ITF Proposes New School Quals

July 30th 2010 at 3:00pm, By Dave Guerin

The Industry Training Federation held their conference on Wed and Thur this week. The big proposal coming out of the conference was that “broad sectoral-based qualifications ” should be offered in schools, providing “clearer pathways to vocational study and work”. The following is from a media release by Jeremy Baker, the ITF’s Executive Director.

“We have initially identified five broad qualifications that senior secondary school students could work towards.  These broad qualifications would help students to identify career choices, but would not limit their options. These qualifications would complement the NCEA, and help remove confusion about vocational education and training options.  They would also help students see the relevance of core subjects like English, maths, and science to the working world, which would motivate achievement in these subjects.”
 
The Federation is suggesting that qualifications be developed covering the services; building and construction; manufacturing and technology; primary; and social and community sectors.
 
“This proposal is a smart use of the opportunities created by the NCEA. It does not change anything for those students heading to university but provides real and valuable options for the 70% of secondary students who choose not to go to university. These students will be the vast majority of our future skilled workers. This proposal would help them find pathways to vocations that suit their interests and strengths.”
 
Mr Baker said the Federation was continuing to work with ITOs, government, and sector groups to develop the proposal.

This sounds like a bloody good idea to me. It provides clear non-university pathways, while it helps to tidy up the clutter of many well-intentioned programmes developed by ITOs and others. It will be tough to achieve but how many worthwhile things aren’t? I might explore this more over the next wee while, but I’d be keen to get some feedback on what people think about the general idea.

Will NZQA Close Six PTEs?

July 30th 2010 at 2:18pm, By Dave Guerin

It seems like six PTEs are at risk of being closed for not keeping their paperwork up to date with NZQA. Last time NZQA went through this deadline process, it gave the last few stragglers more time to sort out their issues, but it might be firmer this time. A couple of weeks back, 42 PTEs were given the hard word so most have sorted it out.

News 30/7 – Grumpy Students and Staff to End the Week (Plus Horses)

July 30th 2010 at 8:43am, By Dave Guerin

  1. Otago Entry Reqs Otago school principals and guidance councillors seem happy with the higher entry standards for the University of Otago next year, even though they refused to be named for the story.
  2. Mongol Derby A Massey academic is chief vet for the Mongol Derby, a 1,000km horse relay race in, well, Mongolia. He colleagues have been helping her prepare.
  3. ITP Staff Issues TEU members at MIT are going to undertake industrial action in protest at proposals to remove a quarterly maximum of 300 timetabled teaching hours and a limit on annual teaching days. MIT also wants to be able to require employees to work on more than 2 evenings per week and have more liberal discretionary leave. Sounds like a sensible endpoint to me. NMIT students are concerned about the potential loss of 20 staff FTEs as their institution seeks to live within its means.
  4. Grumpy Massey Students Some Massey students are grumpy at missing out on summer school when they only have 1 or 2 papers left to finish and then get a job. To be fair, Massey is running an appeal programme for such special cases.
  5. Otago Poly Buildings There’s a good story in the ODT about plans to redevelop Otago Poly spaces, including their decision not to shift a sport programme to the new stadium (too expensive).
  6. Auckland The Auckland City Council has created the Learning Quarter (full details from March 2010 here), centring on the AUT and Uni of Auckland campuses, and have just put in a new public art trail.
  7. Erasmus Link The University of Canterbury is becoming a partner in the EU’s Erasmus Mundus programme, which supported doctoral/post-doctoral exchanges.
  8. Bridge Death The trial into the bridge swinging incident that resulted in the death of a Massey student is over, with the operator being sentenced.

