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.