tertiary education

Categories under tertiary education

  • No categories

Students speak on loan cap

Written By: - Date published: 10:48 am, May 28th, 2015 - 46 comments

Students speak on the lifetime limit on eligibility for student loans. This particularly affects those committed to a long term course of study, such as medical students. They can’t get loans for their final years of study. It’s crazy.

New appointments to Tertiary Education Institutions Councils

Written By: - Date published: 2:01 pm, April 16th, 2015 - 23 comments

Steven Joyce has today announced his latest appointments to TEI. These are important because after changes to the Education Act 1989 in 2009 the Minister controls the appointment of half of the appointees of Councils. The Council appoints the other half. Think about the possible implications of Government influence. Manukau Institute of TechnologyMs Rachael Tuwhangai, […]

The Second Climate Change Problem

Written By: - Date published: 12:09 pm, March 12th, 2015 - 23 comments

Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we’re educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence

Starving the universities

Written By: - Date published: 8:02 am, October 6th, 2014 - 52 comments

NZ’s universities are falling down the world rankings. This should come as no surprise, because National have systematically cut funding to the tertiary sector. How stupid do you have to be to deliberately run down our universities?

Boots Theory: Creepy behaviour from David Farrar

Written By: - Date published: 9:49 am, September 27th, 2014 - 78 comments

David Farrar continues the Dirty Politics strategy of trying to intimidate critics of the government into silence.

Dirty politics in Dunedin

Written By: - Date published: 12:49 pm, September 3rd, 2014 - 42 comments

No. Not Pete George. Instead Andrew Geddis appears to be up to his neck in the mire of organising “Debating ‘Dirty Politics’: Media, Politics and Law”, at a ‘scholarly’ debate on Friday from 1pm-4pm. It is a long-winded scholarly debate inside work hours. But it will be streamed on youtube and hopefully not only live.

Tertiary education – a “public good”

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, August 5th, 2014 - 14 comments

The Green Party is launching their “election priority for students” at Auckland University today from 2-3pm in the Auckland University Quad.  Russel Norman and Metiria Turei announced a student Green Card for off peak public transport. Updated

Polity: Minimum pass rates at University are silly

Written By: - Date published: 11:55 am, March 8th, 2014 - 21 comments

The government has imposed mandatory minimum pass rates of tertiary education. If Universities (and Polytechs, Waananga, and others) do not meet a government-imposed minimum pass rate (which ratchet up every year, and may go as high as 85%), then the institution risks losing some of its government funding. That is crazy town.

Time to end perception of degrees for sale

Written By: - Date published: 6:14 pm, December 4th, 2013 - 50 comments

The All Blacks do not give out honorary test caps to the chief financial officer of insurance sponsor AIG. Politicians no longer give seats in a House of Lords to their almsgivers and patrons. Perhaps it is time to question why our most prestigious universities give away honorary doctorates to significant benefactors. A couple of […]

National – idiots on education

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, July 1st, 2013 - 35 comments

Hekia Parata seems to have noticed that we have a problem with trades education and apprenticeships in NZ. It’s a problem that is the making of National governments past and present, and they will need to completely rethink their blinkered approach to education in order to fix it.

The neoliberalisation of Universities

Written By: - Date published: 8:08 am, May 12th, 2013 - 43 comments

An article in today’s Sunday Star Times, provides evidence of an organised business in providing students with assignments for their tertiary education courses.  The focus is on Chinese ethnicity.  Ultimately, the blame for such rorts lies with the neoliberalisation of universities: the undermining of the critical endeavour of education.

“Minister for Small Things”

Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, March 1st, 2013 - 51 comments

Yesterday, David Cunliffe,on Peter Dunne’s Student Loan Amendment Bill, & the related inter-generational swindle, labelled Dunne as “Minister for Small Changes” & “for Small Things”. Dunne further showed his support of the “neoliberal” swindle, with a couple of tweets on non-residents buying NZ property, smearing the Greens as racist.

Our polytechnics are under threat

Written By: - Date published: 11:25 am, December 5th, 2012 - 20 comments

This year the government departed with a tradition of working closely with polytechnics to establish how best to spend taxpayers’ money and instead made our public institutions compete for taxpayers’ dollars to provide foundation courses. Institutions won money if they were the most competitive in terms of price, though all successful competitors had to meet minimum quality requirements – a true market approach to pricing. So, why is this problematic?