News 29/7 – Intl Students Up, Student Loans & Food Safety

July 29th 2010 at 7:16am, By Dave Guerin

  1. International Students Up International students were up 7%in the first four months of 2010, following a 6% rise in FY 2009. PTEs were up 8%, ITPs up 15% and unis up 4%. SIT is showing good growth this year, going from 220 international EFTS in 2009 to 259 so far this year, and is on track to meet its 320 target.
  2. More Collaboration The ITF called for more collaboration in the vocational education sector at their conference yesterday (it continues today, which will slow up blogging). Silos are so last year!
  3. Student Loans After John Key’s musing about student loans, NZUSA and OUSA agreed that it was a disaster too, but for quite different reasons. Business NZ urged the PM to do something about interest-free loans. Labour’s Grant Robertson asked Key to front up and say what he wants to do. The Government did say that they were looking to get more money back from people who go offshore.
  4. Maori Language Week Today, there’s a profile of a Te Wananga O Aotearoa student learning te reo, and another one at Te Ataarangi (and another who may have been to both).
  5. Food Safety A new Food Safety Centre has been established jointly by Lincoln and Canterbury. The new Director wants to work “with the food industry to find out what they want and tailor what we do to meet their needs”. That is reassuring, given some of the silly statements that came out of universities recently about graduate outcomes. There’s a story in The Press too.
  6. Better Waiters MIT’s Johan Wohlmuther wants to improve the quality of restaurant service.
  7. Drill, Baby, Drill Four universities (Auckland, Victoria, Canterbury and Otago) plus GNS Science and overseas organisation are involved in drilling of the Alpine fault to explore earthquake related issues.
  8. ITP Funding NZUSA has put out a release raising concerns about cuts to ITP funding next year.
  9. Wine to the US EIT has put up a long piece from their wine symposium about wine exports to the US. There’s also an interview with EIT’s new head of art and design.
  10. Voices as Bells A Uni of Auckland lecturer is premiering a new work shortly that will have voices imitating bells, “building to a tintinnabulatory climax of change-ringing”. So, there’s a new word for you and me!
  11. Law Conflicts A Uni of Auckland lecturer has created a new database on the conflicts of laws.
  12. Kiwi Living and Dying Massey Uni staff have helped identify the killer of 4 kiwi, but also put one recovering from broken legs on the treadmill – cute video and stories here and here.
  13. American Singing An AUT student argues that most pop singers sing in an American-influenced accent.
  14. Neurosurgery Changes A Uni of Otago academic is worried that the potential consolidation of South Island neurosurgery services in Christchurch would make it harder to recruit relevent academic staff to Dunedin. Locals’ views are also covered by the ODT.
  15. Business Links Pingar, a software company, is expanding to China, and values the support it has received from AUT and the University of Waikato.

News 28/7/10 – There was an Immigration Scandal (well, arrests anyway)

July 28th 2010 at 8:56am, By Dave Guerin

  1. Forestry Awards The forestry ITO, FITEC, is getting ready for its national awards - they get top billing as the ITF conference starts in 5 minutes.
  2. Student Debt John Key has criticised the nature of the student loan scheme - but no major details other than pointing out the 47% writeoff.
  3. Immigration Arrests Yesterday I published an anonymous tip about a PTE manager being arrested for immigration offences. Well, that quickly led to a release from Immigration NZ saying that they had “suspended the processing of applications for international students to study at Auckland’s Kingsland Institute, and is reviewing some approved applications, after the arrest of two men, including a manager at the Institute”. The offences carry a jail term of up to seven years and a fine of $100,000. NZQA also emailed me to say that they are closely monitoring the PTE and, n the event of a conviction, “would consider the implications for the ongoing registration of the PTE”. The NZ Herald and Radio NZ have more detail on it, which just shows how journalists can do more than bloggers!
  4. Maori Language Week Massey Uni Wellington is using coffee cards in Maori to promote Maori Language Week. Unitec is covered in this TVNZ story.
  5. Massey Beauty & Concerns Three Massey students (pictured) have taken the top three places in Miss Manawatu. Palmerston North MP Iain Lees-Galloway says the city’s economy is being undermined by caps on Massey’s funding and other government policies.
  6. Red Cross the Red Cross is opening a new Auckland training centre today.
  7. CPIT Corner CPIT chef students are preparing to defend last year’s win of the Nestle Toque d’Or ‘golden hat’ trophy, while preparations are also underway for CPIT’s hosting of the WorldSkills national champs in September.
  8. Wellbeing An Open Poly researcher is looking for participants in an online wellbeing survey - part of an international survey.
  9. NMIT Corner NMIT student president Rachel Boyack is unimpressed that younger drivers are being targeted more than older ones for drink-driving (Incidentally, a Canty Uni researcher is warning of teenagers getting addicted to alcohol). And the Marlborough Express has a story on four Blenheim-based NMIT art students who have been commuting physically and virtually to Nelson since the local art course was closed last year.
  10. Poached Sole Check out the recipe supplied by an Otago Poly chef.
  11. Flight Schools  Aviation Industry Assn has called for a review of all flight training schools after a crash this week at an NMIT-affiliated school in Feilding.
  12. Employment An AUT professor is launching a book on employment law.

