Let’s cut law courses!

March 10th 2010 at 2:31pm, By Dave Guerin

…well, give them the hard word anyway. A Facebook discussion I had last night made me think more about the impact of Steven Joyce’s performance funding on universities. While we usually talk and think about non-university, sub-degree courses in relation to poor course or qualification completion, some university courses also have poor results, like law.

Law courses often have a high enrolment in their first year (when law courses typically only make a part of the student’s courses) and then a savage cutback in year two. This will possibly lead to many students having unsuccessful course completion in year 1 (although many may pass) but will certainly lead to low qualification completion (half to two thirds of students may be gone at the end of year 1). The current approach is based on some or all of the following reasons.

  1. School marks are not always the best predictor of success at university and are often irrelevant to older students’ performance, so making decisions after a year of university academic performance gives a better indicator of future success.
  2. Students won’t have studied law before, so it makes sense to allow them to trial it.
  3. Since students have to take non-law papers in Year 1 as well, they can easily continue in and complete another degree.
  4. Letting only a few students through raises the prestige of law degrees and law lecturers (but so does having 3 applications for each place, so let’s not overstate this)

Now if a university wanted to improve its completion figures, it would look at law and find technical and real fixes to the issue. On the technical side, a university could simply refuse to accept law degree enrolments until Year 2, thereby avoiding the huge non-completion figures for that degree. On the real side, they could find a better way to manage entry into their degree and find the people likely to make the best of the opportunity.

And if start looking at real ways, we quickly find a value for money angle. If year 1 law courses are rated at 0.33 EFTS, then subsidies will be about $1700 and student fees about $1,300 for a total of $3,000 (exc GST), If, say, 800 students enrol in year 1, but only 300 go on to year 2, the cost of the trial for the 500 that don’t go on is $1.5m. Now if we put $1.5m on the table each year, I think we could come up with a better way to test people’s aptitude and interest for a law degree, and maybe people could study something else in Year 1 that might have more long-term relevance for them. And that will be the real impact of Joyce’s performance funding – sure, a few courses will lose funding, but it’s the wider questioning of current practice that will generate the main results. Whether law degree enrolment practices change or not, reporting on and looking at completions will affect how tertiary education operates.

(And if you’d rather not look at law courses, Danyl at the Dim-Post has sparked comments on the broader issues.)

  1. Steven Joyce, Minister of Tertiary Education, made announcements yesterday that tertiary tuition funding will be linked to performance (5-10% will be at risk), confirmed decisions about the targeted review of qualifications and repeated recent musings about limiting student loan access. He also made his first major speech. I commented yesterday on announcements. Reaction to the Minister has been swift!
  2. Northtec student Katie Hilford has been named Ellerslie International Flower Show Student Designer of the Year - her design is pictured. Lincoln University landscape architecture student and All Black Andy Ellis won a gold award at the Ellerslie Flower Show with fellow student Danny Kamo. In a win for ACE, the photography award winner at the show started off with a basic photography course at the University of Canterbury.
  3. The PM announced the PM’s Science Prize winners yesterday. The top winners were from CRI Industrial Research Limited, but five prizes were given out. The prizes are substantial, totalling $1m, and provide a strong signal of science’s importance. The main site is here.
  4. University of Otago enrolments are up 5.2% at this stage of the year and they expect to exceed the 103% limit by year end. In largely unrelated news, a car drove into one of the University’s student flats.
  5. Five Chinese students were arrested yesterday in relation to a major drug smuggling bust, with materials worth up to $3m.

Joyce Makes Big Speech, Smaller Announcements

March 9th 2010 at 1:31pm, By Dave Guerin

Steven Joyce, Minister of Tertiary Education, has made announcements today that tertiary tuition funding will be linked to performance and confirmed decisions about the targeted review of qualifications. More importantly, he made a big speech.

The Speech

Joyce’s speech gives a clear sense of where he is coming from and how he will operate – that’s important because it his first formal statement on tertiary education. There are also some comments on linking student loans to academic progress, repeating earlier views. You should read it, but some of his final words provide a good example of his thoughts.

