1. National’s Policies National released their tertiary education and skills training policies yesterday (APNZ, NZN, Dom Post, ) and a schools policy too. TV1′s Breakfast show had me on to chat about it. NZUSA said the policy was visionless (NewstalkZB) but Business NZ said it was practical and positive. Massey extramural student president criticises performance-based tuition funding.
2. Protest Here’s one side of an argument about the aftermath of a protest last month at Victoria.
3. Extras: Prof Theodore (Tertiary education) Zorn from Waikato will be Massey’s new head of the College of Business.

Research & Innovation

1. Extras: Otago Uni’s Peter Saxton studying HIV; the Dom Post profiles some top scientists; AUT’s pine bark remedy.

Public Issues

1. Election AUT’s Prof Chris Ohms and Karin Olesen ask voters to look at the big picture on tax policies, but make the release a bit hard to follow for the average voter; how Hone and Hilda Harawira met at Auckland; Victoria’s Prof Paul Morris on religion in NZ politics and Prof Margaret Clark on independent candidates; Massey Claire Robinson on the debate worm (really, basing too much comment on a sample of 65 is lazy comment – it has a margin of error of about 12%); Canterbury’s Ursula Cheer on the tea recording;
2. Birds Go Home Massey is starting to release rescued birds this week; Waikato doctorial student to look at post-Rena wildlife recovery.
3. Extras: Massey’s Chris Wilkins on a big drug bust; Otago Uni research used against GE organisms; Victoria’s Jim McAloon on Wellington’s Town Belt.

Students

1. Voter Help Massey students have designed an online tool to help guide you to the party that is bets for you (Homepaddock). I took the test and received a 91% match with United Future, 55% with Labour and 38% with Mana – regular readers may well debate that match-up. Give the game a go and feed the sheep yourself.
2. Top Film An AUT student has made the finals of a film competition.
3. Weta EIT film student picks up Weta internship.
4. Extras: Auckland’s Elam Graduate Show looks pretty big; Victoria student standing for election; blogger and Victoria student on Rotorua politics; Waikato music student gets good review; Massey student’s Warriors’ trial; UCOL students are celebrating the end of their nursing exams.

Stakeholders

1. Extras: Massey’s Paul Kearney giving aviation safety speech in Australia; Victoria hosts sociology conference; Otago Uni/Poly incubator needs entrepreneurs.

Teaching & Learning

1. Xmas Gifts Otago Poly design students have yet again created new products to sell through Port Chalmers Design Store.
2. Extras: Competenz’s welding game.

1. Ag ITO Excels The Agriculture ITO has had a good EER report with highly confident and excellent findings galore.
2. Taupo Language Here’s a nice profile of Taupo Language, and especially founder Rose Blackley, who I always enjoyed working with when I represented English language schools. Note the dig at compliance costs towards the end – might be worth following up.
3. Student Pub…consent may be appealed by neighbours of Canterbury, with parents upset by a school board of trustees agreeing to the building.
4. Extras: Waiariki’s Kevin Uncles on the impact of LBP regulation (look it up); the ODT gives big coverage to the TEU’s views on proposed Aoraki changes.

Research & Innovation

1. Cancer Research The HRC and MOH have put in $2.7m for 3 cancer projects at Auckland (2) and Massey (APNZ, HRC).
2. Enzymes & Microbes Waikato’s Vic Arcus and Jo Hobbs have been creating billion year old enzymes. Other Waikato educators are checking out archaic microbes in Antarctica, with a National Geographic team in tow (Dom Post). Back to the present, Victoria’s David Ackerly is reengineering microbes like botulism or gangrene to create enzymes that activate cancer prodrugs – it’s an interesting media release.
3. Maori Issues A Massey study apparently showed a low number of stories on Maori issues and the Treaty of Waitangi. I understand the first issue being a concern, but the second hardly seems to be a community news staple.
4. Extras: Massey incubator head Steve Corbett likes new handouts to incubators (Minister); AUT’s Paul Cullen off on a Fulbright; Massey-Singapore-Mapp links; EIT’s Anthony Chiappin has helped develop a DIY knitting kit; Otago Uni’s Steve Dawson checking out a pilot whale; two NZ academics attended a classics dinner at Harvard.