Immigration Scandal?

July 27th 2010 at 10:16am, By Dave Guerin

I received an anonymous tipoff this morning that visa applications to a PTE had been suspended after a staff member had been arrested for “offences against the Immigration Act 1987 and the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007″. Since I can’t easily verify some aspects, I’ll leave out any details of the organisation named (and I’ll also carefully moderate any comments on this post).

Normally, I wouldn’t even pass this one on, but I received a copy of  a very official-looking email from an immigration official and it would take a lot of work to recreate all that bureaucratese! There was also a suggestion that other institutions were being investigated by NZQA for some similar activities. If that’s true, I’m quite happy – not that illegal activities may be happening but that NZQA is doing something about them, along with Immigration NZ.

I’ll provide more details as they are confirmed.

News 27/7 – Plane Crash & Unitec Sponsors Rugby

July 27th 2010 at 8:48am, By Dave Guerin

  1. Library Wars Canterbury Uni law students have written a strong submission in support of the retention of their law librarian, who is caught up in the major library restructuring down there.
  2. Plane Crash An instructor and a student died in a plane collision near Feilding yesterday, while the student pilot of the other plane managed to land safely. All three seemed to be with Flight Training Manawatu, a provider that is associated with NMIT, which subcontracts a number of flight training companies around NZ. It has not been reported whether the dead student was an NMIT student or not.
  3. Sport and Education SunLive has a story on Bay of Plenty Poly’s High Performance Academy students. Up in Auckland, Unitec has developed a partnership with Auckland Rugby, providing education opportunities to staff and players, while also becoming a sponsor of the Auckland provincial and Super 15 teams (they’ll join SIT as a provincial rugby sponsor).
  4. OUSA Reform Yesterday I mentioned an article on reform at OUSA – here’s the main story from the weekend and here’s a story on complaints about the referendum.
  5. NorthTec Council NorthTec has filled their last (correction, second to last) Council seat with the head of the local economic development agency.
  6. MacDiarmid Institute Last week I did a post on the presentation of Alan MacDiarmid’s Nodel medal to Victoria Uni. Just after that, I saw this great post on SciBlogs about the development of the MacDiarmid Institute – well worth a read for those keen on science.
  7. Farming Science For those keen on farming, here’s a story on Lincoln Uni research about sheep feed productivity.

Cool Student Video – Sub With a Twist

July 26th 2010 at 2:07pm, By Dave Guerin

I meant to pop this up on Friday but the homestay sex story was so popular (record visitor numbers that day) I thought I’d hold off. Anyway, this video is done by a group of Media Design School students and the explanatory text is at the end of the post. It is amazing that work of this quality can be done by students these days.

Lost in the frozen depths of the Atlantic a German U-Boat crew find themselves on a collision course with objects stranger than they can fathom. The truth leaves them bathed in confusion in this submarine drama of domestic proportions.

A live action and computer graphic animated short film with 35 visual effects shots from the Advanced 3D Productions course at Media Design School. With fully computer graphic underwater submarine shots and 3D submarine interiors composited behind green screen film actors, this film was made by a team of 5 digital artists in just 8 weeks.

