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.:
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