ED Blog is for people working in and around NZ tertiary education who care about policy, strategy and results.
March 13th 2010 at 1:10pm, By Dave Guerin
One of the big issues in tertiary education last year was whether providers could enrol above their funding cap. Enrolment demand was high due to the recession, while there was slower growth in places than in previous years, so providers were open to getting more funded places (obviously) as well as enrolling unfunded students (mainly because they had low marginal costs but also due to a feeling that it was the right thing to do). The problem for the government was that even unfunded places had student fees, which means student loans, which are funded through extra debt (almost half of which is expensed immediately).
I remember being on Nine to Noon with Anne Tolley last year, when I was representing the ITP sector, and she said that no-one would be allowed to go above their cap, because there was no money budgeted for extra student loan expenditure. It was the first time she’d said that publicly and TEC reinforced that message publicly and privately. I suspected at the time that universities would be given the nod and allowed to over-enrol (and heard some ITPs claim that they had been given leeway too) , but I was assured by TEC that the same message was going out to the whole sector – no exceeding the cap.
Now Roy Crawford, VC at the University of Waikato, has confirmed to The Waikato Times that they enrolled 106% of their cap last year (with 100% being spot on target), whereas the rules only allowed people to enrol up to 103% of their cap. Now did Waikato do this off their own bat or were they given encouragement by the government? And even if they weren’t given encouragement, will they face any sanction? The questions are important because thousands of extra students could have been enrolled last year, but most providers took the government’s statements seriously. If the government doesn’t deal with this, then we can expect a lot more enrolments above the 103% cap in 2010.
I have put in an OIA request on last year’s enrolments and will share them with readers when the answers come through. My guess is that 4-10 TEIs exceeded the 103% cap in 2009.
March 12th 2010 at 2:34pm, By Dave Guerin
I started a series on ITP Councils in early February but have been distracted from it over the last couple of weeks. so I thought I’d better write something about Ministerial appointees. (This is the sixth post in a series on ITP Council changes – the seventh will be on Joyce’s decisions and the last one will be on the final shape of ITP Councils.)
The Minister has been able to appoint four people to tertiary education institution councils under the Education Act 1989, but changes to the Act last last year mean that those four reps will be half of the total Council in ITPs. The Minister is also able to appoint the Chairperson at ITPs. He will do so next week.
I am supportive of the Minister appointing people to the Councils of ITPs, as the Minister does represent the ultimate owner of the institution (putting aside university sector semantics). But there are problems. If the Minister is to name representatives, then you would expect a clear vision as to what the Council is supposed to do and what competencies are needed on the Councils – I’m not confident that the current process consistently delivers on those issues (under this Minister or his predecessors over 20 years). I expect a pretty clear message from the Minister next week though. Of course, whatever you do with process design, Ministers are still bound to appoint party flunkies from time to time.
Another issue is the protection of institutional autonomy, but that is becoming less important in ITPs. Institutional autonomy has never been a standalone item – a better shorthand would be the “institutional autonomy-regulation balance”, which more accurately reflects section 160 of the Education Act 1989. And over the last couple of years, government agencies and Ministers have clearly decided that institutional autonomy is less important than institutional regulation in ITPs. In that light, it seems quite sensible to have greater Ministerial input in Councils.
Finally, whatever you or I might think about whether or how the Minister should appoint people to Councils, the political reality is that not many people care about it and that it was as easy as pie for the government to change the legislation last year. It’s a useful lesson for how things that seem set in stone can change very quickly, and one that we might see more or this year.
March 12th 2010 at 8:12am, By Dave Guerin
Student Giveaway Waiariki Institute of Technology has given away a car as part of a promotion to encourage students to pay their fees early. Roberto Mura won the prize and is pictured with Waiariki CEO Pim Borren (on the right). I think this may be the biggest prize ever given out as part of a tertiary education promotion – does anyone have any other suggestions?March 11th 2010 at 2:30pm, By Dave Guerin
The Bologna Process is an EU initiative that is basically designed to align degree structures across the EU (and the wider world – NZ’s relationship is covered here). The EU is running a Ministerial Anniversary Conference in Vienna this week “to honour and to assess the achievements of common action and its contribution to enhancing the quality and the diversification of higher education in Europe”. Also, it’s 10 years since they signed it.
So far, so boring, but the Bologna Burns site explains how demonstrations and blockades (all peaceful apparently) are being organised for the conference. It amazes me that such a fundamentally boring process can stir such passion.
March 11th 2010 at 11:30am, By Dave Guerin
I was reading the proposed risk criteria for tertiary education institutions earlier this week and loved this item, which will probably just apply to polytechnics.
“12. That the institution is failing, or is likely to fail, to achieve educational outcomes that are commensurate with the average sector performance in terms of meeting the needs of learners, employers and the communities it serves.” Source: Consultation Document - Two reviews of legislation for institutions at risk and the associated gazetted criteria. MOE and TEC. December 2009 (p.28) NB Not available online, but you can ask for it here.
So, under this criterion, every polytechnic that falls below the average is automatically at risk and may face interventions, including sacking of the Council. To be fair, I think they’ll probably fix it during editing!
March 11th 2010 at 7:42am, By Dave Guerin
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.
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.)
March 10th 2010 at 8:09am, By Dave Guerin
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.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.
March 9th 2010 at 8:04am, By Dave Guerin
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