News 26/7 – Massey and Otago Entry Issues

July 26th 2010 at 7:47am, By Dave Guerin

  1. Massey Closing the Door TVNZ covered it and had some concern from the Minister plus the info that 1,500 fewer students than the normal 5,000 would be enrolled in summer school this year.  The Manawatu Standard had more, including feedback from extramural students, while Newstalk ZB had an extra quote or two.
  2. Otago turns away thousands, 31 Otago Uni has turned away 31 students in the second semester due to its cap policy, which really isn’t very many – 32 were turned away for not completing their forms correctly. The numbers turned away next February will be of great interest to marketers as it will show how much surplus enrolment each uni has – I’m picking Auckland to have the largest number turned away.
  3. Top Chef HSI’s Modern Apprentice of the Year (a chef) was profiled in the Dominion Post on Saturday. In other news, a group of Chinese students have come to Whanganui UCOL to learn Western cooking.
  4. Maori Language Week I’ll cover a few activities around the country. First up, Otago Uni will have hangi food on the menu. Also, Victoria Uni law academics have created “a Legal Maori Corpus and Legal Maori Lexicon, which will both be invaluable resources for researchers of Maori legal history and Maori linguists”.
  5. Health Research Otago Uni research shows that a healthier diet, on top of medicine, can help diabetes treatment. Surprised? Auckland Uni research shows that some face long waits for abortions.
  6. Whales Otago Uni is starting a 3-year southern right whale research programme, that will also include NZ sealions. It will be based down in the Auckland Islands and they’re leaving soon – think I’d rather be in Rarotonga. The Southland Times did a story too. The Otago Uni research that showed an association between sexuality and childhood events had a lot of coverage – here’s one story.
  7. Teacher Upgrades The University of Auckland has launched new scholarships for school teachers to upgrade to a Master’s degree.
  8. Rep Changes Some queer students are concerned about the restructuring of Otago Uni Stdents’ Assn leading to a change in their representation.
  9. Possum Control There’s more in the Southland Times on an SIT-built possum gate - it explains how it works and where.
  10. Helping Cats and Boxers A Massey Uni researcher is hoping to create a vaccine for cat skin cancer. A Massey Uni student is looking for extra boxing fights before he goes to the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

Sex and the Homestay Host

July 23rd 2010 at 9:47am, By Dave Guerin

An Auckland man was naturally distraught to find his 45 year-old wife having sex with the 19 year-old South American international student that they were hosting (well, let’s be honest, charging rent and board). I’ll let the NZ Herald take it from here.

The North Shore man – who did not want to be named – said he had contacted police after his wife’s encounter with the 19-year-old South American, but was told they were powerless to help as the student was legally an adult.

“I’m at a total loss about what to do in such a situation and I’m bloody angry,” the North Shore man told the Herald….”We really need to know what we can do in such situations, and I’ve suggested they add it to their pastoral care code. Is this something international students should be allowed to get away with?”

As a service to the MOE and the Community (I could get a gong for this sort of thing), I have drafted some suggested changes to the Code of Practice.

New Clause 4.5.(a) Mr X of the North Shore has requested that international students do not have sex with his wife if they are staying at his house, or even if they meet her through a TradeMe forum. This is not a legal requirement, but it would save the MOE from having to respond to his silly complaints. Cheers!

FAQs

I host international students and want to be sure that they get the message that sex is not on offer at our place. Can the MOE Help? The MOE has a handy card listing what can and can’t be done at the homestay. This used to cover smoking and similar matters but now has options for sex with the hosts (yes, no, maybe, only as a group). Alternatively, we can list you in the Code, just like Mr X of the North Shore. You’ll find a link to the request form at the bottom of the page.

What should I do it I find my spouse having sex with an adult homestay student? The MOE does not normally offer relationship advice, but over a morning coffee we came up with four suggestions: (1) Be calm and try to talk things through with your spouse. (2) Walk out, or kick out your spouse (and the student). (3) Join in. (4) Maybe don’t host the hot Brazilian student.

Is is true that the Police can’t arrest foreigners for having sex with Kiwi women? I’d really like someone else to deal with my relationship problems with my wife. No, the Police can’t arrest the student, but you could always kick the student out of your house, like you would with a Kiwi doing the same thing.

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