Actually Dave what would be best would be effective and efficient academic pipelines where students are not forced into either/or situations (and particularly marginal students as Mr Crampton point out). Historically because of the British class system combined with the antiquated educational structure of the upper secondary school; and then the perfectly rational decision by students that higher average economic rates were historically returned for university qualifications (primarily as positional goods) far too many young New Zealanders have chosen university over other forms of education. But it is not a binary divide as I think Mr Cramption suggests: Rather if the system was integrated and set up so as people could enter vocational/industry (either through polys or ITOs) or adult/community/further and easily segue into other forms of post-compulsory education (when are we going to get rid of that awful word tertiary).

Right: we totally agree. As I have said over and over again the key is to set aside X percentage of university places to other parts of the post-compulsory system (maybe not 40% as in some parts of the California system) with appropriate cross-crediting/RPL etc and the formation of associate degree programmes. This also has the added advantage in a geographically elongated and economically poor country that students could ‘start’ their course of study in their home towns, surrounded by support structures (friends, family, employment) and cost less to the taxpayer. Nah … you are right Dave … it will never take off. Best we just carry on as we always have and ask “Well, do we have any English people who can tell us what to do?”.

The actions of the universities this year (in ending open access) is one of the most profound changes to the whole education system in New Zealand in the past 30 years. We need a serious debate about those points (and particularly about equity of access); it is not just something the NZVCC should just determine. I agree with greater academic selectivity (and have been called an elitist and worse, mainly by some of my closest friends) but you can’t do it like this. Well you can, obviously, but … .

My comment about English people was mainly aimed at David Hughes-Parry, of course.

@Paul – to add to your last point, I agree that Crampton’s comment (“While the average returns to a university degree are high, those aren’t the returns that the marginal student will enjoy. The marginal student would do better to spend the time in a trade apprenticeship and start earning money.”) is almost certainly true on the face of it.

But the trick is that one’s identity as being that “marginal student” (in Crampton’s statistical sense) isn’t always self-evident in advance, either to the learner themselves or to the institution. And it isn’t always straightforwardly assessable based on previous academic results.