Public Issues

1. Election Dodgy coffee bean poll by Auckland’s Andrew Balemi is a bit of fun and probably good for business and media coverage. Victoria’s Maria Bargh on Te Tai Tokerau. .
2. Extras: review of recent speech by Lincoln’s Paul Dalziel; Unitec’s Jonathan Leaver on gas leak problems/solutions; Victoria’s Stephen Blumenfeld on the Qantas dispute and comparisons to NZ.

Students

1. Cats…is being put on in Ashburton by CPIT’s NASDA students – I heard some sing at NZITP’s conference last week and they were great.
2. Extras: barista off to NMIT: Otago Uni student hit by car; NZUSA election guide; Massey student loses boxing match; WITT student’s struggle with poverty; top Dunedin apprentice; Unitec student’s cool chair; Rhodes Scholar; three Dunedin students won $50,000 scholarships to Auckland.

Stakeholders

1. Business on Education Deloitte and Business NZ have released education elements of a business survey – interesting stuff on graduate readiness, LLN skills and industry training support.
2. Lincoln Liked Fish and Game has welcomed a Future Farming Centre at Lincoln.
3. Extras: construction company funding NMIT scholarships; Waiariki Aria 2011 winner; disability studies conference at Otago Uni; Lincoln’s SI farmer finalists.

Teaching & Learning

1. Adult Learners’ Week Well apparently it’s Adult Learners’ Week – I wish I’d known earlier. The week is really about ACE, as this release about the Methodist Mission shows. The Southland Times has a story on the week.
2. Extras: industry award nominations for BOPP fitness lecturers; award for cool bach designed by Unitec staff and students;

1. Humboldt Award Massey’s Professor Peter Schwerdtfeger has won a Humboldt award. Apparently he focused on the chemistry and physics of gold, so hopefully he’ll discover alchemy and fix our current account deficit. Seriously, though, this is a major award both in prestige and $$ (60,000 Euros) and we should celebrate it.
2. Post Quake Students The Press highlights some research from Lincoln’s Charles Lamb on Christchurch students’ post-quake experiences.
3. Circus in Town The circus has arrived in Christchurch to lift spirits – all the performers were trained at CPIT.
4. Telford Drunk Drivers 14 people aged under 25 have been convicted of drink-driving in Balclutha District Court since the start of the year, and 7 of them were Telford students. There are only 120 Telford students on campus, but campus head Jonathan Walmisley didn’t think they had a bigger problem than anywhere else. I like Jonathan, but having 6% of your students convicted of drink-driving is not normal.
5. Hair Training Aoraki Poly has taken on some CPIT hairdressing students.
6. VSM Pro-VSM group Student Choice argues that the Labour/Greens filibustering of the VSM bill is sabotaging the ability of students’ associations to prepare for the change.
7. Gene Testing Canterbury Uni’s Prof Jack Heinemann has found deficiencies in ERMA’s review of an AgResearch project to look for horizontal gene transfer. The Soil and Health Assn of NZ is all over it (and again – these guys get a bit excited).
8. Earth Food Education NZ is hosting an earth food festival in Auckland during the RWC (ie cooking in earth-like ovens). (Also story on an agent speed dating event.) Speaking of the RWC, Massey is going to have some life-size robots competing with people to kick goals – cool. There’s much more on the robot stuff here (plus Dom-Post story).
9. Massey-TEU Case There’s more concern from employers about the latest Massey-TEU Employment Court case result.
10. Otago Economic Impact Otago Polytechnic has released a report that apparently shows it has a great economic impact.
11. Wintec $$ Wintec has finally made a good surplus – almost 6% – and things seem to be coming together.
12. Youth Unemployment Youth unemployment was a big issue at the end of last week after employment stats were released. There’s a summit being planned in Nelson, with NMIT participating, while Business NZ said pathways between education and employment need improving.
13. Maori Media Waiariki is planning a Maori media reunion, building on its 26-year-old Maori journalism course.
14. Good Years SIT had a good surplus last year and is looking to attract European students this year.
15. Play Charity A Waikato teacher education grad is setting up a charity to build playgrounds in the Pacific – nice idea.
16. Just Be. AUT has helped form the Be. Institute, a new organisation aimed at fostering accessibility. Tariana Turia helped launch it.
17. Kids Playing Up? If they’re aged 3-6, you could pop them into an Auckland Uni study and maybe get some help.
18. NMIT Chefs …on risotto, along with some handy rice trivia.
19. No Diet Day NZUSA and its members celebrated International No Diet Day on Friday.
20. “Simple” Health Changes Auckland Uni researchers say that health could improve if we had less tobacco, less salt, more exercise, less fat, less sugar, less alcohol, better drugs…you get the picture. As long we do lots and lots of things better and change our culture, it’ll all be fine.
21. Short Bits Massey: study on small business health; Peter Lineham on the Apocalypse (seems people are making good money out if it); Prof John Birkbeck on energy drinks; the background to Friday’s horse on the treadmill video; student Sheridan Bignall has made the NZ under-21 netball team; Prof Roger Morris on foot and mouth disease; and Prof Malcolm Wright on mobile phone market share (media release). Auckland: looking for smoking cessation product triallists; Prof Bill Hodge on flag-burning (and name suppression); a Urewera 15 appeal supported by Prof Jane Kelsey can go forward; and census of school students. Victoria: the kiwi bach is now open for viewing on Wellington’s waterfront; Claudia Geiringer on extending Parliamentary hours; video kiosks and calls for IT support; and Paul Callister on expat Kiwis. Otago: awards for researchers; planning for staff retirements; 45 people have been trespassed from campus in the last 2 and a half years; and Black Ferns prop, and Trevor Mallard’s daughter, Beth Mallard, graduated with a doctorate. Canterbury: PhD student Charlotte Brown on post-quake recycling; Jim Tully on media priorities; student Argène Montgomery-Hönger is climbing Mt Kilimanjaro to raise funds for Christchurch; and universities recovering from natural disasters. The driver of a car that crashed has been sent to jail – his friend, an EIT student, is still in hospital with a brain injury. A deaf student at AUT is training to be a teacher. Lincoln’s Prof Caroline Saunders is joining a climate change speaking tour. South Island draining apprentice of the year. A UCOL lecturer’s sculpture will be funded for the Whanganui riverbank. EIT’s Prof Kay Morris Matthews comments on the new Children’s Commissioner. Ex-Wellington halfback Jason Spice might turn out for Bay of Plenty this year at 36 – he’s doing a teaching diploma at Bay of Plenty Poly. UCOL staff and student on baking. An Otago Poly student has had his ceramic work accepted for a Japanese competition.

