Posted 6th June 2001

Funding The Education Competition

There's a petition available from David Bedggood of Auckland University Social Sciences. The case is a good one (see below), but good for who? A cynic, of which the universities are meant to be well populated, would surely observe in the round that the primary interest of educators is making a living. Like all professionals, of which a good example is that other group of professionals currently under siege, doctors, the contradictory dialectic is that what is good for the professional is a almost always a problem for the individual client and society as a whole.

Doctors need sick people and educators need ignorant people, the more the better. Of late the once termed `Technical Schools' have been making a play to take over established universities. The Techs have been busy exploiting state funding, political insecurity and shortages of nurses, computer technicians, accountants, whoever and a general but questionable perception that New Zealand needs to re-tool people toward the computer age and money centred business. The `economy' has not improved one iota, but the income and status of many who work and manage the new universities has leap ahead.

Could the political heat radiating from the universities be a political strategy somewhat unrelated to the real needs of students and hospitals, businesses etc?You're call. The case from the university follows. Please add your name to the petition to put pressure on the government to increase funding to the tertiary education sector, and the university/polytech management to spend that extra funding on:

a) freezing and then reducing student fees

b) maintaining and then improving staff numbers.

GOVERNMENT BUDGET FUNDING CRISIS! The Labour / Alliance government Budget has offered a 2.8% increase to the Tertiary Education sector - but only if student fees are not increased. The problem is, last year inflation was 3.2%, and its shaping up to be 3% this year. As the government only funds about 68% of the universities running costs (fees make up the rest), last years 2.3% increase only equated to a 1.5% overall funding increase in cash.

This years 2.8% offer will equate to roughly an overall 1.8% increase in cash. The cumulative underfunding by the Labour / Alliance government adds up to a 2.7% real-term cut in total university government funding for 2001 and 2002 - this amounts to the roughly $20m which universities claim they will go into the red by. This situation cannot continue without universities being forced to raise student fees, cut numbers and pay/conditions of staff or cut numbers and quality of courses, or all of the above! Almost all NZ universities are actually making surpluses at the moment (in 2000, Auckland $9.1m, Waikato $5.3m, Massey $5.7m, Canterbury $2.2m, Otago $6.3m), but cannot afford to absorb ongoing government cuts to funding.

The Labour / Alliance government talks a lot about ``creating the knowledge society'' - if they don't put money where their mouth is, NZ will continue to lag behind comparable countries (tertiary education funding in NZ is less than 1% of GDP, in Finland it is over 3% of GDP). At the same time, university management cannot be allowed to make profits at the same time as bleating about a shortage of money. They must invest that surplus into reducing fees and paying all staff a fair wage, with no more job cuts. Sign an open letter of protest to PM Helen Clark and NZ university Vice Chancellors.: