This guest post is by Tom Ryan, TEU President.

Recently New Zealand school principals announced that they were worried that pupils leaving their school would end up on the dole rather than in tertiary education study.  “How do you tell someone who has worked really hard to give themselves the chance of going to university that they might not get in?” asked chair of the Secondary Principals Association, Patrick Walsh. “It’s very disappointing when students capable of making a very good contribution to the economy for years to come are turned down. Instead, it could lead to more students being unemployed, which is not a good situation.”

The cause of this extraordinary announcement is the recent rush by universities to restrict the enrolments they will be taking next semester and next year.

And the cause of all this is a cap placed on tertiary institutions two years ago that prevented them enrolling too many students.  The cap was initially a response to an excess of competition between tertiary institutions with many engaging in huge advertising and promotional efforts to lure each others students and potential students. The goal of the policy was that institutions stop trying to grow their rolls at the expense of others and put more effort into focusing on quality – particularly an output of postgraduates and research. The result, within universities at least, seems to have been that the promotional and advertising competition has shifted its focus from recruiting fresh new first year students to attracting post graduate students as well as research funding.

Sadly the new policy also could not have come at a worse time. Just as it was introduced a demographic baby boom started leaving school and passing into tertiary education. Moreover, that pressure on rolls was further exacerbated by the global recession, which also is encouraging more people into study.

Suddenly the problem was not institutions competing with each other for a fixed number of students, but institutions overwhelmed by a rapidly expanded number of students.

University of Canterbury vice-chancellor Rod Carr says his university carried 500 EFTS above its cap last year and was likely to carry a further 600 domestic students above its cap this year. By defying the government’s EFTS cap last year, the university cost itself more than $3 million.

Dr Carr noted that the lack of Government funding had stretched university resources, with the student-to-staff ratio increasing from 19.3 (to one) to 20.3 in 2009. For staff, that represents a five percent increase in much of the work they need to do, such as assessment, student support and administration.

The people who are carrying the burden of stretched resources and increased workload are staff. Simply put, if the university wants to have more students, it needs to hire more staff or better reward its current employees.

The University of Canterbury is not the only institution in this position.  All around New Zealand rolls are up, while staff numbers remain static due to funding cuts the government introduced last year. No wonder they are reluctant to take some of the many young people who want to begin study.

The move by universities across New Zealand to dramatically restrict entry to many of their courses is the result of government failure to anticipate the combined pressure of demographic growth in student numbers and an increase in people looking to study during the recession.

The government’s policy of capping the number of students it is willing to fund needs to be reviewed. It is hurting the productivity of our economy. That policy made some sense when tertiary institutions were competing among themselves for students and were more focused on growth than quality. But in an environment when there is real growth in student numbers across the sector, the policy now is denying a rapidly growing number of young people the opportunity to get the skills and knowledge they are entitled to.

Most of those who face missing out on the chance to study are ordinary struggling New Zealanders. These are the very people who most need that opportunity to study, to contribute to the betterment of their families, the wider community, and our struggling economy.