News 19/7 – Graduate Outcomes Debate Goes On: Someone Supports It!

July 19th 2010 at 7:46am, By Dave Guerin

Funding for Outcomes: Negative Reaction continues about Steven Joyce’s proposal to look at linking graduate outcomes to funding some time in the future. And it amazes me how simplistic so many of the arguments are.
- In an article on Manawatu opinions, UCOL CE Paul McElroy argued that a TEO shouldn’t be ”held wholly responsible for these outcomes through funding changes” and that many factors – including lifestyle and location choices – contribute to the ability of graduates to gain employment. Well. he’s quite right on both, but Joyce has only argued for an element of funding to be driven by outcomes and unless UCOL graduates all live on a commune, lifestyle choices will average out across an organisation. In addition, UCOL’s homepage says “UCOL exists for one reason: to help people succeed in life” and their prospectus focuses on employment: “And that’s why employers want UCOL graduates. You are productive from day one on the job!” (p.2) If graduate outcomes aren’t a useful measure of those statements, what else is?
- Massey’s extramural student association president said the proposal ignores the thousands of working students who are studying for skills they need in their current roles. I don’t even know what he’s talking about – is he suggesting that people who already had a job wouldn’t be counted as an outcome?
- Massey University itself was just opposed, while the TEU’s Tom Ryan said that: “Institutions will be encouraged to divert funding into qualifications that offer mainly short-term employment prospects for students.” Why that would be the case is unclear, since not even one design parameter for a policy has been put on the table.
- The worst arguments by far, however, are in a Finlay Macdonald column in the Sunday Star-Times. He has a long column, not a journalist’s selected quotes, to put his argument across. Unfortunately he seems to start a different argument each paragraph, with the only connecting thread being that Joyce is just wrong.
- All of this outpouring of concern is based on Joyce’s musing about a policy with no details. By the time he gets around to doing something about it, he will certainly have identified all the 0bvious rebuttals.
Funding for Outcomes: Neutral and Positive Not everyone has been negative. Stuart Middleton has written a thoughtful policy about the related issues. Unitec has said the idea is not unreasonable and criticised the public attacks on it, saying that “To set preparing people for a good career as some sort of contra-indicator to supposedly high academic standards is arrant, and arrogant, nonsense.” Rick criticised the TEU and NZVCC, with NZVCC Chair Derek McCormack saying that the “comments were ‘a comprehensive slap back’, but they were a misrepresentation”. Rick has apparenlty written an opinion piece in today’s NZ Herald, but I could only find the article discussing it.
Academic Faceoff The debate about the book by a University of Auckland history professor on “The Unfortunate Experiment” continues, with a large article in Saturday’s NZ Herald. I haven’t read the book in question, but besides some obvious mistakes, it has obviously hit a nerve with people who built their career around the original issues, but 20 plus years on, a historical (and non-medical) perspective might just be useful.
VSM and Queer Students GayNZ.com has a story on the potential impact of voluntary student membership on queer student groups.
World Bank Deal Massey has scored a $5.2m World Bank contract to train doctors and vets for biosecurity, but it might turn into a $35m contract if courses are offered in Chinese and Russian – also covered here.
Cycling to Massey Massey has closed a road-based cycleway and diverted cyclists to the footpath after cyclists had accidents – hopefully they don’t bowl the pedestrians now.
Holiday Programmes MIT, Unitec and the University of Auckland combined to run a 3-day school holiday programme on science and technology last week – what a great idea. Rotary helped to pay some students’ fees.
Undie 500 Seems like the Canterbury engineering students are being responsible about planning their event outside Blenheim, according to two stories from the local paper here and here. If it goes as planned, some of the hysteria might die down. Last week another group of Canterbury students held a party themed on David Bain’s famous jerseys.
China MOUs Following up on the recent MOU signing with one of China’s top two universities (Tsinghua University), the University of Otago last week signed an MOU with one of China’s top three universities (presumably it’s third!), Fudan University. Lincoln University is working on its MOU with Zhejiang University, looking at research on tenderising beef and lamb, managing nitrogen in dairy farming and managing insect invasions.
Designers A Massey textile design student is getting ready for her end of degree exhibition, while there’s a nice story here about a textile design technician at NMIT. A Whanganui UCOL student is getting ready for an Underground Youth Fashion competition.
Top Chefs? Four SIT chefs have been working through term break to prepare for the national Toque D’Or cooking competition.
Cooking Spuds NMIT chefs have some tips on cooking potatoes.