I don’t see radical change on the cards.  What we need is a continued evolution to a more effective and efficient tertiary system that makes the very best use of the $4 billion we taxpayers contribute to it.

The Announcements

The funding announcement doesn’t really amount to much. Performance from this year on will be linked to funding from 2012 onwards. The things being measured are likely to be qualification completion, successful course completion and student progression to further study. To me though, he has hedged things – poor performers will “run the risk of losing funding”, or will not be funded “at the same level” and the amount at risk will “be low to start with so everyone has time to adjust”.

The performance funding policy could be very significant, but only if it is firm and simple. Grant Hodgson and Jim Doyle discussed this in comments last Friday, pointing out that the more complicated the system, the more it comes down to how good you are at interpreting the rules. We can quickly get mired in how everything is complicated and unique, whereas Joyce’s starting point is value for money. I hope he keeps the focus simple as the sector and officials attempt to complicate it.

On qualifications, Joyce mainly restated announcements that NZQA made in December, but now seem to have been approved by Cabinet. He did name a start date for the NZ Qualifications Framework – July 2010.

News 9 Mar – University Entry, VSM & Biodiesel

March 9th 2010 at 8:04am, By Dave Guerin

  1. The NZ Herald waded into tertiary education today, supporting Steven Joyce’s suggestion to limit student loans according to academic performance and the University of Auckland’s proposal to limit university access as well (and use extra money to increase subsidies). There was a related Radio NZ discussion on this last week that covered NZQA’s upcoming review of university entry - including VCs Steve Maharey (Massey) and Stuart McCutcheon (Auckland), NZUSA’s David Do and QPEC’s Liz Gordon.
  2. The NZ Herald is running a series on export education at the moment, starting with a piece yesterday on market size. Today they’ve covered the non-monetary value of international students and non-traditional courses, but the stories seem a bit insubstantial.
  3. Ako Aotearoa has released a few reports on mentoring of Pasifika students, the work of new academics and peer mentoring of distance students.
  4. Pansy Wong, Minister of Women’s Affairs, has released research that shows that pay gender gaps start soon after graduation – more work is planned.
  5. Otago Polytechnic has supported the development of a biodiesel consortium in Queenstown.
  6. Victoria University student newspaper has a suite of stories on voluntary student membership - more than you ever wanted to read probably.
  7. The Open Polytechnic is partnering with Sovereign for the new training for financial advisers.
  8. TEC is checking ITOs’ operations to see what regulatory compliance/health and safety courses they are running. This follows up on a decision last year to stop funding such courses. Similar checking occurred with ITPs last year.

How Good is NZ Media Coverage of Education?

March 8th 2010 at 2:45pm, By Dave Guerin

A Chronicle of Higher Education article on shrinking newsrooms made me think about media coverage of education in NZ. The quote below provides a sense of the article.

At a time when newspapers are slashing their staffs and squeezing out education coverage, it is more difficult for colleges to communicate their relevance and messages to the public. Many are tapping the expertise of out-of-work journalists as they navigate a media landscape that is increasingly moving online.

But the void those reporters leave in shrinking newsrooms has raised questions about whether colleges are being held accountable, and whether too many college news releases show up, almost verbatim, on newspapers’ Web sites.

Outside of the Otago Daily Times, I can’t think of anyone who focuses extensively on tertiary education reporting in our media (and the ODT has two people and ropes in students during Orientation!). Radio NZ has had a long-term specialist education reporter in Gael Woods, soon to be replaced by John Gerritsen, previously of Education Review. Other reporters are usually only in the role for a year or two or have a much wider round – although they’re still picking up on stories as I just had a call from one!

How good do you think media coverage of education is in NZ, especially of tertiary education? What impact do you think that has on the public understanding of tertiary education?

(BTW I want to be clear that I don’t see ED Blog as the epitome of journalism. This blog serves as a place to discuss issues within the sector, rather than the wider audience of the media.)

News 8 Mar – UC Reports to NZX, New ITO Research

March 8th 2010 at 7:43am, By Dave Guerin

 Since we started trialling the new ED Insider service on Friday, you may now see an “(I)” at the end of a new item. That signifies more detailed analysis being available to ED Insider subscribers. There is no change in our approach to news here; we’re just doing extra analysis over at the other site now.