This new initiative shows that the Metros are starting to fulfil some of the promise they had when they broke away from ITPNZ (which I worked for at the time), which then represented all 20 ITPs, to form their own group. NZITP (which now represents the other 14 ITPs) has not done much in public to date, but this latest announcement and the joint BEngTech degree certainly puts the Metros on the map. Other ITPs will be able to join Innovating New Zealand from 2011.

This is a very important development in the ITP sector, as ITPs have struggled to work cooperatively on national initiatives. The Metros’ Group now has two such initiatives under their belt and this latest one has considerable potential to reposition the sector as a credible national partner for business, rather than a set of individual regional institutions. The negative views about ITPs amongst national business groups cannot be underestimated – there is real goodwill there, but an exasperation that ITPs can’t offer a credible common response to business concerns. In that environment, the new site has real potential – it just needs to work now.

I’d also like to recognise TEC’s role in all of this. TEC funded the Metros to link up their commercialisation/research arms last year and this project is an outcome of that. For too long, ITPs have had an applied research role, but have not really had any funding or encouragement to pursue it. The ITPs have also been quite uneven, offering strong support in one area but no support in another. This TEC-supported project seems like a sensible way to build scale and coverage by leveraging the expertise of ITPs around the country, so that expertise in one area can be shared across NZ. It is the sort of cooperation that will be needed to make the new qualifications approach work too – and that will be much harder as teaching makes up about 99% of ITPs’ activities, while commercial research is less than 1%. But this is a bloody good start.

PS The universities have done a good thing too, but I encouraged them back in May about cooperative commercialisation work.