One step too far

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, November 20th, 2012 - 20 comments

The minister for tertiary education, Stephen  Joyce, may think he’s above the law but we don’t. He has told the New Zealand Herald “he would step in to force change at Auckland University” if necessary. What change does he want to force?  He wants to determine what the university teaches. This threat shows the minister has little regard for New Zealand’s Education Act.

Opposition Party statements; what the MSM doesn’t report

Written By: - Date published: 8:10 am, November 10th, 2012 - 39 comments

The MSM quickly picked up a press release on the failure of the Southern Cross Cable. Others that are ignored:  Bennett has either lied or is incompetent;  Nat-linked appointment to TVNZ board; Hone’s ‘feed the kids’ Bill; Joyce’s education agenda; John Key as a “bumbling Marxist”.

ImperatorFish: Teacher Development and Smaller Class Sizes: We Can Have Both

Written By: - Date published: 2:19 pm, June 18th, 2012 - 60 comments

Scott thoroughly fisks libertarian Damien Grant’s Herald on Sunday Column. And if teacher development is so important (as indeed it is) why have National cut it massively since they came to power, and are now dropping their budget plans to expand it. Money could be found from those tax cuts if they wanted…

Joyce’s latest brainfart

Written By: - Date published: 11:27 am, May 19th, 2012 - 45 comments

This week, Minister for Talking Big and Not Delivering, Steven Joyce, had his second opinion piece in the Herald of the year and, naturally, it bore no relation to the ‘vision’ in the previous one, or any of the 5 point strategies or 8 point action plans he has produced to date. Instead, it said ‘wouldn’t it be great if more international students came here?’. Problem is, his actions are driving them away.

You can’t fix what is not broken – no need to change university councils

Written By: - Date published: 2:45 pm, May 8th, 2012 - 23 comments

Dr Sandra Grey from the Tertiary Education Union has a look at Stephen Joyce’s proposals to changing the governance of tertiary education institutions. She suggests that he has a look at what happened in the changes to the polytechs in 2009. And also points out that his proposals don’t follow what is known about good governance for universities.

But it has been apparent to readers here that Joyce prefers to be a fiddler rather than being effective..

Education for the elite under National

Written By: - Date published: 11:46 am, May 2nd, 2012 - 49 comments

National’s going to cut access to the student allowance and up the repayment rate on student loans. Basically a hike on your graduate tax. These measures won’t save much themselves. But they’ll make higher education unaffordable for many. Fewer people will get qualifications. That’s how they’ll save costs: by blocking higher education for the poor, leading to a less skilled population. Loving this brighter future.

Inter-generational theft

Written By: - Date published: 10:24 am, May 2nd, 2012 - 49 comments

Baby boomers strike again. In 1989, University fees for domestic students in New Zealand were  less than $300. Moreover, for many students, 90% of that cost was met by the government through a fees grant. NZUSA has a very good history of fees in New Zealand. But I just want to say thank you to the baby boomer generation. […]

Nats’ economic failures just another excuse for cuts

Written By: - Date published: 10:49 am, April 27th, 2012 - 16 comments

Didn’t take much clairvoyance to see that National would fail to meet its promise of a Budget surplus by 2014/15. You’ve never seen a Finance Minister have his forecasts cut so often and look so happy about it. His failure against his own artificial target gives him an excuse to cut. His party’s ineptness to blame but we pay. Students look to be his target this round.

Key: better for me if you don’t vote

Written By: - Date published: 11:28 am, March 14th, 2012 - 32 comments

Key hates interest-free student loans, the only thing that has kept thousands more from leaving the country for higher wages, but says “it’s not politically sustainable to put interest back on student loans”. Why? “That is about the only thing that will get [young people] out of bed before 7 o’clock at night to vote”. Key’s willing to keep a policy he hates as long as you don’t vote.

Wastewatch: measuring graduate incomes

Written By: - Date published: 8:33 am, March 14th, 2012 - 22 comments

The Nats abandoned their wastewatch.co.nz site a few years back after being unable to identify significant waste. They should have just waited a few years. Now, the examples are neverending.
Today’s case: Steven Joyce’s plan to publish the average incomes of graduates of different courses. A huge administrative task to tell us nothing.

TEU: Treasury’s attack on ordinary Kiwis

Written By: - Date published: 4:05 pm, February 3rd, 2012 - 117 comments

Public education is the cornerstone of a good country and a buoyant economy. And New Zealanders have long enjoyed the benefits that come to them individually, to their families, their communities, their country, and the economy from having access to quality public education. But all this now seems under attack from a small group of Treasury officials.

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.