  1. Rob Carr, Canterbury Uni VC, released the organisation’s annual report on NZX on Friday – yup, that’s the stock exchange. When UC raised debt last year, it did so thru a debt market subsidiary of NZX (NZDX) and must make regular reports as a result. The report is so new that it still isn’t up on the main UC site by Sunday (the NZDX version had no photos or pretty cover though). Cue outrage about privatisation of education! HT NBR. (I)
  2. Heather Roy, ACT MP, has written a piece in her Diary on tertiary education reform. She has some enrolment numbers way off and an error about full cost fees for unfunded students, but largely she supports Joyce’s lines about linking student loans eligibility to academic performance and builds on the value for money arguments being made lately. It’s a strong reinforcement of Joyce’s messages and the more something gets repeated, the more likely it’s going to happen in Wellington.
  3. Stuart McCutcheon, Auckland Uni VC, painted a bleak vision of our grandchildren being educated overseas (as opposed to our peers working there already…) if university funding was not kept up. He argued that a low cost system could easily become low quality too. Sharn Riggs, TEU National Secretary, has since said that McCutcheon should look to the government, not students, for extra money.
  4. Palmerston North’s Student City brand is going to be handed over from a full-time co-ordinator to a marketing company and student volunteers/interns. I think it’s a great idea to bring in move voices, give students business experience and (I assume) stretch resources a bit further.
  5. Bay of Plenty Polytechnic and University of Waikato students had a street parade in Tauranga to mark Orientation and it looked like they had a good time. Check out all the photos on flickr.
  6. Applications are now open for the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative - get your application in by 12 May 2010. It’s all about enhancing the links between educational research and teaching practices to improve outcomes for learners. There have been ten post-school research projects published so far and I wonder how much effect they have had. In particular, I wonder whether research findings are getting out to practitioners. I have no answers either way, but might look into it later.
  7. In terms of research, check out ITO Workplace Assessment Structures and Systems: Survey and Focus Group Findings. It’s the second in a series funded by Ako Aotearoa on ITO Workplace Assessment Structures. A quick skim of it shows a practical and useful approach.
  8. NZSki won “Overall HR Initiative of the Year” at the 2009/2010 Human Resources Institute of NZ (HRINZ) awards held in Wellington the week before last. It’s an impressive story of a firm boosting employee engagement with learning, and developing partnerships with the relevant ITO (SkillsActive) plus Otago Polytechnic and Queenstown Resort College. They have increased staff involvement in seeking qualifications from 200 to 761.
  9. Tysson Hema, a Modern Apprentice shearer, scored best quality points in the Golden Shears at the weekend.
  10. Lynne Boddington, Lincoln University lecturer and TEU representative, died in a car crash on Friday.

ED Insider Service – Triallists Sought

March 5th 2010 at 1:10pm, By Dave Guerin

ED LogoEducation Directions is launching a new service in late March. ED Insider is a Web-based service that gives tertiary education professionals the strategic policy, industry and tertiary education sector information they need about their environment. You can find out the full details here.

Our first ED Insider item is our monthly agenda of what’s going on in tertiary education policy, industry and sector areas. We’ve analysed 22 policy processes, reports or other items (eg Minister Watch), stated our view on them and described the next steps and due dates. It should be a great reference tool for senior managers as it develops, allowing them to focus their effort.

The full website is a few weeks away, but we’re producing content now and seeking triallists. If you’d like to get a free sneak peek at the new service (including the agenda), while offering us some feedback in return, contact me. There are just two conditions.

  1. You must be a senior manager in a university, ITP, wananga, ITO, large PTE, or national body of those TEOs. (This is our core market and we want to get it right for them first.)
  2. Two or more senior managers must sign up from each organisation (We want you to be able to discuss the service’s value with a peer.)

We have six triallists already and are only seeking up to 20 triallists, so be in quick. If you’d rather have a chat first before signing up or just want to discuss things, call Dave Guerin on 021 404 334.

