the inability for the Government to create jobs. I doubt if reducing access to higher education will lead to efficiencies.
The government’s TES is completely contrary to our tertiary policy particularly with regard to funding. Minister Steven Joyce should rethink his Tertiary Education Strategy and open up access so that capable people do not miss out on the chance to learn.
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare | Featured | Society & Culture by Gareth Hughes on Tue, May 10th, 2011
Tags: adult learners, Maori, Massey University, Pasifika students, steven joyce, tertiary education, Tertiary Education Strategy
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
As a female, over-25 part time student (one paper per trimester) who is currently maintaining a straight A record, has been studying solidly for three and a half years with another year and a bit to complete, and is paying for courses up front while working full time and raising a child, I would like to invite Mr Joyce to shove his policy where the sun don’t shine.
And also point out that people like me are also in a position to leave the country with our skills and our contributions to society and complete postgrad study elsewhere if the environment is made too difficult for us.
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Can’t have the proles being to upwardly mobile. May get too crowded at the top.
My private school educated kids may have to compete on equal terms with the children of “poor! people”.
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Ironically, when Lockwood Smith was the Minister of Education he set up the whole idea of portable, flexible education. Mallard carried it on, supporting e-learning as a way to enable people in work or otherwise unable to study full-time.
This is a retrograde step.
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In the 1990′s they destroyed apprenticeships. this is their new legacy …
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Too much tert. degree education and institutions. Need more practicle qualifications. Thick people now go to Uni when in reality they should be doing something else like labouring. A degree used to mean something but now is diluted wrt 20 years ago.
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New Zealand has the lowest salary premium for tertiary education of any OECD country. Our “investment” in tertiary education is, by this measure, a waste of money.
I theorise tha this is because you need to have a degree to work at KFC. When everyone has to have a degree, the value of a degree is diminsished, to the point of almost nothing.
We need to change so that we have useful vocational training, that addresses the needs of employers more accurately than “a degree”, and stop university being a natural next step to a mediocre shcool performance – we should refocus our universities on excellence rather than mass education.
We need excellence so that we can have New Zealand upskill from a agricultural economy to a modern, higher productivity economy. We cant do an Australia and dig ourselves up to sell, we need to be smarter than that.
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What does that say about the benefits to the country, of giving a leg-up to our best & brightest (not just our wealthiest !).. time to look at better options, than 3 more years of Mr. Smile & Wave & this N-Act Govt. Kia-ora
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