I’ve met Karen quite a few times over the years, in her roles as NZQA CE and then at the MOE, mostly back when I was doing lobbying work. I haven’t always agreed with what she did, but that’s hardly a fatal flaw in anyone! She has a much stronger understanding of school issues, as that is where she has focused most of her professional life, but I always found her open to discussion on the tertiary education issues that I was dealing with. I never failed to get a fair hearing from her and she agreed with what I was putting forward as much as I could expect. Often when you’re in a lobbying role you only see the CE of a government agency when something goes wrong a level or two down, and I always found with Karen that she would help get things back on track as soon as possible. I’ve found her unfailingly professional and, as a bonus, she never screamed in my face, unlike one of her contemporary CEs

Of course, Karen did lots of other things and some people expect me to write a detailed critique of CEs when they step down. But I don’t think there’s that much to write in a tertiary education blog about Karen Sewell’s work. The Ministry of Education is, largely, still the Ministry of Schools and, in regards to NZQA, even Karen highlighted her NCEA work in her media release rather than the tertiary side of things. She has played a role in aligning the work of the various central education agencies, but her major impact has been in the schools sector and someone else is better placed to write about that (Update NZEI and PPTA have offered their congrats). I wish her luck and I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities out there for her to keep her as busy as she wishes to be.

Yesterday, the departure of the NSW Director-General of Education was a bit more dramatic. I’ve excerpted a bit from The Age’s coverage below.

“(NSW director-general for education) Michael Coutts-Trotter has a year remaining on his five-year contract. But Adrian Piccoli, NSW’s new Education Minister, said the position needed to be advertised and filled by someone with a background in education.

The former minister, John Della-Bosca, parachuted Mr Coutts-Trotter into the job, which was not advertised, in April 2007.

…Mr Piccoli said his criticism centred on Mr Coutts-Trotter’s focus on costs rather than education. ”The criticism is that the Department of Eucation has been run as a branch of Treasury, where it is all about the bottom line and not about students,” he said. …His decision to centralise supply procurement for schools was also controversial. Many schools have complained that they were prevented from buying cheaper supplies from local businesses.

…Public Service Association general secretary Steve Turner said Mr Coutts-Trotter was being punished for his political connections. He said the Education Department ”needs to be run by administrators, not [educationists]”. ”It’s about running the biggest department in the southern hemisphere,” Mr Turner said.

Mr Coutts-Trotter, whose only formal qualification is a journalism degree, was in charge of Australia’s largest education bureaucracy, overseeing almost 100,000 people. He was previously director-general of the NSW Department of Commerce after a period as chief-of-staff to former treasurer Michael Egan. Mr Coutts-Trotter’s rise through the public service since starting work for Mr Egan as a press secretary in 1996 is even more remarkable because he is a rehabilitated drug addict; he served two years and nine months of a nine-year jail sentence for selling heroin. After his release from jail, Mr Coutts-Trotter entered a Salvation Army drug rehabilitation program and completed his journalism degree at the University of Technology, Sydney. He joined the public relations firm Fox Communications before becoming the treasurer’s press secretary.

You couldn’t make that stuff up. I liked the Liberals firing a Labour appointee for being too focused on money. I particularly liked the NSW PSA’s argument that you need administrators, not educationists, to run the education department (of course, the guy being turfed out was a PR professional). I wonder if our PSA will make the same call on Karen Sewell’s replacement.

Monash University is considering cutting 300 staff and $45m from the budget, with a predicted 10% fall in international student numbers, according to a story in The Age last week. La Trobe University expected a 7% cut in students, while the University of Melbourne expected to meet targets.

A major report has also been drafted on the issues by the John Curtin Institute of Public Policy for the Australian Technology Network of Universities, highlighting the major costs that a downturn would have.

While private providers’ closure causes angst to students and financial loss to the owners, the effects are usually relatively contained. A major hit to university budgets, which often operate on slim margins with inflexible costs, could have a much wider impact. My suspicion, however, is that any fall in enrolments will be temporary and, given the multi-year nature of university enrolments, should be manageable. I’ll keep an eye on it though, as it could have a flow-on impact to NZ.

Many of the people who  study overseas want to stay after they finish study. It’s usually a good deal, as graduates enter the workforce with the host country not having paid for any of their childhood, while the graduate will earn more than they would in their home country.

Periodically, though, the immigration criteria need to be adjusted as people enrol, and providers offer, according to demand. If the government doesn’t keep up, as seems to be the case in Australia, then major imbalances can occur – the Migration Occupation in Demand list grew from 19 occupations in 1999 to 106 in 2009. A column in The Age last week states that over the last eight years private vocational college enrolments have shifted from a third of university enrolments to level-pegging with them. The boom appears to be driven largely by immigration reasons – there’s a good analysis here. There are apparently 12,000 immigration applications from cooks, while only 36,000 cooks are employed in Australia!

The upshot is that we are likely to see many closures of private vocational colleges in Australia this year, which will affect many Indian students in particular (building on existing problems in that market). Combined with the GEOS Australia closure several weeks ago, Australia will take a big reputational hit that NZ could benefit from.

HT to TAFE Directors Australia.

Update: The Waikato Times ran a story this afternoon on Wintec’s and the University of Waikato’s response to Australia’s problems in India.