News 5 Mar – CRIs, VSM and ITO Governance

March 5th 2010 at 9:20am, By Dave Guerin

Waynne Smith’s post on ITO issues yesterday raised some good issues and so have the comments – check it out if you haven’t already.

  1. CRI Taskforce A big report was released yesterday reviewing Crown Research Institutes. Responses have come from the NZVCC and Science NZ. I was surprised to see the NZVCC so conciliatory, given that the report proposes higher core funding for CRIs, whereas universities have always called for openly competitive funding (except for their own core PBRF funding…). I’ll be doing more on this one.
  2. Enrolments UCOL’s Wairarapa courses are full, with CEO Paul McElroy talking of replacing open entry with selected entry. Meanwhile, Career Services has been advising students to have a Plan B, and is offering help to develop one.
  3. Students Student groups formally launched their Save our Services campaign yesterday. The campaign is supported by Rural Women New Zealand, University Sport New Zealand the Quality Public Education Coalition, the Tertiary Education Union, UniQ Victoria, the Council of Trade Unions, Te Mana Akonga and the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations. The Greens and Labour have come out in support.
  4. Academic Rort? Well that title was a bit strong, but Stuff ran a story today about how some universities were decreasing the size of their 200 and 300 level papers and requiring students to do more higher level papers to finish their degree. I can see why consistency in paper size might be desired across all universities but the story includes no reassuranceto students’ concerns about possible fee and workload increases (ie will each paper decrease in work and price?). I’m sure it’s been covered in the background papers for academic approval but it really should have been put out there by the universities for this story.
  5. ITOs Careerforce published a governance review earlier this week. I’m going to analyse it later but it stems from a long-standing industry dispute so should be interesting, as should the next steps.

ITO CEO Responds to Industry Training Post

March 4th 2010 at 11:00am, By Wayne Smith

Wayne Smith, CEO of Tranzqual, responds to Dave Guerin’s Monday post on industry training.

Dave Guerin’s recent blog on ITOs hitting a rough patch is largely fair comment.

We all know that well over a decade ago the then government embarked on a journey to “get more people into tertiary education.”  That strategy was all about quantity and in an uncapped funding system fuelled by a buoyant economy the entire education system lapped up the resulting bums-on-seats taxpayer funded largesse.  There was a massive proliferation of qualifications, programs and new entities (not all with quality education as their primary focus I might add!).  Many sprang up in relatively short order like a desert blooming after rains.  Dave rightly points out some poor behaviour from both old and new players.

The unfortunate side effect of a strategy focussed on quantity was the commensurate decline in average quality across the system.  This is my first role in the Education system and frankly I was somewhat appalled at the quality of much of what I saw.  The relatively recent shift to a quality focus is very welcome and really came through for the first time in TEC’s 2007 Investment Round which had effect basically from 1 January 2008.  With the benefit of hindsight the country should have made this change about five years earlier.

It’s probably also fair to say that a reasonable chunk of resources in the governments two key monitoring agencies, NZQA and TEC, was being deployed through this period on managing the volume growth across the system.  Dave talks about the “sector’s maturation” and I think that also applies to NZQA and TEC in their monitoring role who are now coming of age in this area with a strong focus on issues of quality – a very good thing.

In respect to TEC I suspect there is little disagreement in principle from across ITOs around their recent sharper focus on performance including their intention to in effect publish league tables of ITO performance.  As National Training Standard Setting Bodies for vocational training I suspect that will lead in turn to ITOs making information available around the quality of training provision in the marketplace to better inform company managers - something our industries are hungry for.  That’s information a number of us already use in making decisions around which providers to partner with.

In practise TEC’s recent swag of operational policies are a mixed bag but that’s OK.  What’s pragmatic and works will come out in the wash soon enough.    Again Dave is right in that ITO policy has been overseen for too long by the same people that from a distance appear (and here I accept I may be doing them a disservice but it’s a valid perception) to be unable to think past an education system divided up like a pie simply along institutional lines.  In my view a modest (and I mean modest) chunk of Vote Education spend should help drive the country’s economic agenda somewhat more directly and better than it does now.

