News 20 Feb – Media Control, Maori Success and Software Faults

February 20th 2010 at 12:12pm, By Dave Guerin

  1. In a media control move worthy of Tiger Woods, OUSA is seeking to control footage of Orientation events so that broadcasters can’t show “severe intoxication . . . including, but not limited to vomiting, concussion, fighting, individuals receiving medical attention, and sexually explicit material”. It probably sounded good when it was approved but (a) it allows the media to get on their high horse (TVNZ, TV# and Otago’s Channel 9 already!) and (b) it’s not hard to find and film students drunk, vomiting or doing sexually explicit things during Orientation. I think we can expect a negative Orientation story out of Otago this month.
  2. Speaking of drinking students, student loans are definitely back on the agenda – and I can see my NZUSA Facebook friends are working hard on it too. We’ll have a post or two on the issue before long. Media coverage kicked off with Close Up (chapter 1) doing a a run of the mill story on students abusing loans, but the seeds of it are in the PM’s Statement to Parliament.
  3. The Agriculture ITO is running an interesting programme for farmer, called Farming to Succeed.
  4. NMIT has had a backlash for proposed cuts to programmes for people with disabilities, but has now set up a new consultation process.
  5. In other NMIT news, Artena seems to have had faults during its upgrade at NMIT, delaying the Single Data Return by 10 days and some student loan access issues. Artena is developed by a consortium of tertiary education providers, mostly ITPs, and has just had a major upgrade (I went to the launch).
  6. Pita Sharples launched Hei Tauira – Teaching and Learning for Success for Maori in Tertiary Settings yesterday. You can find out more at Ako Aotearoa. Basically, the researchers looked at four case studies of successful Maori-focused programmes and identified overarching principles that made them successful. Some of us don’t read long reports, so there’s a handy 2-page reference card.

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