1. Vic’s Enrolment Shutdown Unsurprisingly, yesterday’s media was dominated by VUW’s decision to stop taking enrolments for the rest of 2010.
   • NZUSA said that the doors of opportunity had been slammed shut twice on students, at VUW and Otago (which put on enrolment caps on some courses), but pointed the finger mainly at a lack of Government investment.
   • TEU said that the government needs to open the door to students.
   • Gareth Hughes of the Greens lambasts the government, mainly for not planning for a baby blip flowing through to enrolments – funnily enough I thought enrolment pressures were mainly due to the recession.
   • Labour’s Maryan Street says that it’s the end of aspirations for a smart economy.
   • The Young Nationals are calling for enrolment caps to be lifted, by allowing universities to charge what they want, rather than being constrained by fee maxima;
   • NZPA brings together all the perspectives, with Steven Joyce dropping some hints of new places in the Budget. And an updated NZPA story has comment from the Maori Tertiary Students’ Association.
   • The Dominion Post brings in all the usual views, plus Business NZ, which is calling for a review of interest free loans - and has a dig at the value of sport science courses.
   • TVNZ had a 3 minute piece with comment by Pat Walsh (VUW VC), Derek McCormack (AUT & NZVCC Chair) and Steve Joyce plus a student locked out by VUW (who is apparently a Labour Party activist, but didn’t make any overt political attacks). TV3 had a 2 minute story covering much the same issues with Walsh, Joyce and NZUSA’s David Do.
   • RadioLIVE’s Marcus Lush had Pat Walsh and Steve Joyce on for a 9 minute story yesterday morning.
   • Radio NZ’s Checkpoint had a background story (3 min) and an interview with Steven Joyce (5 min).
     • In the background story, Derek McCormack said (at about 2 min): ”Everyone’s chocked right up at 103 or just over, and it’s very hard to accurately keep to that. There’s all sorts of imponderables and difficulties in tracking enrolments exactly and so there is no margin for error.” Well, yes, quite – if you took your enrolments over the limit last year, as 5/8 universities did, then it will be hard to keep them under this year, unless you actually…try to limit the enrolments that you are completely free to accept or not.
     • Even better than that quote was Mary Wilson of Radio NZ questioning Steven Joyce (about 1:30 in): “So middle-class parents and their students are simply going to have to live with these restrictions?” Because of course university is just a middle-class thing…
2. Budget Hints National is hinting at extra money for Youth Guarantee in the Budget. The main story highlights how our education spending/student in dollars on primary and secondary students is 21st or 23rd out of 28 countries, which is unsurprising, since we’re 25th by income.
3. Mining in National Parks This University of Waikato media release is an example of how to draw a very long bow – the intro suggests that there is an alternative to mining national parks, but its really about seeding clouds to increase water flow for hydro dams and irrigation (it’s dubbed “water mining”).
4. Lincoln-Telford Merger The Lincoln University and Telford Rural Polytechnic Councils will vote on a merger proposal by the end of the month, although the Minister will make the call in the end.
5. Student Causes A pro-life club has been allowed to affiliate to AUSA, after some silly rules were repealed, while OUSA will continue to oppose cannabis prohibition.
6. Agri-Food Massey University VC Steve Maharey is trying to position the Central North Island as the agri-food centre of the world.
7. Student Loans The Maxim Institute is calling for reform of student loans.

UniServices, the commercialisation arm of the University of Auckland, is hosting an event to promote university innovation and technology in the health sector on Tuesday 18 May. Six other New Zealand universities will be joining the University of Auckland at the event….Under this initiative, a series of similar events involving all eight New Zealand Universities will be held around the country over the next twelve months. Each event will focus on a specific theme such as biotechnology, energy, food and nutrition, ICT, education, design and creative arts and high tech manufacturing.

What impresses me most is that they are running this industry by industry, and involving all universities, so that they have the best prospect of linking relevant business and industry people. It ties in well with yesterday’s science announcements, which will have been no coincidence, but if the universities can kick on with this sort of coordinated initiative, then I have a lot more hope for universities’ contribution to economic development in NZ. For once the universities are not just saying that spending money on them will magically lead to growth but are doing something practical. Good on them.

By the way, if you want to read some voodoo economics about how university spending magically leads to growth, Universities Australia has just published a consultant’s report to that effect.