The role of industry in the Education System, and here I don’t mean ITOs, is currently poorly served in my view.  Education policy really needs the injection of someone who has a solid understanding of the corporate sector and what actually drives productivity and profitability within a company preferably having been there and done that themselves.  A couple of on the ground examples.  We all know the issue of completions and actual versus nominal program durations are hot at the moment.

At the vocational end of the spectrum from TEC’s perspective simply looking at completions across ITOs, ITPs, PTEs and Wananga makes for an easy comparison but in order to do a good monitoring job they may need to go down another layer. In a company a full qualification is at best a medium term human resource up skilling strategy and then at best an uncertain one as newly qualified people make themselves available to the job market.  There is no magic lift in either productivity or company profitability at the point of completion.  However modules of training that lead to a full qualification are more manageable within the company with each module (if well designed with genuine industry input) delivering a series of lifts in productivity.  Companies need the ability to blend that short term requirement with the medium term.

In respect to nominal versus actual duration the current economic climate makes this topical.  A program with a perfect nominal to actual duration match in late 2007 would almost certainly not have that match today as companies adjust their priorities including training to the economic conditions.  An industry specific example for us is some ports and stevedoring programs which require specific types of ships to be in port (and for the shipping schedules to be known) in order for trainees to be able to complete their training.  The timing of such training is completely unknown at the time of trainee signup and impossible to predict and factor into durations.

 Do TEC’s operational policies reflect these sorts of industry realities?  Not yet, they have started with a heavy focus on some of the problem areas Dave has quite rightly listed and while some will be due to poor behaviour I suspect others may well be due to the overall focus (or lack of) of the system prior to 2008.  I’m really interested in seeing the emergence of some solid analysis from TEC as to just how widespread and prevalent these issues are balanced with some views as to why.  Some of the data type issues he has bulleted for example may simply be a reflection of the tiny size of many ITOs operating with a heavy reliance on antiquated IT systems overcome by the volume growth outlined above.

That sort of balanced and well rounded picture is critical to the maturation of the sector and will be well supported I suspect by the vast bulk of ITOs and their Boards.

Our feature post today is a response from an ITO CEO to my Monday post on industry training - check it out at 11am.

  1. Enrolments Wairiki Institute of Technology is calling for caps to be lifted after high enrolments at the start of the year.
  2. Orientation Otago has been quiet but Waikato students have been rowdy. Quoting from the Waikato Times “An elderly Cook St resident told the Times she thought O Week was quieter this year. In the past drunken students had ruined her beautifully maintained garden, ripping out shrubs. They’d also destroyed her letterbox.” I live next to Victoria University and had my fifth side mirror ripped off my car last week in two and a half years – I don’t even bother replacing the passenger side mirror any more. I’ve also had wipers bent back 180 degrees (as have the other cars in the street). Grrr. Anyway, got that off my chest.
  3. Research John Key opened the New Zealand Greenhouse Gas Research Centre at the AgResearch Grasslands campus by Palmerston North yesterday. It is a joint collaboration between AgResearch, DairyNZ, Landcare Research, Lincoln University, Massey University, Niwa, Plant & Food Research, the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium and Scion. TVNZ coverage is here.
  4. ICT Otago Polytechnic has done a deal with a local ISP to provide wireless internet services to student flats.
  5. Teaching Applications for Ako Aotearoa’s  Tertiary Teaching Excellence Awards close on 31 March.
  6. Results Julia Gillard, Australian Deputy PM and Minister of Education, announced a new My University website yesterday. It follows on from the My Schools website which has been very popular with parents in Australia. The site will cover the following items. (This and the Complete College America website mentioned yesterday have a lot of  relevance for proposed performance reporting in NZ.)
    • Student to staff ratios
    • results of student satisfaction surveys
    • measures of graduate skills
    • graduate outcomes
    • information about fees
    • information about access to student services, and most importantly
    • quality of teaching and learning outcomes

Education Directions

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  • Dave Guerin: Your memory is correct. I'm going to start working on a post on this for ED Insider and another one [...]
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